WTF?!? Did you know there was a missile shot last night off CA coast?

[Troke]

"...It seems to me that if the U.S. came out and owned the missile as a U.S. missile, then a foreign country (such as China?) could come out and discredit the U.S. claim. Hence . . . the U.S. is saying nothing..."

And precisely how would China do that other than just naturally take the word of a Commie country over that of ours.

BTW, I think the Chinese have already spoken. They claim it was a US missile accidentally launched.

 

[L.A.B.]

The one thing that none of the missile nay-sayers have yet addressed is this:
IF that was a plane coming in from over the horizon, it was headed basically east or southeast.
b]How, then, can you see the glow that's clearly visible at the head of the contrail?[/b]
Yes, there is often a visible glow from jet engines if you're looking directly into the rear of them from fairly short range, BUT if this was a plane headed inland you wouldn't be looking at the rear of it. You'd be looking at it from underneath at an angle from nose to tail on its starboard side if it has not yet reached the same longitude you're viewing it from, or more or less directly at its starboard side if it HAS reached the same longitude.
My take: The people who have arrived at a wrong conclusion via optical illusion are the folks who are claiming this to be an airliner coming in from over the horizon.

The glow at the head of the contrail is a rocket motor exhaust.

Ding-Ding-Ding. FANTASTIC POST regarding perspectives!

 

[ainitfunny]

I am not going to put my tin foil hat on yet but, a KCBS/KCAL news helicopter had a hard landing this morning & lost their tail rotor after experiencing engine trouble... No one was injured. It's the same station whose news helicopter recorded & reported missile launch.

ETA: News story
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lan...r-forced-to-make-hard-landing-in-pacoima.html
News Helicopter forced to make hard landing in Pacoima
November 12, 2010*|* 8:50 am

A news helicopter used by CBS-TV Channel 2 and KCAL-TV Channel 9 was forced to make an emergency landing Friday at Whiteman Airport in Pacoima because of engine failure, but the two people inside escaped safely.
The aircraft landed about 8 a.m. at the San Fernando Valley airport frequently used by news aircraft, said Brian Humphrey, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department.
The tail rotor and boom assembly were separated from the body of the helicopter, but it was unclear if it happened in the air or upon impact.
The National Travel Safety Board will investigate the cause of the emergency landing, Humphrey said.

THE POST ABOVE CERTAINLY DESERVES NOTICE AND COMMENT.

If the missile was a "shot across the bow" from an enemy of the USA to bring compliance from our leaders to their agenda, then the above "accident" was ALSO a "shot across the bow" to the NEWS station that DARED to report to the American people something that our new ("zero tolerance" of a free press) political leaders wish to "teach" to the media that any story of real consequence like this MUST BE VETTED AND APPROVED BY THE GOVERNMENT BEFORE RELEASING OBSERVATIONS, FACTS OR TRUTH TO THE PUBLIC.

They did not get "permission" to tell the public about what they saw or heard about. But now, perhaps they will "get with the program".

 

[mzkitty]

THE POST ABOVE CERTAINLY DESERVES NOTICE AND COMMENT.

If the missile was a "shot across the bow" from an enemy of the USA to bring compliance from our leaders to their agenda, then the above "accident" was ALSO a "shot across the bow" to the NEWS station that DARED to report to the American people something that our new ("zero tolerance" of a free press) political leaders wish to "teach" to the media that any story of real consequence like this MUST BE VETTED AND APPROVED BY THE GOVERNMENT BEFORE RELEASING OBSERVATIONS, FACTS OR TRUTH TO THE PUBLIC.

They did not get "permission" to tell the public about what they saw or heard about. But now, perhaps they will "get with the program".

I think a lot of people were thinking that, but you said it.

 

[et2]

Chinese Submarine was not the first on US coast

Posted on 12. Nov, 2010 by Raja Mujtaba in Hot Topics
[Translate]

Sneaking subs into waters off the west coast — its happened before

By Wayne Madsen

The firing of a submarine-launched ballistic missile by a Chinese Jin-class submarine off the coast of southern California last Monday at the height of evening rush hour in Los Angeles was not the first time the U.S. Navy's anti-submarine warfare sensors in the Pacific have failed.

In 1981, a Soviet Victor-class nuclear submarine successfully evaded the Navy's Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) network of underwater hydrophones, Towed Array Sensor System (TASS) ships, and P-3 sonobuoy-equipped aircraft and popped up off the Oregon coast alongside a Soviet fishing fishing trawler.

