Plan B Forum

Nothing like an unexplained missile launch to ruin a perfectly good coastal sunset.

That was the unsettling reflection that many residents in the Los Angeles area were forced to entertain Monday evening as they gazed out over the ocean and into the storied Southern California sky. All at once, the vista was disrupted by a large missile streaming across the horizon. Nor were area residents especially comforted when they consulted local news outlets about the episode, only to learn that no one seemed to know to whom the missile belonged.

A KCBS traffic helicopter captured the projectile on camera last night, but the Navy and Air Force claimed to know nothing of any planned launch when contacted by KFMB, a CBS affiliate in San Diego.

What appeared to be a projectile spreading across the sky in the video was simply a contrail, the plume of smoke that airplanes typically leave in their wake.
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"This thing is so obviously an airplane contrail, and yet apparently all the king's horses and all the king's men can't find someone to stand up and say it," John Pike, a defense and aerospace expert, told the Washington Post's John Pomfret. Pike noted that the projectile was moving much slower than a missile would, adding that "there's a reason that they're called rockets."
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oldr_n_wsr wrote:Well I'm glad this settles it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20 ... ly-a-plane

What appeared to be a projectile spreading across the sky in the video was simply a contrail, the plume of smoke [condensation, not smoke] that airplanes typically leave in their wake.
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"This thing is so obviously an airplane contrail, and yet apparently all the king's horses and all the king's men can't find someone to stand up and say it," John Pike, a defense and aerospace expert, told the Washington Post's John Pomfret. Pike noted that the projectile was moving much slower than a missile would [not possible to tell in a still photo], adding that "there's a reason that they're called rockets."[if the direction of travel is normal to your position the relative speed is easier to determine. If it is not the relative speed is more difficult to infer]
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I wonder if anyone bothered to check takeoff's and landing times in the vicinity to see if there was a jet around there around that time.[the jet could have taken off thousands of miles away and then gained or lost altitude until a contrail formed]

tin foil anyone