Glenn Beck: They’re lying to us about the mystery contrail

Hot Air ^ | 11/19/2010 | Right Scoop

[JohnKinAK]

Glenn Beck said today that he has spoken to military experts about the mystery contrail from a few weeks ago and he says it’s definitely not a plane, but rather a two stage missile. He just wants to know where it came from, and he has a theory. Beck postulates that this missile was possibly from a Chinese sub off the coast of California, perhaps as a show of force to the world, but even more so to President Obama.

Click link for video

[Niteflyr]

Everybody’s a critic... ;-)

Ain't that the truth..:oP

[ClearCase_guy]

Very nice post. I’m with you on that.

[Finny]

I am serious when I say I don't know what scares me more, the missile launch, or the number of good FReepers and Americans who:
-- assume a huge amount of stupidity, incompetence, and "kookiness" on the part of a vast number of people, from an airborne camerman with 11-years experience in a very competitive market, to air force generals, to an editor at Janes
-- lack the confidence in their own smarts and skills to go outside in the evenings to study shadows cast by a setting sun on clouds and contrails and then watch the Leyvas video when their common sense will tell them that a) the sun reveals a vertical north-west-bound plume and b) whether they're looking at a still shot OR the full video from the Leyvas footage, claims that the video was "manipulated" to deliberately fool viewers into mistaking a contrail for a missile creating a plume are so ludicrous as to be insulting
-- allow themselves to be distracted and deliberatly confused by literally hundreds of irrelevant photos and impressive-looking scientific hocus pocus to "prove" several impossibilities
-- ignore the warning cries of fellow FReepers and Americans who've had eyewitness experience with missile launches AND contrails
-- allow themselves, through a combination of flattery, lack of confidence, and arrogance, to be persuaded that the vertical plume of a north-west-bound missile, in video shot at sunset, for crying out loud, was a UPS plane headed east!!!!

That scares me as much, if not more, than the missile because it shows that GOOD Americans, PATRIOTIC Americans, INTELLIGENT Americans, through their own lack of confidence in themselves and self-gratifying arrogance in discounting clearly qualified people, combined with flattery by disinformation folks that they're being "calm" and "level-headed," will willingly be bamboozled into believing an obvious falsehood.

THESE ARE GOOD, PATRIOTIC, AMERICANS AND FREEPERS. That is damned scary.

[Finny]

Thank you! I am SO RELIEVED to hear it. At this point, I can only hope that you and I are the majority. HOWEVER, I goofed in post 522 and said "north-east-bound" when I meant to say "north-west bound," and fixed in in #524, and asked the Mod to delete 522.

THANKS AGAIN for chiming in and giving me some hope that maybe not as many good folks are allowing themselves to be led down the garden path as I thought.

[Rokke]

You must have missed my post 492 to you. I’ve asked you several questions about the Leyvas video. I’ll be interested to read your responses. And since you clearly believe what was making the plume is heading north west bound, I’m even more curious to learn how you explain the lack of a consistant flame coming out of what you believe is an exhaust spewing missile motor. Leyvas must have been filming right down its nozzle.

[Finny]

You're playing games, buddy, the objective being to distract, and as you say of yourself, "I'm ready" -- you're ready to drag this on and on and on, and never address the question of why the very images you dispute in your post 492 are CONSPICUOUSLY ABSENT from a site of still shots that CONSPICUOUSLY AVOIDS attribution or identification as being from Gil Leyvas' footage. That site instead attributes 13 uncaptioned still shots to helicopter pilot Derek Bell, and even then, to confirm that Derek Bell was the pilot, one has to google "derek bell helicopter," as the info is not provided at the link. Smells like deliberate obfuscation and ass-covering to me. Are you wearing noseclips? Or would that be a gas mask? "Debating" with you is a waste of time and energy, as per your own design.