While serving as the Operations Officer at the Navy's SOSUS station at Coos Head, Oregon, this editor received a phone call from the Coast Guard station in Brookings, Oregon reporting that some local fishermen sighted a Soviet submarine alongside a fishing trawler flying the Soviet flag some 30 miles off Brookings.

The incident resulted in the sending of a "Bravo" visual sighting on a Navy-Wide Formatted Message Reporting System (RAINFORM) message to the Commander Oceanographic System Pacific (COMOCEANSYSPAC) in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Since the clear majority of Soviet submarine contact reports were SOSUS RED messages, meaning they submarine had been detected by the SOSUS acoustic arrays, the sending of a BRAVO visual sighting message to the Navy's top commands in Pearl Harbor created a political storm.

The Navy's higher-ups immediately began to question the veracity of the Oregon fishermen and the Coast Guard in an effort to limit the damage. The reaction by the Navy was similar to the cover story now being issued by the Pentagon that the missile plume witnessed some 35 miles off the California coast was actually from a US Airways flight from Honolulu to Phoenix, a model rocket, or an optical illusion.

In 1981, a Victor-III Soviet nuclear attack submarine, armed with torpedos and anti-ship missiles, popped up previously undetected some 30 miles off the Oregon coast. The submarine had undergone significant noise-reduction modifications, with its turbine and propeller cavitation being quieted to avoid detection by U.S. Navy acoustic sensors in the Pacific. The Navy, embarrassed, covered up the incident.

The Navy, clearly embarrassed over the undetected presence of a Chinese Jin-class SSBN submarine off the coast of Los Angeles, is, some 40 years after the Victor-III incident, continuing its age-old tradition of covering up when it screws up. Aiding and abetting the Pentagon are a group of recently-minted "experts" from NASA, the Discovery Channel Rupert Murdoch's array of claptrap publications, Pentagon-funded web sites and think tanks, and other "usual suspects" in the conspiracy theory proffering business.

The Pentagon, shown to have wasted billions of dollars on a useless ballistic missile defense system, is working overtime with the media and on the Internet to cover up the latest debacle. However, even some reporters who cover the Pentagon full-time are beginning to question the Pentagon's version of events last Monday night over the skies west of Los Angeles.

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist, author and syndicated columnist. He has written

for several renowned papers and blogs.

Madsen is a regular contributor on Russia Today. He has been a frequent political and national security commentator on Fox News and has also appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, and MS-NBC. Madsen has taken on Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity on their television shows. He has been invited to testifty as a witness before the US House of Representatives, the UN Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and an terrorism investigation panel of the French government.

As a U.S. Naval Officer, he managed one of the first computer security programs for the U.S. Navy. He subsequently worked for the National Security Agency, the Naval Data Automation Command, Department of State, RCA Corporation, and Computer Sciences Corporation.

Madsen is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), Association for Intelligence Officers (AFIO), and the National Press Club. He is a regular contributor to Opinion Maker.

http://www.opinion-maker.org/2010/11/chinese-submarine-was-not-the-first-on-us-coast/

 

[et2]

“Missile” Fired Off California Coast On Same Day That Chinese Sub Surprised US Carrier Group
Posted by Jim Hoft on Thursday, November 11, 2010, 2:17 PM

Coincidence?
The missile fired off of the California coast this week appeared on the same day that a Chinese sub surprised US officials when it appeared suddenly in a US carrier group back in 2007.

Back in 2007 a Chinese submarine surprised American military chiefs when it popped up close to the massive U.S.S. Kitty Hawk.
HotAir reported back in 2007:

American military chiefs have been left dumbstruck by an undetected Chinese submarine popping up at the heart of a recent Pacific exercise and close to the vast U.S.S. Kitty Hawk – a 1,000ft supercarrier with 4,500 personnel on board.

By the time it surfaced the 160ft Song Class diesel-electric attack submarine is understood to have sailed within viable range for launching torpedoes or missiles at the carrier.

According to senior Nato officials the incident caused consternation in the U.S. Navy.
The Americans had no idea China’s fast-growing submarine fleet had reached such a level of sophistication, or that it posed such a threat.

Now this week there was a mysterious “missile” in the sky over California?

