Posted on 12/12/2010 10:47:16 AM PST by Brian Kopp DPM
California contrail: Four conflicting eyewitness reports
One month after the KCBS video purporting to show a missile contrail off the coast of California went viral, a heated debate over what exactly created the contrail persists. Experts have offered convincing analysis supporting the theory that the contrail represents an SLBM launch, while internet pundits have assembled a formidable collection of evidence that the contrail was created by UPS flight 902. The debate is seemingly at an impasse, and it might be a good time to step back from the intense data analysis and review the basic facts of November 8, 2010.There are two known eyewitnesses who captured images of the contrail. Gil Leyvas is the helicopter camera man for KCBS in Los Angeles who videotaped the contrail and Rick Warren lives on Long Beach and photographed the contrail from his tenth story balcony. A 50 minute phone interview with Leyvas was obtained for this report and discussed further via email, and Warren was also contacted by email.
According to Leyvas, his video was obtained while filming a sunset view for a KCBS weather report. As he was filming, Leyvas noticed an object on the horizon that appeared to be climbing vertically out of the ocean, and he zoomed in on the object. He videotaped the contrail for a total of ten minutes and subsequently continued to view the contrail for an additional ten minutes. Leyvas maintains that the object itself that created the contrail only remained in view for two to three minutes. For 30 to 45 seconds, the object glowed brightly and then seemed to disappear from view. His initial impression was that the object was traveling east towards the coast. On reviewing the video later, he had the impression the object may instead have been heading away from the coast, towards the northwest.
The highly unusual appearance of the sunset contrail shown on TV and posted online, combined with Leyvas perception that the object creating the contrail only remained in view for two to three minutes, constitutes the primary basis upon which many observers believe the object was a Sub Launched Ballistic Missile.
Rick Warren wasnt sure what the object was that he was photographing on November 8th. I was shooting with a telephoto lens and looking through a viewfinder so I never really saw the separation of the object and the contrail until I looked at the photos, but Im sure that this whole thing lasted way too long to be a missile. I see lots of contrails from my 10th floor balcony but the difference in this one was that it seemed to be going up.
Having seen many contrails, what stood out for Warren was the vertical nature of the contrail, not that it looked like a missile exhaust plume. Some of his photos of the contrail were posted on the local ABC7 website, and were utilized by Mick West of Contrailscience.com to create a composite image of the flight progression of the object. The time stamps on Warrens photos were used to establish that the object creating the contrail remained in view for 4 minutes 43 seconds in Warrens photos. Based on altitude and position, the object first appeared in Leyvas video at least five minutes prior to Warrens photos. After seeing Wests analysis of the images, Warren says, Im now of the opinion that it was indeed a plane."
At this point, one of the most glaring discrepancies between these eyewitness accounts must be addressed. Most observers looking at Warrens images agree that the small dark object which appears at the top of each of his later photos is the same craft creating the plume that was seen in his earlier photos as well as that which was seen in Leyvas video.
If the object that created the contrail was still visible in Warrens photos, then the object itself is not likely to have been a missile. Solid fuel engines such as those used in an SLBM create an uninterrupted exhaust plume for two to three minutes, after which time the solid fuel is spent, and the missile is usually out of view.
On the other hand, when an airliner transitions from cold moist air to warmer drier air, the dew point changes and contrail formation decreases. In the case of USP902, the airliner would have been transitioning from moist cool air at altitude over the ocean to warmer, drier air over land. This could explain the contrail disappearing as the object moved farther east.
