Mystery Missile or Jetliner Contrail over Southern Cal. ?

Re: Mystery Missile or Jetliner Contrail over Southern Cal.

MikeD said:
Thats what gets me. A chinese launch of a missile off the coast, would be a next "step up" from the aircraft carrier surfacing incident showing what they can do. Granted, it's darn near a provocation, but still its mainly an embarassment, just as the Kitty Hawk incident was. And, the Chinese have recently activated their missile subs.
Click to expand...
It will be interesting if we ever hear who actually launched the missile. Considering the President is in Indonesia right now, there are some people mighty nervous no matter what happened. Those that have some life experience are not happy there was a missile launched off the coast of California and nobody in the DOD knows who launched it??? Yeah, not good at all! Hopefully it ends up like the 747 flying around the Statue of Liberty incident and is a lack of communication, but it is looking less and less likely by the minute.
 
Re: Mystery Missile or Jetliner Contrail over Southern Cal.

W-537 is associated with Point Mugu, but the trail was observed well before the effective times.

KZLA LOS ANGELES A2832/10 - THE FOLLOWING RESTRICTIONS ARE REQUIRED DUE TO NAVAL AIR WARFARE CENTER WEAPONS DIVISION ACTIVATION OF W537. IN THE INTEREST OF SAFETY, ALL NON-PARTICIPATING PILOTS ARE ADVISED TO AVOID W537. IFR TRAFFIC UNDER ATC JURISDICTION SHOULD ANTICIPATE CLEARANCE AROUND W537 AND CAE 1176. CAE 1155 WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE FOR OCEANIC TRANSITION. CAE 1316 & CAE 1318 WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE FOR OCEANIC TRANSITION. CAE 1177 WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR OCEANIC TRANSITION. W537 ACTIVE, CAE 1176 CLOSED. SURFACE - FL390, 09 NOV 20:00 2010 UNTIL 10 NOV 01:00 2010. CREATED: 08 NOV 20:52 2010

W-537.jpg
 
Re: Mystery Missile or Jetliner Contrail over Southern Cal.

Minuteman said:
W-537 is associated with Point Mugu, but the trail was observed well before the effective times.

KZLA LOS ANGELES A2832/10 - THE FOLLOWING RESTRICTIONS ARE REQUIRED DUE TO NAVAL AIR WARFARE CENTER WEAPONS DIVISION ACTIVATION OF W537. IN THE INTEREST OF SAFETY, ALL NON-PARTICIPATING PILOTS ARE ADVISED TO AVOID W537. IFR TRAFFIC UNDER ATC JURISDICTION SHOULD ANTICIPATE CLEARANCE AROUND W537 AND CAE 1176. CAE 1155 WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE FOR OCEANIC TRANSITION. CAE 1316 & CAE 1318 WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE FOR OCEANIC TRANSITION. CAE 1177 WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR OCEANIC TRANSITION. W537 ACTIVE, CAE 1176 CLOSED. SURFACE - FL390, 09 NOV 20:00 2010 UNTIL 10 NOV 01:00 2010. CREATED: 08 NOV 20:52 2010
Click to expand...
Which begs the question, if we launched something testing it, why does nobody know about it, and DOD is denying it? There is definitely more to the story...
 
Re: Mystery Missile or Jetliner Contrail over Southern Cal.

What does this button do? Oooops - just kidding!!!!!
 
Re: Mystery Missile or Jetliner Contrail over Southern Cal.

As a civilian contractor on St Nick back in the 80s I was told I didn't see anything. Even the missle launches from submerged submarines. I still have, I mean, don't have any photos.
 
Re: Mystery Missile or Jetliner Contrail over Southern Cal.

If it truly wasn't our own brand of swamp gas you'd think Homeland Security would be advertising a down play in the panic.
 
Re: Mystery Missile or Jetliner Contrail over Southern Cal.

RICHARD5 said:
As a civilian contractor on St Nick back in the 80s I was told I didn't see anything. Even the missle launches from submerged submarines. I still have, I mean, don't have any photos.
Click to expand...