Also, authorities have not yet disclosed what caused a cruise ship to lose its power. The event supposedly began at 6 AM roughly about 10-12 hours before the possible missile launch.
If nothing else, this is interesting.

http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.co...hat-chinese-sub-appeared-in-us-carrier-group/

 

[dieseltrooper]

Now that we have pretty well laid this at the feet of the PLAN, anyone venture a guess regarding the odds of the Chicom sub making it home? I'd like to think we have sufficient ASW assets in PACFLT to hunt them down and send them to the bottom...

 

[et2]

deleted xxxxxxx

 

[FarOut]

Troke, the one thing the US government cannot do is to appear helpless. If the Big Zero had gone on TV and said "yes, that was a Chinese missile" then martial law, bank holidays, lockdowns; none of that would have been an acceptable response. Everyone, and I mean everyone, in the US, from Congress to Joe Sixpack would have been asking, "OK, what are you going to do about China?" and the answer would have been... nothing. We can't attack them, we can't boycott them, we can't even say nasty things about them or they'll sell our bonds and crash our economy. So instead we have lies and an attempted coverup.

Dieseltrooper, if they made it to within 35 miles of the coast without detection I'd say there's a good chance they got away undetected. If not, again, what are we going to do? Sink a foreign warship in international waters? That's an act of war.

 

[et2]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/12/earlyshow/main7047942.shtml


Passengers Describe Cruise Ship Fire at Sea
As Fire That Set Carnival Splendor Adrift Is Probed, Passengers Recount Accident as an "Earthquake ... on a Boat"



(CBS) A string of investigations is already underway into the fire that crippled the Carnival cruise ship Splendor.

With its 4,500 passengers back on dry land, the ship is due to be moved to a dry dock for inspection today.

Meanwhile, passengers are sharing their stories of their nightmare voyage.

It was early Monday morning when the smell of smoke awoke many passengers. Chris Harlan had his video camera going as thick black smoke rose near the stern.

The passengers were told that in spite of the smoke, there was no fire. "They tried to calm us by saying it was 'flameless fire,'" Jackie Harlan said.

And did anyone believe that? "No!" she laughed.

Soon, there was no denying the fire - or the extent of the damage. The ship lost power, adrift about 44 miles off the coast of Mexico and 200 miles out of San Diego. There was no hot water, hot food or air conditioning. The swimming pool was shut because the pumps weren't working. Toilets was malfunctioning and backing up.


Some passengers had nothing to do. "We were bored, we were hungry, we couldn't lay out because it wasn't sunny," said Amy Watts.

And no more fancy cruise ship dining. "You started seeing some peanut butter, which everybody was excited about," said Katie Sokulski. Dad Stan Allen agreed: "We didn't even know how much we loved peanut butter!"

Many on board were celebrating special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries. For Ashley and Josh Vest, it was a second honeymoon.

When asked what the first thing she wanted, Ashley Vest said, "I want a hot shower."

As the ship was pulled toward San Diego, the passengers had little idea what a big story their ill-fated cruise had become, reports CBS News correspondent John Blackstone.

Finally on solid ground they were greeted by a horde of cameras and reporters, as well as family and friends. The sentiment: Good to be home.

There is plenty of relief that this cruise had a happy ending, but investigators want to know what went wrong, because a ship this size - stranded and burning 40 miles out to sea - could have ended very badly.

Appearing exclusively on CBS' "The Early Show," Jinger and Mark Kalin and their 9-year-old daughter Parker - who were on board the stranded cruise ship - were all smiles this morning as they described their experience.

Jinger Kalin said their cabin was right above where the "incident" happened. "It woke us up, actually," she said. "It felt like a loud and rumbling vibration. I sincerely forgot where I was and I woke up and I thought, Oh, it's an earthquake! Then I realized we were on a boat!"

Mark Kalin said they lived by the announcements made over the emergency loudspeakers.

When asked by anchor Harry Smith if there were chaos or screaming in the hallways, Mark said no. "But it did feel, initially, like there was no system - when we realized we were dead in the water, first when we realized no toilets, no power. The first time they served food I think it surprised everybody, because it was barely a piece of bread, one piece of bread had a little hot dog weenie sliced up in it.

"We didn't see a lot of crew," he said.

Mark said the food that was served was very creative. "There was just this flat pan with chocolate, it looked like melted chocolate ice cream," he recalled. "I said, 'What is this?' The steward said, 'Milk shake, sir!'"

Food had to be air-lifted to the ship before it was towed back to port.

