California Mystery Missile Launch Really A Jet Contrail?

By now I am sure everyone has heard about the mystery missile launch seen off the coast to California. While not exactly "alien" it does fit the definition of "UFO". The link below makes a good case for the "missile" actually being a jet-contrail, in this case US Aiways flight 808 from Hawaii to Phoenix. Also provided are photos of other contrails that look like missile launches.

Contrail Science


(Apologies for the blank thread earlier, I hit enter a bit too early...)

Hello, hello?

Is there anybody out there?

reply to post by DoomsdayRex


So the bright light that is obvious in part of the video is meant to be just the sun reflecting off the plane not an engine burning? That would make sense.

I live in southern California, just east of Los Angeles. Although I didn't see this event, I can confirm that Sunday night it was raining in Los Angeles and along the coast. Maybe even some rain Monday morning. The wind kicked up and moved a lot of clouds out of the way by Monday afternoon and there was some clear skies mixed with clouds. Because of the rain there was a lot of moisture in the air, and ground. These past couple days have been pretty cold too, so I imagine it is below zero at high altitudes. It is PERFECT weather to create long lasting contrails right now, and yesterday.

In fact, Monday morning it was so cold you can make contrails from your mouth at low altitude. I could only imagine how easy it would be to make long lasting contrails at a higher altitude. It's starting to feel like winter around here.

I have seen many rocket launches from JPL, never any from around Catalina. Most rockets launched around sunset create cool looking colors in the trail. It's caused by unburned fuel refracting sunlight. Since I know rockets are not 100% efficient, I know that if this event was a rocket or missile there would be some odd coloring to it from unburnt fuel. I don't see any odd coloring in the photographs, so I am leaning towards the explanation that what we see is pure water condensation, probably from a jet.

BLOGS // Tech Talk // Mystery Missile Wasn't a Missile at All
POSTED BY: James Oberg / Tue, November 09, 2010

staging.spectrum.ieee.org...

Interview on LA channel 4 (NBC), several comments part of a 3-min excellent piece
www.nbclosangeles.com...

reply to post by JimOberg


No sound. Can you explain please?
2nd

Originally posted by SunDawg
reply to post by JimOberg

 

No sound. Can you explain please?
2nd

So there was no sound at all heard, is this the same for everyone who was in a vicinity where at least some sound would have been audible, if so then the lack of any sound at all is weird.

Excellent link. I have seen contrails from various angles while flying, especially around main traffic vectors and intersections in Southern Ontario. While I have never seen one as dramatic as the one shown, I have seen similar ones over Lake Ontario while looking towards the east on a very clear day in the early morning hours. It's incredible how a 100 mile contrail from an ascending aircraft appears from the right angle during a sunrise or sunset.

reply to post by DoomsdayRex


This was on Monday, yes?

Based on your OP's info, here is a link to all the details of USAir flight 808, on 8 November 2010:

flightaware.com...

Flight plan routing, and actual ground track, times, altitudes....etc.

Go to the box on the right, next to "Status" click on "(track log & graph)" for a very detailed timeline and position history of the flight. See if it coincides.

Oh, and also....to follow its portion as it neared the Coast, and see the actual aeronautical charts, to see the Jet Airways in the routings, go to skyvector.com...

Upper left, type KLAX. When chart (VFR first) comes up, click on the tab labeled "Enroute H-4".

Here, from US 808's flight plan, is the pertinent portion of the route:

....R578 FICKY C1177 SXC TRM...

You can find the R-578 on the High IFR chart, and see where it meets the FICKY intersection. "C 1177" means "control1177", that would be the ROSIN and MALIT intersections, to the SXC VOR (at Catalina Island). From SXC it is direct to TRM (Thermal VOR), and onward to Phoenix....

I don't understand why no one at The Pentagon would be able to resolve such a simple seeming matter and why the phenomenon did not appear on radar.

www.myfoxdc.com... -off-california-110910

Originally posted by TheFlash
I don't understand why no one at The Pentagon would be able to resolve such a simple seeming matter and why the phenomenon did not appear on radar.

Whenever you confront such a disconnect, the best technique is to back off and see if your going-in assumptions are valid. In this case, your assumption that 'they did not see it on radar' is false. When searching for a missile launch, FAA looked at its radar tracks in the area and saw no 'high-speed objects' -- i.e., missiles. Nobody EVER said they saw no airplanes.

True, some newsmen and anchors DID improve the FAA statement by garbling and overdramatizing it. But that didn't make the garbled version true.

reply to post by weedwhacker


And the resulting ground track is? Please post your results and then we can work to verify them.

reply to post by JimOberg


Jim, in my post I provided the main and relevant links, and described how to extract the data. I don't know how to do "screen shots" and such, linking and some photo uploads strain my computer skills as it is....

