Missile FLying over Utah? Caught By Google Earth

I have to go with it being a plane as well because from what i can tell there are TWO vapor trails very close to each other, like a plane with the engines on the tail.. Lear Jet or something.

The faded text says "Google 2004" it's a copyright

It is a plane. And I don't think the wings are camouflaged, it is just the way the picture came out. If it was camouflaged, the whole plane would be (kinda pointless just doing the wings!).

As IA pointed out, the scale is based on ground level, so unless you know the altitude, then you can't infer the size of the aircraft. That said, the fact that there are contrails coming off the aircraft indicates a minimum height it must be flying at (while you can get some contrails, or ectoplasm, at lower levels, this is usually only seen from fighter jets, or in high humidity environments, and the ecto doesn't persist like the trails in the photo in question). It depends on the time of year and location, but generally occurs when the outside air temp is about - 57 degrees Celcius, though humidity plays a part as well. For the nerds amongst you, an interesting Java applet allows you to simulate the effect of temp/humidity, and see contrails form.

Contrail simulator

that is diffently utah, i should know what my own state looks like

Someone pointed out a Missile Silo.
Just to pour water on enthusiams again, I think you'll find it on top of a small hill near a town. It's probably a water tank.

Yeah, just a plane. They show up all the time on GE and GM. Though it looks neat, and boy would it be cool to see a cruise missile on GE, it's nothing special.

Originally posted by Willard856
As IA pointed out, the scale is based on ground level, so unless you know the altitude, then you can't infer the size of the aircraft.

I having a bit of a problem understanding this..
So it means that the all objects ASL would not be applicable to the distance key?
That kind've makes sense if the sighting is in the form of a solid cone and not a cylinder, but still..

Actually I have a more complicated question..
But first, at what altitude resolution is the highest available zoom?
That answer leads to the next complicated question

Originally posted by Daedalus3

Originally posted by Willard856
As IA pointed out, the scale is based on ground level, so unless you know the altitude, then you can't infer the size of the aircraft.

I having a bit of a problem understanding this..
So it means that the all objects ASL would not be applicable to the distance key?
That kind've makes sense if the sighting is in the form of a solid cone and not a cylinder, but still..

it is simple trigonomery - here a pretty picture should help




NB - the scale is LOCAL ground level ,

so if the satalite is 100km up - and the aircraft @ 10ooom - a 50m long A/C will cover FAR MORE than 50m of terrain @ the ground

and conversly - an A/C that covers 50m of ground is far smaller than 50m long

does that explain it ?

Ok cool.. just as I thought.. a sight cone..
Now here's the other Q:
When we zoom in or out, at least in Google Earth we get a resolution that corresponds to an ASL altitude(in miles when its very high up and in feet when its below 5 miles~).
So again what was the ASL altitude resolution at the highest viewable zoom selection at that google maps site for this plane?

I'll check it out on Google Earth when I get home..

Basically what I'm trying to say is our sighting altitude is altered with the zoom and so the sight cone dimensions should also change.

My question is: Why would anyone color the plane wings in the google image?

A. For Fun?
B. Trying to Mislead?
C. Nothing Better to do?


I think coloring the Wings on the actual plane is out of the question as Nygdan pointed out...

I highly suspect someone altered the picture on purpose. Which brings another question: is Google earth reliable? is everything in it unaltered and true?

[edit on 3/5/2007 by a1ex]

Actualy, it would've been better if you actualy did the math before touting the math.

The size of an object at 10km high with the satelite at 100km while showing as 30m on the ground is about 27m

The smaller the object actualy is, the tighter the angle gets and the less the size miss representation gets.

If the object shows 50m on the ground, it'll actualy be 30m at 10km.
If the object shows as 10m on the ground, it'll actualy be 9m at 10km high.

Because the altitude of the satellite is so high the angle your working with it between 89.95° and 89.999° for objects between 10 and 200m long.

From what I can make out the object is 30m on the maps scale, so it would be 27m long at 10km altitude and anywhere between 27 and 30m between groundlevel and 10km altitude.

As long as we don't know the exact ground level of that area and don't know how high the plane would be flying and don't know how high the satelite actualy was, it could be small or big.

Not to mention, these images aren't all taken by satelite. A good deal of them are also taken by plane. So what then?

[edit on 5/3/07 by thematrix]

Originally posted by shots

Originally posted by Jimmy1880
This is a Tomahawk cruise missile, The US military test fires missiles all the time! Please tell me how you can measure how long the missile is when you have no idea how high it is flying???



Edit to add Pic

There is just one problem, it cannot be a missile. the one on google has a windshield on the nose.

That's because it's the Japanese Defense Force testing their new Kamikaze II Smart Bomb at a Utah testing facility.

Didn't you know? The Japanese still don't trust computers - they think they are only good for gaming.

This Cruise Missile surely has one brave pilot...

hey i've never posted here before but when i saw this thread i HAD to...i was flying to san francisco from the uk back in febraury 2003 and as i was somewhere in the vicinity of where this picture was taken when i saw a black missile possibly 6-8 feet long with black smoke coming out the end come up from under the plane and arc back down into the clouds...i've since spoke to high ranking british army and navy people and they seemed to think it was the americans that would have shot this. I didnt tell anyone about this for a long time because it sounds far fetched so i was suprised when these people believed me. anyones else heard of anything like this?

^^
Well it BETTER be the Americans firing something like this in their own backyard!