Jinger said the people on the ship were actually pretty well-behaved, considering he situation: "I think we all kind of made lemonade out of lemons - I mean, what are you going to do? It could have been worse, right? The ship could have, you know, could have been sinking!"

Mark Kalin said in their predicament the passengers bound together. "We were on the boat part of a group of 168 magicians - we were actually supposed to perform!" he said. "Towards the end of the cruise, when we knew that it was coming to the end . . . a lot of the magicians went out to perform for the passengers."

For young Parker Palin it was her very first cruise. "So I was kind of disappointed!" she laughed. "The first day I was so excited about getting on the cruise ship and everything, and it got terminated!"

 

[dieseltrooper]

It's a long way home for that crew. Remember the post showing how they may have gone via south pacific?
Launching from our back patio was a bold move, calling for bold action on our part. Either they are ready to go to war with us, or they feel that the POTUS is lacking the spine to spank them. We cannot afford to let this go unanswered. Sortie whatever assets that are needed to bag the sub before they can get home.

 

[sopo]

Firing a missile that close to our coast without telling us first isn't an act of war?

 

[et2]

There was some talk on a web site (can't find it now) that Russia detected a EMP pulse at the time that cruise ship lost power, and that it came from a Chinese sub. They claim the missile launch came from a USA sub to put the Chinese back in their place.

Just food for thought.

 

[FarOut]

Firing a missile that close to our coast without telling us first isn't an act of war?

Nope. International waters. Bad Chinese, bad. We will send you a severe diplomatic note.

Dieseltrooper: seen any emergency mobilization of ships? Anything moving off the California coast? Oh wait, there's no reason to do that, it was an airplane contrail.

Et2: IMO disinfo. If we were responding to the Chinese we would have launched near China, not near California.

 

[ainitfunny]

Troke, the one thing the US government cannot do is to appear helpless. If the Big Zero had gone on TV and said "yes, that was a Chinese missile" then martial law, bank holidays, lockdowns; none of that would have been an acceptable response. Everyone, and I mean everyone, in the US, from Congress to Joe Sixpack would have been asking, "OK, what are you going to do about China?" and the answer would have been... nothing. We can't attack them, we can't boycott them, we can't even say nasty things about them or they'll sell our bonds and crash our economy. So instead we have lies and an attempted coverup.

Dieseltrooper, if they made it to within 35 miles of the coast without detection I'd say there's a good chance they got away undetected. If not, again, what are we going to do? Sink a foreign warship in international waters? That's an act of war.

That is why our government should have LIED and said it was a "US missile test". If they were "properly" managing public perception and their diplomatic and international credibility, that is what they should have said and the whole world would have just said, "Oh, ok." and not even noticed or spoke of it.

 

[L.A.B.]

Double post deleted-

 

[L.A.B.]

Now that we have pretty well laid this at the feet of the PLAN, anyone venture a guess regarding the odds of the Chicom sub making it home? I'd like to think we have sufficient ASW assets in PACFLT to hunt them down and send them to the bottom...

What's to say six others, or even a dozen are just laying low.

As aintitfunny has pointed out earlier, this is not a confidence builder for the American people.

ETA: The best story our mil-folk could leak out now T-Clancy style is that the dirty-hazy-brown contrail was designed to mimic the OP-FORCE Cruise Missiles while being armed with convential warheads that leave no processing reactor signature.

Fired from our stealth subs in some form of covert war, it would be a weapon of plausible denial-------->

 

[et2]

http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1421.htm

Chinese EMP Attack Prompts US Missile Strike After Cruise Ship Crippled

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers

A new report circulating in the Kremlin today prepared for Prime Minister Putin by Director Anatoly Perminov of the Russian Federal Space Agency states that an Arkon-1 military satellite monitoring the western coastal regions of North America detected an “EMP anomalous event” occurring on November 8th at 0600 Pacific Standard Time (-8 hours GMT) that bore the “direct signature” of a YJ-62 subsonic anti-ship missile fired from a Chinese People’s Liberation Navy Type 041 submarine (NATO code name Yuan-Class) [photo 2nd left] known to be patrolling approximately 200 kilometers off United States coast.

Nearly 11 hours after this EMP “event”, this report further says, Arkon-1 then detected a BGM-109 (Tomahawk) subsonic cruise missile launched from a US Navy Ohio-Class submarine operating off the coast of California [photo bottom left] on a “training mission” from its home port located at US Navy’s Kitsap Base in Washington State and was enroute to the largest American Naval Base on the US west coast in San Diego, California.

