no threat to national security?

[+daddyairplanes 10,257]

THEY DON'T KNOW WHERE IT CAME FROM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11721981

 

 

anyone from cali seen it and can verify?

[xclusiv8 35]

OMG Its The hunt for red october all over again but this time without the hunt

[+Old Diego 66]

The very idea that it's unknown makes it a threat - assuming it really is unknown.

[FastCargo 412]

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2010/11/video-kcbs-chopper-tapes-mystery-missile-launch-off-california-coast/1?csp=34news

 

The most likely explanation.

 

FC

[Wrench 9,865]

I didn't see it (unfortunatley!! damitall!)

 

But I'd would like to apologive for all the hub-bub. It was becasue of what I had for dinner... sorry!

 

wrench

kevin stein

[+suhsjake 11]

Wonder what Baghdad Bob would say.

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

This will be a great example of Internet Panic to look back on. TV News videos here ~> http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=171727

 

 

Note how slow the thing moves. Its a persistent contrail coming toward the camera from the horizon. On the *2nd* video linked there, at 0:44, watch the zoomed in view when the contrail tip passes that cloud, and the jet reflects sun, briefly shining like a star at the right jet/sun/camera angle. Its not rocket plume. We can roughly do this over The StrikeFighters with the chemtrail Contrail Mod, for strategic air warfare ( ). DOWNLOAD IT NOW -- ONLY AT The CombatAce! Czech it out.

 

 

SF1 screenshot

 

 

We can't do the 3D shadowing of sun on the ice crystal exhaust cloud, nor the long distance shine off metal aircraft skin. TheSims developers never think of this kind of stuff. Perhaps someday, but not today.

 

Here's a striking sunset/sunrise photo taken by Pekka Parvianen, that I use for My StrikeFighters mainscreen menu, dedictated strictly to KMD single mission setups, only. Maybe somebody can share a B-36 contrail screenshot from a (VHS only) Jimmy Stewart movie.

Edited November 10, 2010 by Lexx_Luthor

[JediMaster 451]

The way the trail is dissipating in the lower part of the image is the key. Rocket trails go from lower atmosphere to upper atmosphere and don't disperse in the same way at different points because wind speeds, directions, shear, etc all vary with altitude.

The lower part of that trail is all smearing off to the left in a uniform way which indicates it's all at the same altitude. No rocket will fly to an altitude, stay there for awhile, then climb again. That's an inefficient launch profile plus it puts stress on the rocket. Oh, and rockets move REALLY fast.

It's an airplane.

 

I once saw a contrail like that form here. It was also at sunset, off to the west of here, and it just started at altitude slowly heading north. When it first started it looked very odd because it was so short so it almost looked like the contrail was the object itself. After about 5 minutes though it was long enough, and you could watch it getting longer to the north at a nice slow rate, that it was obviously a distant airplane.

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

This got out into the street today, and onto the MSM (main stream media). Adding a mystery rocket is good for ratings. Too bad contrails themselves don't get ratings, except here at The CombatAce. I'm going to guess that the last time a contrail got so much prime time was Jimmy Stewart's SAC movie.

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Jedi::

The lower part of that trail is all smearing off to the left in a uniform way which indicates it's all at the same altitude.

Good call. As far as my understanding goes, the exhaust is in supersaturated cold air, starting an expansive condensation chain reaction into cirrus ice crystal clouds and it falls into wind shear, thus spreading wide. These are my favorite types, giving a sense of massive Big Sky and vast distances. I use to watch them come out of the western sunset all the time in central Mississippie winters, shining like a gold and copper mix, where we had lots of east-west airliner flights. Here in Florida, we only get north-south flights so I never see these anymore. I miss them.

 

 

You see some board discussions about the "rocket plume." That's sunlight at the right angle. Notice the bright star-like image is not visible at later times, well after the trail passes the cloud. The sun is not hitting at the right angle then. Its a bit hard to do this over the StrikeFighters. Here is a few examples I got some time ago...Anyways the LOD models vanish far too quickly to really model distant sun reflection off metal aircraft. You can see these thing hundreds of miles away, looking like briefly shining stars at the tip of contrails when the low sun angle is right for the airplane and viewer.

 

The Draken on the right is reflecting the SF Sun to the game camera.

 

 

I had to put the MiG-19PM into an excessive nose up attitude to get the SF Sun to do this. Planes can act like mirrors, so a tiny bit of the sun will be seen hundreds of miles away like a tiny star and then fade out as the plane moves to a slightly different sun-plane-viewer angle.