...however, regrading the "FlightAware" site, I linked to their flight log and track data, and could copy that direct link and paste it here: flightaware.com...

Note the specific timeline logs, and the lat/long positions and altitude.

Snippet for example:

.....
07:43PM 32.20 -121.00 60° Northeast 470 541 37,000 Los Angeles Center
07:44PM 32.27 -120.86 62° Northeast 470 541 37,000 Los Angeles Center
07:45PM 32.33 -120.72 61° Northeast 470 541 37,000 Los Angeles Center
07:47PM 32.40 -120.59 60° Northeast 470 541 37,000 Los Angeles Center
07:47PM 32.46 -120.45 60° Northeast 470 541 37,000 Los Angeles Center
07:48PM 32.53 -120.31 63° Northeast 470 541 37,000 Los Angeles Center
07:49PM 32.59 -120.17 61° Northeast 470 541 37,000 Los Angeles Center
....

Time -- LAT --- LONG ---Exact heading (not really "HDG", but magnetic ground track) --- Compass "direction" --- Groundspeed, Knots/MPH --- Altitude.

And, last, the controlling facility.

reply to post by weedwhacker


Ok, maybe I'm missing something here. The given height of the jet was 37,000 ft?.... I'm not sure how this ties into the film that was shown. Surely if its taken from a chopper then the angles don't work out? Or am I missing something here to do with line of sight?

I posted this in that now huge thread, but I will say again here. I witnessed another same phenomenon (sunset "missile" contrail) a couple summers ago, while camped on a West coast beach.

When I looked through my scope, I saw attached to the front of the contrail a distant jetliner with strobes, although I really wanted to see a missile.

The only other explanation I have is flight 808 passengers caught a North Korean/Chine/US Navy sub missile launch on their cameras, whereupon the flight was diverted to Area 51, where camo dudes confiscated all pix and passengers were implanted with chips to monitor location and what they say and to erase certain memories, and the flight continued on, but passengers were warned that if they ever talked about this incident, they would be boarded on a Janet flight and taken across the border...to Fresno, CA, whereupon they would be forced to pick fruit as illegal aliens, because they could never get their original birth certificate to prove they were born in the USA, but every once in a while, after working in the 105deg temps for days and downing a few cool cervesas, some poor bugger would look up at an unusual contrail heading south from the north, point and shout "Miran!" and babble on in broken Spanish how the Canadian Space Agency was sending missiles across America to warn citizens to not even think of crossing their border.

Oh, I've got another theory how Fox got a hold of the one existing pix...but that's another story.

What I don't understand is if that a trail then whats the bit at the top that's either flashing or an engine that seems to be making the trail, none of the other trail examples have this feature. There definitely seems to be a source for the trail and the trail keeps extending from the flashing / engine port at the top of the trail.

If its a plane making the trail then where does the comment about it not appearing on radar?

The big problem I have with the contrail explanation is....WHY DID IT TAKE SO LONG?

Seriously, why did it take so long? It would seem that the military could confirm this, flight no., etc. all very quickly, and yet it took over a day to release this explanation? Something doesn't smell right with this.

reply to post by FireMoon


Not entirely sure what you mean....

The given height of the jet was 37,000 ft?....

Yes, in regards to the OP's suggestion of the possibility that USAir 808 is the culprit, and the 'trail was its contrail....going ONLY on that assumption, yes that is correct for that flight, that day.

.... Surely if its taken from a chopper then the angles don't work out?

"angles"? A helicopter will be at an altitude, at most, a few thousand feet MSL. Therefore, viewing the contrail from well below, looking up. Perspective not much different (very minimal parallax difference) than from observers standing on the ground.

You made the point yourself... the chopper cant be that high.... so why does it look like the the camera is panning down to up to follow it? surely if it's overhead it should move up to down? That's why i asked about line of sight..is that just an illusion?

reply to post by Gazrok


I think it may be something as simple as....someone just bothering to scour through all the possiblities of potential airline flights. Someone who takes the time to review airline schedules, look for possible matches time-wise and date-wise, then go to FlightAware (and it helps if you work or have worked, in the airline industry, to think of the various candidates, and to interpret the information).

It seems like it was such a minor thing, got blown up a bit from the hysteria, and viral nature of the Internet World, nowadays....so, took a nerd somewhere to do the boring searches. It remains a possible answer, but that's why I offered the resources so anyone else can look too....get many eyes on it, so IF USAir 808 can be eliminated, then that's that, and move on to the next theory.....