However, it's not a waste of time to review your posting history "in forum." Until Nov. 22 of 2010, you hadn't made a single post since Feb. 13, 2009. So for 21 months, nary a peep from you. Since Nov. 22 to date, you have made 38 posts on FR, and every single one of those posts has been to convince readers that Leyvas was so stupid or duplicitous as to present a simple, common, eastbound high altitude aircraft contrail, as a missile launch.

You ask me for my theories about things like what the Chinook was doing there. I quote Werhner von Braun: "That's not my department." It would be well outside of my purview to speculate. However, it is well within my purview, having lived within 19 to 160 miles of VAFB and its missile launches for nearly all of my 53 years on this earth, to pronounce with solid certainty that anyone trying to convince me that the event in the Leyvas video is an eastbound UPS plane contrail, is up to his/her eyebrows in manure.

[Rokke]

Hmmm. So stills of the Leyvas video and other pictures of the contrail event are "distractions" to discussions of this topic, but bringing up my posting history isn't?!?

What is clear is that after multiple posts in which you've accused anyone who doesn't agree with your position of purposely avoiding discussion of what you consider the only evidence worth discussing (the Leyvas video), it turns out the only person not willing to discuss the video directly is you. That doesn't leave room for much discussion.

Despite being an experienced observer of missile launches, if you really had any idea what you were talking about, it would be very easy for you to respond to any of the questions I asked you in post 492 about the video. Your refusal to do so speaks volumes. As I stated before, you are your own worst advocate.

[higgmeister]

I'll take a crack at your post 492

Your link...Leyvas Video

1. 8 seconds in. Same question as I asked about the still you posted. Where is the flame from the motor?

It is obvious at that point the missile is traveling almost directly away from the camera and the flame is obscured by the smoke plume.

2. 11 seconds in. Oh wait a minute. New view and what do you know...a bright light on the object. Is that flame or a reflection? If it's flame, why isn't it always there? A flame would be. A reflection can be blocked by clouds between the sun and the object making the contrail.

This is also simple to understand. This view is from earlier in the boost where the missile is still traveling upward. That is also the reason the sky is darker, it is in the edge of The Terminator. Notice also, the cloud layer it is passing through is closer to the horizon in the view before and after this short segment. If you are really an "expert" you should know this sort of thing.

3. 14 seconds...new view...no flame again. And little to no relative motion. What's going on?

Again an object moving almost directly away from you has little relative motion. This is not that hard to understand to someone that is not trying to obfuscate.

4.18 seconds in...wait a minute...that's the same scene as 11 seconds in. Or the object hasn't moved with respect to the clouds. Which is it?

It is clearly the same as 11 seconds in. You even realized that. Why are you disturbed by it? TV news almost 100% of the time edits clips for emphasis and effect. For decades I have assumed most people could see and understand that for themselves.

5. 27 seconds...there's what I think your calling a chinook. You never have explained what it's doing. Here's your chance. I'm ready for just about anything.

I assumed that was a passenger jet but it gave me an opportunity to see the very rapid motion of the missile in relation to the jet that appeared to be almost standing still in the slow-motion segment.

6. 40 seconds...the reflection is back. Magically, it is exactly the same color as the clouds near it. Not the white light so commonly viewed in actual missile launches. And notice the rapid movement of what you describe as a vertically climbing missile? Or not...because it doesn't appear to be moving at all. Unlike any real missile at this point which would be moving at several times the speed of sound.

At this point? What point? This segment is showing the the early boost stage. The lighted point is a flame, not a reflection. Near 40 seconds the TV edit appeared to freeze the frame for effect, as all relative motion stopped. From 34 to 40 the vertical movement was rapid as it moved above the cloud layer. Remember, this segment was also from much earlier in the launch.

I suppose when others wrote that the video was heavily edited to make people believe it was a launch, I couldn't understand why that was an issue because I saw all the edits and understood them without being distracted. If any person could not see that the video was spliced together out of sequence, I guess they could be fooled into believing it was an aircraft contrail. They would also have to be shown the way out of a paper bag. I think it is very telling that the TV station did not release the total video that was recorded before any editing. I am sure that the cargo jet contrail story would evaporate as easily as water vapor.