Edited November 11, 2010 by Lexx_Luthor

[Fubar512 1,350]

Flight AWE808's contrail: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/09/mystery-missle-launch-off-california/

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Bezzle + Cashncarry over at MarketTicker forum have the best example pics I've seen yet during the Panic.

 

Single poast on page... 53 lol ~> http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=2258147

 

The potential of the Panic is men and women have the opportunity to finally know for themselves the vast distances some things can be seen in the atmosphere.

 

If only TheJetsims developers would pay attention.

Edited November 11, 2010 by Lexx_Luthor

[Capitaine Vengeur 263]

Mystery missile launch? Mmmm... I would put Moriarty, Blofeld, Dr No and Dr Evil on the first list of potential suspects...

[TX3RN0BILL 3]

If this really was just contrails from a commercial plane on a scheduled flight then this must be the biggest fail of the FAA and the U.S. military for not being able to say so right away - and given the high-tech nature of the U.S. I'm not convinced they didn't know or would be able to say right away what it was if it was just a harmless civilian plane (I bet the USAF watches civilian planes carefully ever after the 9-11 attacks). I say baloney!!! It was something else. 

[Fubar512 1,350]

I say baloney!!! It was something else. 

 

Yes, it had to be the new "SS E-ICBM" (Super Slow & Extremely - Irritating Contrail Belching Missile), launched by the Togo Imperium.

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

TX. the souls manning the FAA, military, etc... are mostly just normal, real life, men and women, like everybody else. They never look up. Nobody ever really does. There is no system in place for .gov "experts" to offer discussion of visual effects like this in our skies. Anyways, few if any official "experts" bother to look up at the sky, and watch it, for hours and hours, over years and years. Instead, they eat, drink, sleep, make babies, drive to work, etc... normal stuff.

 

 

If you are interested about this stuff, get your butt out and watch the sky for over a year, especially at sunsets. You will generally need "continental" winter weather with warm fronts, a clear view of the horizon, and east-west high altitude commercial traffic routes in your area to see this sunset effect. If that takes too long, you have to trust the weirdos that watch the sky for hours and hours at a time, over many years and years. A pair of binoculars, 7 x 50 minimum, is helpful in "zooming in" at things you see in the sky that catch your attention, like the briefly shining star that can often be seen at the tip of a contrail in the sunset at 200 miles distance. That "rocket plume" in the Panic video is just that -- sun bouncing off metal or reflective paint. Very few men or women have ever seen it, because they have never seen the sky. Kinda sad in a way.

 

 

TX::

If this really was just contrails from a commercial plane on a scheduled flight then this must be the biggest fail of the FAA and the U.S. military for not being able to say so right away - and given the high-tech nature of the U.S. I'm not convinced they didn't know or would be able to say right away what it was if it was just a harmless civilian plane (I bet the USAF watches civilian planes carefully ever after the 9-11 attacks). I say baloney!!! It was something else

[FastCargo 412]

Lexx is absolutely correct. There aren't folks in towers all along the coast watching the skies...that went out a long time ago.

 

Plus, no one is going to say "Yep, it was a commerical flight" right away because there may be something they don't know...good luck pinning down someone to an explanation that happens right this second. Far easier to say "Nope, it wasn't this, this or this" first, then come up with the actual explanation after EVERYTHING else is weeded out.

 

FC

[Fubar512 1,350]

The madness extends beyond contrails. I once watched a show on UFO hunters, where the self-proclaimed UFO-hunters set up at a location in New Mexico. Once it became dark, they pointed their low-light camera at what they called a "UFO". The footage had a time and date stamp clearly visible.

 

I fired up an appp that I use for star-gazing, set the coordinates to match the date, time, and the general area where these guys were filming...and low and behold, I discovered that they were tracking (and filming) a satellite, and calling it a UFO!

 

You just can't make this s**t up.

Edited November 13, 2010 by Fubar512

[+daddyairplanes 10,257]

DOD wont identify it cause they still dont want to talk about Aurora:lol: seriously though in this day and age i can believe they sat there and said "gee i don't know what it was"

[Caesar 305]

If it were a missile, I'm pretty sure we'd know - that thing would have punched right through the UEWR's coverage at Beale AFB (UEWR = AN/FPS-132 Upgraded Early Warning Radar; the same system we operate at Thule AB, ours is just a little newer ).

[TX3RN0BILL 3]

TX. the souls manning the FAA, military, etc... are mostly just normal, real life, men and women, like everybody else. They never look up. Nobody ever really does. There is no system in place for .gov "experts" to offer discussion of visual effects like this in our skies. Anyways, few if any official "experts" bother to look up at the sky, and watch it, for hours and hours, over years and years. Instead, they eat, drink, sleep, make babies, drive to work, etc... normal stuff.