Mick West created a "chronological cut" of Leyvas video and posted it to YouTube. The transition from moist cool air over the ocean to warmer, drier air over land may have occurred at 1:17 to 1:20 of the chronological cut, which Warren referred to as the separation of the object and the contrail. When still images from Leyvas video are compared to the overlay of Warrens photos, there is a remarkable similarity and continuity between the two sets of images, providing a better time frame for Leyvas video within the context of Warrens time stamps:
When Leyvas was initially queried regarding these later photos, he replied,
the [Contrailscience composite] animation only shows the path the plume drifted and not anything in flight. The 30-45 seconds of video I captured in which I could see the object (the portion of the video showing the glow/flame of the object at its pinnacle) occurred 8-10 minutes prior to the animated images of the animation (if the time stamps are accurate). I have no way of telling if those time stamps are accurate since the raw video has no real-time time stamp associated with it. I can only go by an estimated time based on the time we launched out of John Wayne airport and the approximate time of our weather shot. My guess is that the time stamps are relatively close to the accurate time. However, what you are seeing in those images is the plume drifting and not anything in flight.
Leyvas still maintains the object creating the contrail is not visible in Warrens photos 8 to 10 minutes later:
The separate smaller trail that is separate from the main body of the plume and that was captured by Warren in his photos, which makes it seem as if the object continued in flight, appears in my video to possibly be the top portion of the plume that partly dissipates leaving a segment of the tip adrift - detached from the main body of the plume. (I highlight "possibly be" because during that portion of the video, I zoom in and out and pan off and back onto the plume, so I'm not sure if what we are seeing is a stage of separation like that of a missile or if it's the tip of the plume separating from the main portion). I did zoom into that portion to see if I could see a craft of some kind (at the time I thought that there was a chance the object was still making condensation/exhaust) but there was nothing there creating that segment. Had there been, I know I would have been able to see it with the high-powered lens I was using. Add to that - if it was traveling toward us, the closer it would come the easier it would be to see it, but there was nothing there. That's why I said it was merely the plume adrift and not anything continuously flying.
Though there was no time code associated with the raw footage I shot, you are still able to accurately time the footage from the moment I started the recording (as we departed John Wayne airport) to the final moments of the mystery missile story. When I play the video I can time the duration of the object in flight which was between 30-45 seconds of "Glow Time" - which is inclusive within, and at the end of the 2-3 minute estimated flight time from which the plume was visible at the horizon ... I can rely on the raw footage as it plays to gauge my estimated times since it plays back in real time on the player deck's control track timer.
There were also two unknown witnesses who captured images of the contrail, both anonymous posters on the image hosting website Flickr. A photographer on Hermosa Beach, north of Leyvas and Warren, uploaded a photo of the November 8 sunset and only subsequently realized he had captured the same contrail due to media reports. From his vantage point, without the setting sun directly back-lighting the contrail, it apparently appeared similar to the other contrails in his sunset photo.
Another anonymous photographer uploaded photos of clouds at sunset on November 8, and noticed a bright horizontal contrail that he subsequently associated with the media reports regarding the contrail. Notice that in the case of these latter two eyewitnesses, the first noted nothing unusual about the contrail until he read media reports about it, and the second viewed a horizontal, not vertical contrail.
Finally, the opinions of the known military experts must be taken into consideration. Several highly credible experts have stated their opinion that the contrail in question represented the launching of an SLBM.
A little further background from Leyvas might shed more light on the way the video was edited and presented to the public. Leyvas related that the video was taken during sweeps week in his TV market, and part of his job during sweeps week is to go out and look for and capture video of interest for sweeps week ratings. The video he captured of the contrail was subsequently heavily edited before being aired, and less than two minutes of the ten minutes of video has been seen by these experts. From the perspective of garnering sweeps week ratings, the footage was certainly successful.
It may be that the experts would modify their opinion based on viewing the entire footage. The footage is owned by the local CBS affiliate and nothing was found by the Department of Defense in reviewing the footage that would prevent its release to the public. According to Leyvas, it might still be available on their server. If that is the case, it should just be a matter of uploading the unedited ten minutes of video to YouTube to put an end to the debate.
MATTERS OF NATIONAL SECURITY
Mysterious missile launch baffles even eyewitnesses
Video, still photographers watched contrail soaring over Pacific Coast
Nope.