[higgmeister]

I agree with you.   Rokke fits the profile of a sock-puppet. And a government shill to boot.

[Finny]

Excellent, higg.

I think it is very telling that the TV station did not release the total video that was recorded before any editing. I am sure that the cargo jet contrail story would evaporate as easily as water vapor.

Yep. It's been edited and clipped, alright, but I think very probably not for the purpose that disinformationists claim. I remember clearly in the early days, when video clips of this were all over the web from different news casts, a clip of the thing moving, the plume stopping ... and then starting again, quite clearly. I also note in the youtube clip, very early in, where it looks a lot like something has been removed but the briefest nano-seconds of remnants of very bright light nearby can be noted.

In this area, my guess is no better than anyone else's and I claim no empirical advantage, but my first thought was that early footage where the plume stopped for about a split second and then continued, footage now nowhere to be found, was "scrubbed" somehow -- maybe it was shown on so few stations that it was easy to track down, I don't know because I don't know how these things are done. And that the second aspect of the briefest flash of light, was where footage was deliberately edited in order to prevent folks from seeing an attempt to shoot the thing down, and deflecting it. That's my wild-ass guess.

But guessing is removed when it comes to understanding that anyone equipped with magnification at that range, as the cameraman was with a 2-x lens, or even that anyone without magnification at that range but who was live on-scene for more than two minutes, would know for certain sure if it was either a missile launch, or an airliner. Only someone with serious cognitive problems could be confused as to determining one from the other.

Again ... people who've never seen a missile launch (let alone a couple dozen) at relatively close range would, understandably, not know that and are easy prey for the likes of Rokke, at least for a little while. But I know that in the long run, they are going to prove too smart for the likes of Rokke. Disinformationists are counting on a passel of hicks and kooks, but they don't know FReepers. Our good patriots here may take a little bit of time to sort it out, but they will, and the airplane disinformationists who pop up on FR will find that they underestimated this crowd.

[Rokke]

Thanks for the response. I'll filter out your gratuitous and unnecessary personal cheap shots, and stick with the meat.

So 11 seconds, 18 seconds and 40 seconds are all the same segment of video. I just added up the total time of those segments. 26 seconds out of a total of 52. And in those 26 seconds the object barely moves. Yet, that is the point where you say it is in its boost phase. It should be accelerating straight up in its boost phase. Instead, it barely moves.

At 8 seconds, you say the object is "obviously" moving directly away from the camera. So it must not be climbing. Yet, at 14 seconds, the object has clearly climbed from where it was at 8 seconds. Nor is there any leveling off apparent in the trail. So somehow, it is traveling directly away from the camera and climbing at the same time. All, without revealing even a hint of flame from its rocket motor.

At 27 seconds, I agree with you. The other object in the video appears to be a passenger jet climbing out on departure. But it is obviously much closer to the camera than the contrail, so with respect to relative motion, it would appear to move much faster than the object in the distance. The object in the distance, supposedly a missile screaming through the air at several times the speed of sound...doesn't move.

So in a 52 second video clip, half of the film essentially shows the same picture of an object that doesn't move with respect to the clouds. Strange, considering you believe it is a missile in its boost phase. And in the remaining 26 seconds of video, there is an object that definitely changes altitude, but you say is moving directly away from the camera to such a degree that it is obscuring its own rocket flame with its exhaust. Does that sum it up?

"I think it is very telling that the TV station did not release the total video that was recorded before any editing."I agree

"I am sure that the cargo jet contrail story would evaporate as easily as water vapor."Really? Since much of the missile case is heavily dependent on 26 seconds of non-moving video (when the object is just above the clouds), how would it help the missile case if more video was shown? Unless the entire video is 2 minutes or less, the missile case is blown. No ballistic missile has rocket motors that burn that long. And an intercontinental ballistic missile would be close to low earth orbit at that point. Do you think there is more than 2 minutes of video?