 

 

If you are interested about this stuff, get your butt out and watch the sky for over a year, especially at sunsets. You will generally need "continental" winter weather with warm fronts, a clear view of the horizon, and east-west high altitude commercial traffic routes in your area to see this sunset effect. If that takes too long, you have to trust the weirdos that watch the sky for hours and hours at a time, over many years and years. A pair of binoculars, 7 x 50 minimum, is helpful in "zooming in" at things you see in the sky that catch your attention, like the briefly shining star that can often be seen at the tip of a contrail in the sunset at 200 miles distance.  That "rocket plume" in the Panic video is just that -- sun bouncing off metal or reflective paint. Very few men or women have ever seen it, because they have never seen the sky. Kinda sad in a way.

 

 

TX::

 

What I was implying was that the contrails are at position X in the map, it should really be just a question of checking the flight path data from radar screens/plotters - I mean, I admit I don't work in the "air industry" but I guess that ATC has some sort of machinery that keeps track of flights - well, at least civilian ones   so it would just be a question of going to the back logs and checking: What plane went through that place at that time - simple as that. Or don't they have that?

[Fubar512 1,350]

What I was implying was that the contrails are at position X in the map, it should really be just a question of checking the flight path data from radar screens/plotters - I mean, I admit I don't work in the "air industry" but I guess that ATC has some sort of machinery that keeps track of flights - well, at least civilian ones   so it would just be a question of going to the back logs and checking: What plane went through that place at that time - simple as that. Or don't they have that?

 

I already linked to this THREE posts above your first one....

 

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/09/mystery-missle-launch-off-california/

Edited November 15, 2010 by Fubar512

[TX3RN0BILL 3]

I already linked to this THREE posts above your first one....

 

http://wattsupwithth...off-california/

 

One more reason to be surprised as to why no ready answers were given. Heck, call it an "awareness-test" or whatever - answers should have been delivered promptly (and I'm betting the military tracks civilian flights just as well or better than the civilian ATC)... Makes those who's task it is to defend the country by being always vigilant look like they're sleeping on the job when they give a "I don't know" answer to such an apparently simply answerable question... UNLESS, it really wasn't what everybody is lead to believe it was, and hoped that someone came with the right kind of smokescreen (pun intended) that everybody could swallow without choking on it...

 

 

*gets tinfoilhat out of the closet*

Edited November 15, 2010 by TX3RN0BILL

[serverandenforcer 33]

I think the reason why they gave the "I don't know" answer is because of how unusual the contrail was. Nobody wants to give the wrong answer just incase it could have been something. Obviously, if it was a real threat to national security, it would more than likely be detected on our radars and our guys at base-ops would send out an up-channel non-classified message of a possible secuirty incident or some kind of threat to national security. The guys at base-ops didn't notice anything on radar being unusual so they didn't up-channel anything at all (probably because contrails from airliners aren't a threat to national security). So the guys at the Pentagon were never notified and were probably mystified by the appearance of the contrail when the media showed images of it. Not everybody at the Pentagon is a "Mr. Know-it All" so there is going to be a lot of speculation instead of direct and correct answers when something like this comes up. It would be quite irresponsible of them to go screaming off that it's North Korean subs off the coast of Californai launching missiles when it was just an airliner, and it would be equally irresponsible of them to say it's just nothing when it really could be something. Even though we live in the age of fast foods, microwave meals, and information on demand via internet, not everything is instant and readily available. Another thing to note as well, if you were to view this contrail formation from a different position, lets say 100 - 200 miles north, it probably would've just looked like a regualr contrail and nothing significant at all. Back in '99 or 2000, I remember Vandenberg launched a rocket just after dusk and the rocket's jet trails were illuminated up in high altitude region by the sun. Because it was dark outside, it looked like a comet was coming down to crash into earth. A lot of people were freaken out and NASA got bombarded by phone calls throughout the evening.

 

Edited November 15, 2010 by serverandenforcer

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Woa server great video thanks. I love how the trail gets bright when it extends into the sunshine at high altitudes. And the 2nd stage exhaust spreading out into thin air near space is sweet. How to do this over the SF, with the booster edit -- sustainer *visual* effects/emitters never having worked, or did TK fix that in The SF2 sometime?

 

Here's another with wild spread...

 

~>

Edited November 16, 2010 by Lexx_Luthor