Note: A Russian military intelligence (GRU) addendum to this report states that the “training mission” the Ohio-Class submarine was on is related to a new US law passed this year allowing for the first time in history for women to serve on US Navy subs and was an “operational exercise” testing female Naval Officers competence prior to their first “operational deployment”.

The “immediate effect” of the Chinese Navy’s firing of their EMP missile, this report continues, was the “catastrophic crippling” of the US based cruise ship Carnival Splendor [photo 3rd left] that stranded its nearly 4,500 passengers and crew in a “dead in the water” boat and prompting the Americans to send the US Navy’s Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier, warplanes, and supply aircraft to protect it from further attack after all of its electronic systems were destroyed.

An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) such as was used upon the Carnival Splendor is a burst of electromagnetic radiation that causes rapidly changing electric fields (or magnetic fields) that when coupling with electrical/electronic systems produces damaging current and voltage surges destroying all non-hardened electrical systems.

The US Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) had previously warned that American ships were vulnerable to such attacks with EMP Assessment Group Leader of Blaise Corbett stating that “the consequences of failing to take appropriate precautions to protect fleet mission critical systems can ultimately prove catastrophic to the Navy’s mission.”

The purpose of this Chinese EMP upon an American ship, this report says, was twofold: 1.) A test of the EMP weapon itself that in a war against the Americans and would be used against their Naval Fleet and Marine Forces operating out of California and the west coast of the US, and 2.) A test of the response time for American retaliatory measures against any Chinese warship attacking the US and/or its interests in the Pacific.

The GRU further states that the timing of this attack was timed even more crucially due to China’s testing of America’s response time during a period when their President, as Commander In Chief of all US Military Forces, was out of the country, as Obama was as he was in India at the time.

The Americans response time of nearly 11 hours between the EMP attack on the Carnival Splendor and the US retaliatory strike, the GRU states, “virtually assured” that the Chinese submarine responsible for the attack escaped, but which they further point out may have been intended by the Americans so as not to escalate this crisis.

To the geo-political reason(s) for a Communist Chinese attack upon the Americans just days before the crucially important G-20 Summit in South Korea, which both President’s Hu and Obama will be attending, this report says was due to the United States, in essence, declaring total economic war upon the rest of the world by its printing of nearly $1 Trillion US Dollars in order to monetize its staggering debt and that China warned:

“If the United States can increase the volume of dollars and it can transmit inflation to other countries to lessen the pressure of debt, then it will bring about a catastrophic influence on the world.”

Typical of the United States propaganda media organs in telling their citizens about the true events relating to this crisis, it as if they have put themselves in total Cold War mode reminiscent of the 1940’s to the late 1980’s when they, likewise, failed to inform them of the many incidents or US Soldier deaths related to that conflict.

Most dangerous about the American people not being informed of the true and tragic state of our world today is their not being able to prepare for the much larger conflicts to come, especially in light of China’s Communists vowing that they won’t go down without a fight. A fight, mind you, that now appears not only a sure thing, but imminent.

© November 10, 2010 EU and US all rights reserved. Permission to use this report in its entirety is granted under the condition it is linked back to its original source at WhatDoesItMean.Com.

 

[L.A.B.]

A real quick determining factor as to the bull$#!+ness of this story.

How many pace-maker cruise passengers came in to port out of the freezer on blocks of dry ice?

 

[Double_A]

really now, posting scorcha faal as an explanation for this?

I talked to a friend a former missileer, from USAF. He read through some of the stuff I printed out.

His comments were short and to the point....

Who cares? Yea it was a missile.

Chinese in our face?, so what, we are in their face all the time too.

I asked his why didn't military come out and lie saying it was a test of one of ours and crush the discussion, wouldn't that be easier?

He said military doesn't give a shit about what we think. The military lies even when they don't have to.

He's not wont to talk about his time in service and I didn't press him any further.

 

[Archetype]

Well , I saw three "launches" this morning -- the center one (the purely vertical one, if the attachment shows the pic) was aligned directly north-south, which apparently "doesn't happen", and if I'd have been in a helicopter or aircraft, it would have appeared to emerge out of Canada, so I guess our neighbors to the north are mad at us as well.

[edit: comes back as not a valid image file after several retries. Forget it]

 

[eens]

really now, posting scorcha faal as an explanation for this?