[TXnMA]

"Where did Rick Warren post all of his pics, unedited, with time stamps on each?"

~~~~~~~~~

I've been working with Rick Warren's raw camera files for quite some time now.

~~~~~~~~~

From that "silly" contrailscience.com website:

"Raw Rick Warren photos: –"

http://contrailscience.com/files/Rick%20Warren%20Originals.zip">

~~~~~~~~~

BTW, those files include "metadata" from the camera -- including even the focal length setting of the zoom lens.

If you check in the middle of that contrailscience.com page, you will see that all sources that were used are posted. The page even includes links to the analytical tools and to videos on how to use them.

We have nothing to hide.

Those of us who are collecting and analyzing the data are more than willing to share any raw data with those who will apply logic and honest analysis to it -- no matter what conclusion is reached. In science that's called "verification by replication of results".

Try working with facts instead of feelings and impressions -- you'll be amazed at what you'll learn.

[TigersEye]

Try working with facts instead of feelings and impressions -- you'll be amazed at what you'll learn.

Is asking for the source material what you call "working with feelings and impressions?"

[Yardstick]

Finny, you believe in UFOs and chemtrails, correct?

I asked you this earlier but you didn’t answer. I assume the answer is yes.

[Rokke]

Finny, you had your chance to participate in a meaningful way. Obviously you aren’t able so Higg stepped in to help you out. If I was a “disinformationalist” I strongly suspect my “handlers” would tell me to just keep you talking. You are the best argument there is against the missile theory.

[TXnMA]

"Why doesn't the contrail color change from orange (low altitude) to white as it climbs to an elevation where the setting sun strikes it directly? "

~~~~~

Awhile back, I posted this original graphic without comment -- at least comment back from Finny, to whom it was addressed. It is a small part of a color-illustrated discourse on the temporal and spatial optical dynamics of sunset and twilight on which I am working,

I believe it illustrates (in simplified form) the question you asked.

Finny, how did that "Vertical Missile Plume" wind up with its widest part in bright sunlight -- since it took off from the surface, which was already deep into post-sunset shadow?

~~~~~

BTW, Finny, you're welcome, Ma'am -- for the HTML help I attempted to give you on how to post images...

[Finny]

I have no opinion on chemtrails. As for UFOs, in order for me to discount them as "kookery," I'd have to regard as bold-faced, brazen liars-to-no-purpose too many people, from trusted loved ones to a Mercury 7 astronaut.

I'm sure you'll understand if I choose to value their information more than I do the conclusions you've drawn from your own apparently limited experience and reading. Furthermore, I hope and pray that you and I and everyone here will live to ripe old age, with all our marbles intact, still debating the existence of UFOs. When it comes to UFOs, I don't want to believe. No more than I want to believe the near-doubling this year of our homeowners' insurance policy! ;^)

Five hundred years ago, if you had lived on the Great Plains, I expect you would have sniggered and snickered at people who "believed" in oceans.

[Finny]

More graphics to prove an "optical illusion." Keep working on it, anything to throw more images that will distract from the video at hand. And keep revealing what a ridiculously inflated opinion you have of your ability to understand that which you have never seen over those (I don't include myself -- I am an amateur) who've made a LIVING in fields, ranging from missileering to perspective, relating to what you have never seen. Keep showing people what deep contempt you have for "inferior" abilities compared to your own planet-sized brain capacity.

You're a CHEMIST who shares my love of airplanes. You have never seen a missile launch, and you live in the midwest far, far away from the L.A. area coast. This much you have told me yourself. But I know what a high opinion you have of your superior intellect over slower folks whose eyes lie to them all the time -- thank goodness you're around to help them understand what they didn't see. Why, I really think that given enough computer programs, graphics, animated GIFs and a couple doses of inflated pride, you could "prove" to a champion downhill skier that snow was as dry as talcum powder.

[TXnMA]

Is asking for the source material what you call "working with feelings and impressions?"

Of course not! You're moving right along... :-|