Well, maybe if you would start with the premise that in my opinion this never looked like anything but the contrail of a plance coming straight over the horizon towards the viewer, you would understand what you seem to be signally failing to comprehend from my posts.
Thousands of others, including several former military pilots, a Brigadier General who commanded NORAD and the editor of Janes, disagree. Your semantic games notwithstanding.
Yeah, I don't dispute this. What my drawing shows is that it's possible for the sun to backlight a contrail at sunset, and this doesn't disagree with that. Finny seemed to be saying that the contrail had to be lit from underneath and my drawing shows that that isn't true.
Here is a what I said a couple posts later:
The viewer on the ground will of course see the underside of the contrail. My point, which I think my drawing gets across pretty clearly, is that it's possible for a contrail to be lit from behind by the sun. To be honest, it's hard to tell exactly how the light is hitting it since it's coming in at such a grazing angle. It's either from slightly above or from slightly below, but mostly it's from "end on" -- i.e. in a direction running almost parallel to its length. It also appears to be getting light on its northern flank in some pics.
Not at that particular hour which is exactly when the video and pics were taken. The sunlight can't be both above and below an airplane contrail.
(Sorry, somebody had to say it...)
Cheers!
Good Grief!! Buy you books, send you to school, draw you pictures -- and you are still tossing up crap that I disproved long ago and over and over. Are you totally incapable of reading and learning?
That guy with the camera shot of his TV screen is talking about one of the "cross fades" or "cross wipes" that I show at :13, :29 and :33 here -- where I first exposed SeeBS's lie about their deceptively edited short film clips.
That is no second contrail. In a crossfade transtion, frames from two joined clips are simultaneously visible as they both pass through 50% transparency.
~~~~~~~~~~
All you did by pointing that stupid "video analysis" out is reinforcing the clear FACT that you "missile truthers" have been suckered by a SeeBS "sweeps week" LIE!
Okay, that’s fine. Like I said before, it’s hard to tell exactly what the light is doing. I’d have to do some calculations. And as I also said before, the lighting issue isn’t decisive.
Have you thought up a new argument against the Cargo Law pic yet — the one that shows the plane flying inland?
Better late than never.
B?TW, thanks for trying to inject some sanity into this.
Doublers increase image size through "empty magnification": they spread the image out over a wide area -- leaving only a small section of image to cover the entire film frame (or digital image sensor). It appears much larger -- but actually reduces resolution by a factor of 4 (for a 2X doubler). No wonder Leyvas could not see the A.C (or "missile") -- he killed his lens' sharpness by using that doubler.
I have several K$ of Nikon 35mm gear. The only time I will use one of my "doublers" is when I MUST fill the frame of a color slide. Otherwise, I get better sharpness by enlarging the image while printing.
TANSTAAFL!
So, the fact that the evidence proves it wasn’t a missile, Chinese or otherwise, doesn’t bother you?
And the fact that WND turned this guy’s article into a pro-missile piece doesn’tbother you?
Yeah, you're on his ASW Chinook Ping List.
Classy as ever, I see.
And yet, the overwhelming evidence clearly shows that this was an airplane contrail. Your semantic games notwithstanding.
Ah, so Hardraade hasmoved from the ASW Chook to the cruise missile that sedately rise thousands of feet in the air.
Ah, so Hardraade hasmoved from the ASW Chinook to the cruise missile that sedately rise thousands of feet in the air.
You should work for Jane’s.
Go away -- and do not come back until you find and post it.
That misinterpretation of the "shadowing and backlighting" myth is all those poor duped folks have left to cling to...
All you did by pointing that stupid "video analysis" out is reinforcing the clear FACT that you "missile truthers" have been suckered by a SeeBS "sweeps week" LIE!
Since I didn't see the "second contrail" analysis until weeks afterwards it couldn't have had anything to do with my estimation of what KCBS showed. What you are making clear is how amateurish your analysis is.
Thanks! That is a beautiful example — as is our contrail...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.