I talked to a friend a former missileer, from USAF. He read through some of the stuff I printed out.

His comments were short and to the point....

Who cares? Yea it was a missile.

Chinese in our face?, so what, we are in their face all the time too.

I asked his why didn't military come out and lie saying it was a test of one of ours and crush the discussion, wouldn't that be easier?

He said military doesn't give a shit about what we think. The military lies even when they don't have to.

He's not wont to talk about his time in service and I didn't press him any further.

Wow...

 

[buff]

Originally Posted by Double_A
really now, posting scorcha faal as an explanation for this?

I agree with this...keep the woo woo out and it won't get moved

 

[Archetype]

"vertical" & north-south contrails do occur - and that was a 737 doing the middle "vertical" one - verified through binoculars, not something supersonic. And if they would have been lit up by a setting sun, they might look reddish, with the aircraft itself reflecting some light in a fire-like glint

 

[L.A.B.]

So what happened to this thread? Did it get sucked through some fusion center in the windy city?

I've been out of Dodge for a week; any new news?

Back in 62 they we had 13 days in October. In 2010 were just too A.D.D. as a nation to think beyond the week.

aintitfunny- you summed it up on page 15 & maric nailed it down shortly thereafter while quoting you.

My perception is along the lines or marics. Yes were being desentized; but in such a way as to induce less confidence and more fear.

*Clowns to the left of us, Jokers to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you*

 

[Double_A]

This is the contrail of a jet traveling west, during dusk. Cool eh?

 

[maric]

This is the contrail of a jet traveling west, during dusk. Cool eh?

Yup, cool. Too bad it dosen't have all those spirals in it like the missle had.

 

[mt4design]

D_A's shot is much more typical of the jet contrails seen here over the skies in So Cal.

It's a big-ass sky and I watch jets traverse it all the time, sometimes going amazingly fast from horizon to horizon leaving contrails as they pass overhead.

Pictures are a 2 dimensional media much more than a video, especially when their is no decernable depth of field.

In the video, there is clearly depth of field AND sequential frames, not a single image.

And, as maric mentions, you don't see the corkscrew in a contrail you see in the missile contrail from the other evening.

 

[mt4design]

INTERVIEW WITH PHOTOJOURNALIST WHO CAPTURED THE VIDEO

How smoky plume in sky drew the eyes of the world

By BRIAN STELTER and WILLIAM J. BROAD

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Nov 15, 2010

LINK

LOS ANGELES >> Gil Leyvas has been a photojournalist on board a television news helicopter for more than a decade. He has seen countless airplanes and their wispy contrails. What he saw — and recorded — near Los Angeles on Nov. 4 and 8 looked nothing like the trail from an airplane. It looked, to him, like the launching of a missile.

The first time, it looked like a far-off plume of smoke somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. The second time, it appeared to be rising into the air, a large vertical column set against the bright orange sky at sunset. It was spectacular.

The sunset video piqued the attention of KCBS, the TV station Leyvas works for, and by dawn the next day, last Tuesday, news anchors were speaking of a “mystery missile,” one that apparently posed no danger to Los Angeles but that baffled the people who saw it. By the end of the day, the video had garnered worldwide attention, which the absence of an official government explanation only magnified.

All the authorities could say at first was that there was no radar evidence of any craft in the area. So people put forward all manner of theories: It was a classified Navy test. It was a provocation by a foreign power. It was a publicity stunt for a television show about aliens.

On Wednesday, about 30 hours after the “mystery missile” started attracting news media attention, a Pentagon spokesman said that “there is no evidence to suggest that this is anything else other than a condensation trail from an aircraft.” That same day, news coverage took a sharp turn, with many reporters, and experts, concluding that what Leyvas had seen was an airplane or, barring that, an optical illusion. Some experts chastised media outlets for running with a half-baked, whole-hyped story.

That has not stopped the guesswork, however. And it has not stopped Leyvas from wondering what caused the contrails. “I’m trained to look for something that’s out of the ordinary, and this was out of the ordinary,” he said in an interview on Thursday.

Leyvas said that he had never seen an airplane contrail that resembled the contrails on Nov. 4 and Nov. 8. In fact, while he was recording the contrail on Nov. 8, he briefly panned the camera away when he saw a second contrail in the distance, only to discover that the second one had been caused by a jetliner. “There was no comparison at all” between the two, he said, because the mysterious one was several times bigger.

He added, “The video speaks for itself.”