Well, people saw it. If it is something classified then they should have had a plausible story up front- we're doing a missile test, launching a GPS sattelite... something that would make sense to most people. Instead this "We don't know what it was" response has generated much more attention than it would have otherwise garnered. Reminds me of the guys dressed like military dudes trying not to dress like military dudes who fly funny looking N-registered airplanes into airports then respond to questions with "We can't talk about it." Gee, can't figure out what you do with that response.
 
Re: Mystery Missile or Jetliner Contrail over Southern Cal.

Good story. Please start a sub forum of "Mike's Bad ass stories of the day"
 
Re: Mystery Missile or Jetliner Contrail over Southern Cal.

Found this on Reddit about the launch. Lots of cool info there.
The most interesting comment is by Kleinbl00.

Linky
 
Re: Mystery Missile or Jetliner Contrail over Southern Cal.

From IAH to BNA yesterday, the sunset was pretty spectacular. The contrails all kind of looked like this. They had a weird illusion like they were curving upward from the horizon. Either way, contrails are just as bad as missiles. :crazy:
 
Re: Mystery Missile or Jetliner Contrail over Southern Cal.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/11/09/california.contrails/index.html?hpt=C1

But John Pike, a defense expert who is director of GlobalSecurity.org, said he believes he has solved the mystery.
"It's clearly an airplane contrail," Pike said Tuesday afternoon. "It's an optical illusion that looks like it's going up, whereas in reality it's going towards the camera. The tip of the contrail is moving far too slowly to be a rocket. When it's illuminated by the sunset, you can see hundreds of miles of it ... all the way to the horizon.
Click to expand...

A U.S. Northern Command official who didn't want to be identified said the contrail could very well be from an airplane. An "illusion" effect made the contrail appear as if it's rising straight up, but it's actually level, the official said. The event is similar to another sighting around New Year's Eve in which observers believed they witnessed a missile, he said.
Click to expand...

I guess that's possible. I didn't see it, but optical illusions can happen.
 
Re: Mystery Missile or Jetliner Contrail over Southern Cal.

Stinger said:
Found this on Reddit about the launch. Lots of cool info there.
The most interesting comment is by Kleinbl00.

Linky
Click to expand...
He sounds like an airliners.net type poster....full of BS!:laff:

I've flown out to San Nicolas twice. It's owned by the Navy and occupied by the Navy. There are all sorts of goodies out there to see. I've seen various missiles launched from various Navy ships and that is a missile...a big missile! If you watch the video you can see the rocket plume. It has to be either have been launched from land or a sub. If it was not ours, I sure as hell want to know that it wasn't!
 
Re: Mystery Missile or Jetliner Contrail over Southern Cal.

H46Bubba said:
He sounds like an airliners.net type poster....full of BS!:laff:

I've flown out to San Nicolas twice. It's owned by the Navy and occupied by the Navy. There are all sorts of goodies out there to see. I've seen various missiles launched from various Navy ships and that is a missile...a big missile! If you watch the video you can see the rocket plume. It has to be either have been launched from land or a sub. If it was not ours, I sure as hell want to know that it wasn't!
Click to expand...

Definitely not an aircraft, it just doesnt look the same, again having seen many of these before. Someone is full of crap here.

And too, we don't fire those types of missiles........ballistic missiles......from the NSI area. They're shot from land out of VBG generally. Going tinfoil hat here, but with the new class of Chinese sub, the Jin, thats missile capable, and the fact that only the Chinese would approach from the Pacific side (again, generally speaking), and the fact that China did the Kitty Hawk action a few years back, and the fact that China has been warning us to stop printing money which is devaluing the dollar and cheapening the debt they buy and we owe them. This very well, if a Chinese action, could be the "big stick" to back up the action.

IF it is an airliner or aircraft (which I don't believe) it should take no time at all to have confirmed that with any aircraft that would've crossed that area far off the coast of CA. Easy enough that the DOD would never have to make a comment of "we don't know what it is".

My big questions are, where was the launch point, and where was the impact point?
 
Re: Mystery Missile or Jetliner Contrail over Southern Cal.

MikeD said:
Definitely not an aircraft, it just doesnt look the same, again having seen many of these before. Someone is full of crap here.

