Launch News Mystery missile launched off US Pacific Coast near LA

[Hielor]

For comparison, this is an actual rocket launch around sunset:

Note how the light hitting the plume increases in intensity as you go up? Compare that to the shot of the California "missile." Now compare it to what contrails look like at sunset:

See how they're uniformly bright?

The California "missile" is a whole lot closer to one of these images than the other (and it's not the shuttle one).

 

[SiberianTiger]

So we have a solid rocket popping out of nowhere in a shipping area not far from the US coast? Well...

 

[Urwumpe]

For comparison, this is an actual rocket launch around sunset:

Launches in opposite direction, eastward instead of westward. The Space Shuttle launched into dark side of Earth, this one would in both cases (aircraft and rocket) stay inside the scattering for a while. Also, how would the aircraft contrail go on until the aircraft disappears below the horizon again? The aircraft would "set" much further in the north west if it keeps its course, and have a very distinct curve unless it passes exactly overhead you. A rocket would just arc towards the western horizon after reaching maximum elevation.

Also, the lowest part of the California contrail is in front of the dark troposphere mistiness, and does not come from inside/behind it. And it is above a high cloud layer (clouds that exist between 20 kft and 35 kft) at the end of the sequence.

Don't ignore the atmosphere and just focus on the contrail alone. Sometimes the simplest solution is just not the right one. Even if it feels much more comfortable, since it explains a lot of the other things.

See how they're uniformly bright?

The California "missile" is a whole lot closer to one of these images than the other (and it's not the shuttle one).

Just one light source in the videos?

 

[SiberianTiger]

Seriously, find some dramatic looking airplane contrail pictures here:
http://letchikleha.livejournal.com/96935.html#cutid1
http://letchikleha.livejournal.com/96639.html#cutid1

---------- Post added at 14:47 ---------- Previous post was at 14:46 ----------

A blog post proving that the sighting was of a jet contrail actually:
http://uncinus.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/4/

 

[FuzzyLogic]

Sometimes the simplest solution is just not the right one. Even if it feels much more comfortable, since it explains a lot of the other things.

Actually, I find the contrail hypothesis quite scary. An inidentified jet flying off the lanes is certainly something to worry about.

For some reason, I'm more comfortable with the idea of a weapons test. It doesn't have to be a super-duper-doomsday device, a simple concealed weapons system just like the one SiberianTiger posted would explain both the launch and the secrecy.

A blog post proving that the sighting was of a jet contrail actually:

OMG, have a look at the comments. The irrationalists have blended both hypotesis into a single conspiracist mashup involving the US military deliberately trying to shoot down a civilian airliner which may or may not have even existed!

What have we done :rofl:

 

[N_Molson]

What about a military jet ? There are a lot of airbases on the West Coast, no ? Maybe a stealth fighter for a top-secret radar detection exercise or something like that ?

 

[SiberianTiger]

http://www.whitelabelspace.com/

Nov 10, 2010
Test Launch Successful
Noordwijk, Wednesday 10'th November, 2010, The White Label Space GLXP Team has announced that all systems are functional in the small engineering test satellite launched yesterday from a floating platform of the coast of Los Angeles. The launch also provided some unexpected entertainment for residents in coastal areas of California.

With the launch towards the west, the satellite was injected into a special retrograde Low Earth Orbit (LEO) in order to make it more difficult for other teams in the competition to send spy satellites to uncover the technical secrets while the satellite completes its mission to test critical hardware and subsystem for the team's upcoming moon lander mission.

White Label Space Team Leader, Steve Allen, released a statement about the launch from the mission operations centre after the successful orbital injection. He apologized once again to the X PRIZE Foundation for forgetting to officially announce the GLXP launch attempt. "We are working to such a tight schedule developing our moon mission that sometimes we just get a little bit carried away" he admitted.

This was the second launch of the White Label Space team, after the earlier launch from Barcelona in 2008.

Posted by White Label Space at 9:43 AM Links to this post
Labels: humour

 

[garyw]

Nice, I fell for that for a minute. If it was true I think they'd had a lot of federal charges to face!

 

[N_Molson]

They forgot to officially announce their launch attempt :blink: That's a good one :lol:

 

[Hielor]

Actually, I find the contrail hypothesis quite scary. An inidentified jet flying off the lanes is certainly something to worry about.

Except it's not unidentified (or "inidentified," whatever that is):
http://uncinus.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/4/

 

[deltawing777]

Its a ups cargo or passenger jet going from hawaii to arizona. Its just contrails. Way to slow to be a missle and what looks like exhaust jet is actually the sun reflecting off the skin of the aircraft.Its the perspective of the camera that makes it look like its going up but its not,more like comming at you

 

[SiberianTiger]

No, it was a fire-and-forget missile. US Navy fired it and forgot about it. :lol:

 

[FuzzyLogic]

(or "inidentified," whatever that is)

It's a typo. 'I' and 'U' are next to each other in a QWERTY keyboard. It doesn't take contrail science to guess that

Yes, the culprit (AWE808) had already been identified by the time of my post, and the "missile" hypothesis was almost completely ruled out. I just wanted to point that there's nothing intrinsically scary about a weapons test!.

 

[statisticsnerd]

Mystery solved!!!

 

[Ghostrider]

Mystery solved!!!

Looks like SHADO is still operating fine after all these years.:thumbup:

 

[JEL]

These things are always a lot of fun to follow

My 2 cents; an aircraft dumping fuel over the pacific, or maybe just contrails.

The curvature along the sky seems plausible to me (the earth is after all just a ball). Also the light; dark at the 'bottom' because this is where the atmosphere is thickest and the distance is the greatest (looking from LA at a straight-line eye-sight), red in the 'middle' because this is in the sunset, dark again at the 'top' because the flight-path is now entering below the sunset and into the twilight shadow.

I'd be more scared of earth-quakes at night.

 

[DoyleChris]

If it was a jet than FAA needs to come out and say it was and show radar and radio logs of it

 

[Urwumpe]

If it was a jet than FAA needs to come out and say it was and show radar and radio logs of it

Why does it need to?

 

[Wishbone]

To avoid allegations that it flew into Area 51?

 

[george7378]

I'm pretty sure this was a contrail - there are some more links on this page:

http://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=11&month=11&year=2010

There was a 757 passing over at the same time, travelling in the same direction:

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AWE808/history/20101108/1955Z/PHNL/KPHX