And too, we don't fire those types of missiles........ballistic missiles......from the NSI area. They're shot from land out of VBG generally. Going tinfoil hat here, but with the new class of Chinese sub, the Jin, thats missile capable, and the fact that only the Chinese would approach from the Pacific side (again, generally speaking), and the fact that China did the Kitty Hawk action a few years back, and the fact that China has been warning us to stop printing money which is devaluing the dollar and cheapening the debt they buy and we owe them. This very well, if a Chinese action, could be the "big stick" to back up the action.

My big questions are, where was the launch point, and where was the impact point?
Click to expand...
I'll join you and put mine on as well!:crazy: Every story I read or news clip I see gives the 35 miles as the "launch source". Where did they get this? If it was the Chinese; there are a lot of individuals in the DOD, NSC, and intelligence agencies that crapped their pants and are scrambling to come up with an explanation. China won't even admit to it if they did actually fire that missile from a sub of the coast. There are two carriers out there off SoCal right now. The Nimitz is doing carrier quals and the Regan Battle Group is out doig their COMPTUEX which is their final qual before their cruise in a couple of months. I know the Reagan broke off to go render assistance to the cruise ship that is dead in the water off of Ensanada Mexico. If it was the Chinese, I can guarantee that there are ships and P-3's out looking for them. NORAD should have caught it right away and tracked it, so wherever it went we know where it landed...I hope!
 
Re: Mystery Missile or Jetliner Contrail over Southern Cal.

H46Bubba said:
I'll join you and put mine on as well!:crazy: Every story I read or news clip I see gives the 35 miles as the "launch source". Where did they get this? If it was the Chinese; there are a lot of individuals in the DOD, NSC, and intelligence agencies that crapped their pants and are scrambling to come up with an explanation. China won't even admit to it if they did actually fire that missile from a sub of the coast. There are two carriers out there off SoCal right now. The Nimitz is doing carrier quals and the Regan Battle Group is out doig their COMPTUEX which is their final qual before their cruise in a couple of months. I know the Reagan broke off to go render assistance to the cruise ship that is dead in the water off of Ensanada Mexico. If it was the Chinese, I can guarantee that there are ships and P-3's out looking for them.
Click to expand...

But too, look at our own capabilities: Since the end of the Cold War, we've gutted our ASW forces.....S-3s gone, P-3 squadrons WAY scaled back. Even our SSN force.....we used to have what, about 40 or so Los Angeles class attack subs? Back in the day they nearly were able to shadow enemy submarines almost one for one, man for man. With the number of SSNs and SSBNs we've retired, I wonder if we can even cover the number of enemy subs operating out there, esp considering that one or two SSNs are tasked to ride with a carrier task force, thus taking them up from operating freely in their duty. You'd think that with SOSUS or somethng like that, the minute a sub opened up its hatches underwater to launch a missile, that we would've detected it. But with the cutbacks, as well as the cuts in NORAD and the closing of Cheyenne Mountain, who knows what kinds of capabilities we're lacking now.

And too: If the government and DOD don't know what the hell this was, how can they conclusively state now that it was never a threat to the US?

And as I said before, if it was an airliner or something, we should be able to easily confirm/deny that in no time.
 
Re: Mystery Missile or Jetliner Contrail over Southern Cal.

So what happens now if it was China? This ie errily similar to Pearl Harbor with them more or less sneaking an attack. Could we win a war with China? Don't they out number us?
 
Re: Mystery Missile or Jetliner Contrail over Southern Cal.

mshunter said:
So what happens now if it was China? This ie errily similar to Pearl Harbor with them more or less sneaking an attack. Could we win a war with China? Don't they out number us?
Click to expand...

Itd definitely be a provocation and an embarassment. But we can't afford to go to war with anyone, for a good number of reasons.
 
Re: Mystery Missile or Jetliner Contrail over Southern Cal.

From a Missleteer I know

"No question that's a missile, either a ballistic missle or a long-range antiaircraft weapon. At one point in the video the light at the plume gets noticeably brighter, which looks to me like staging, i.e., the firing of a second (or third) stage. I'd guess this is at least a two-stage ballisitc missile. It might have been sea launched, or depending on the vantage point relative to Catalina Island it may have been a launch out of Vandenberg. Sure looks like it's aimed down the Pacific Test Range."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top