Things like this realy make you go "hmm?"

[Brett]

News helicopter catches apparent missile launch off the coast of California on film.  DOD is clueless.  Any speculators out their want to give a guess as to what it may have been?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/09/california-contrail-defence-department-missile

 

[Old Fart]

Caught this on the news this morning.
Everyone was hush hush on it.

[Pat/Rick]

Interesting. Kind of shows just how easy a missile with an EMP weapon could be launched inland from the sea. A few miles up over the middle of the CONUS and hello 19th century. Nobody knows/knew anything about it huh??

[powderman]

Be interesting to see how this plays out. POWDERMAN. 

[guzzijohn]

Quote from Powderman:

Be interesting to see how this plays out. POWDERMAN.   [/quote

Better head for that shelter because I am quite sure you will be able to tie this to Muslims living in the USA.
GuzziJiohn

[victorcharlie]

Maybe a bunch of rocket enthusiast who got a little to enthusiastic?

[Pat/Rick]

Rocket enthusiest was my first impression. Until the report said 35 miles off the coast of california, north of catalina Island.The report also did not clarify that the launch was land or sea based. The map showed no land, can we assume it was sea based? 35 miles is beyond territorial limits and why would enthusiests go through that added expense just to launch a rocket unless it exceeded civilian limits? Are there civilian limitations?  The Navy usually owns up to sea launch tests don't they? Has this been censored or will we see it tonight on the news? A test? By whom?

[myronman3]

our enemies know we are weak right now.   this is not good. 

[saddlebum]

Hard to believe that it was an OOPS moment for someone.
Don't those things have launch codes and require multiple personel to launch.
Maybe I just watch too much TV!

[MGMorden]

Hard to believe that it was an OOPS moment for someone.

Yeah - these things have too many failsafes to launch on "accident".  They can be launched mistakingly, but not unintentionally.  My guess is it's a test of something that the military is being tight-lipped about.  There is a lot of stuff that doesn't make sense about this though.

[myronman3]

the fact that the pentagon is speechless about it, tells me they dont know what happened.  that is scary. 

[Spirithawk]

Very simple exsplanation. PIRATES!   Seriously though. Could very easily been a trial run at worse things to come.

[briarpatch]

some group in our government. They just keep saying dont know and it blows over. The sheep just (thought) they saw a wolf cross the pasture.

[saddlebum]

I don't know why they don't just say they did a test launch or something. A couple years ago they launched one from Vandenberg AFB. It was just after sunset and you could see the vapor trail real clear in the sunlight at that altitude. From Reno,Nv a few hundred miles away. I got some neat pictures. Since it was so visible for such a long ways away, it caused quite a commotion. I called the local news and they said they were swamped with calls. They came out later and just said they launched one. No big deal.

Since this one is said to have been launched 35mi off shore, maybe that makes it harder to explain for some reason.

Maybe that Captain Ramius guy from the Red October went rogue again. This country is looking alot more like the one he defected from before!    

[powderman]

Maybe it wasn't ours and our military doesn't want to admit an enemy got through. POWDERMAN. 

[saddlebum]

They will probably tell us it's swamp gas.   

[myronman3]

Maybe it wasn't ours and our military doesn't want to admit an enemy got through. POWDERMAN. 

exactly.   with the way they are letting the invasion in over the southern border, why would you bother to think they would protect the oceans?   we are going to get smoked really hard really soon. 

[powderman]

MYRONMAN. I fear you are right, and bo, the dems, libs, and pantywetters are making it easy for our enemies. POWDERMAN. 

[ironglow]

  Somebody's "practice run" in preparation to hit us with 3-4 EMP devices over continental US..
      Who ? Maybe China, Russia, N Korea or Iran...

[The Hermit]

Conversation in a Russian sub: Launch? Launch?, but sir, I thought it said "lunch", so i pressed the red button.

Just kidding, of course. But, I wonder why it wasn't tracked by the GOV with the billions of dollars worth of equipement that the taxpayers bought. No missle alert response? No scambling of jets? Nothing. Silence.
Me thinks sum ting wong here. 

  The Hermit

[saddlebum]

 Somebody's "practice run" in preparation to hit us with 3-4 EMP devices over continental US..
      Who ? Maybe China, Russia, N Korea or Iran...

If they could get to within 40mi of the west coast, why practice? One big sub can carry enough nuke missiles to pretty much do us in. The thought of it is pretty scary.

[Heather]

What makes me go hmmm is the fact that CBS pulled all the footage.   

Heather

[mirage1988]

Hard to believe that it was an OOPS moment for someone.

Yeah - these things have too many failsafes to launch on "accident".  They can be launched mistakingly, but not unintentionally.  My guess is it's a test of something that the military is being tight-lipped about.  There is a lot of stuff that doesn't make sense about this though.

Why would our military do a test 35 miles off the coast? There are millions of acres of water they can test in with only God as a witness.  Pretty sure too they have had enough "testing" as you say in iraq and afganistan.

[Spirithawk]

WHAT??? Our own Government hide something from us???   Gee, who'd have thunk? One thing our Government is very good at is mis-directing the truth. I'm as patriotic as the next, more than many, but that don't mean I enjoy being lied to or misled. If there wasn't something to hide, don't you think we'd already know the truth? The mere fact that we don't says more than anything they have said.

[ironglow]

  "We don't know what it was, but it is no threat to the United States". Whenever the govt makes such a statement, that's what makes me say..Hmmm
  
  Almost the same as when "homeland defense",  just 5 minutes after a horrendous explosion in one of our cities says, " We don't know what caused it..but it definitely was not an act of terrorism"..Hmmm

  Here you go, Heather;

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeKODU3YrSA

[MGMorden]

  Somebody's "practice run" in preparation to hit us with 3-4 EMP devices over continental US..
      Who ? Maybe China, Russia, N Korea or Iran...

A "practice run" makes no sense.  The element of surprise is critical in stuff like this.  If this truly WASN'T from the government, all they did was ensure heavy patrols around the ocean borders for a good while. 

The only practical use for a DIFFERENT country to do this would be a demonstration of capability, but with that, you need someone to own up to launching it (otherwise the message is without a sender), and you ALSO don't typically launch that close - you launch such a device further out.  The military leaders of the message recipient will understand, without possibly interpreting it as an attack.

As said, it makes no sense.  Still, an internal test still seems the most likely explanation.

[magooch]

The official report is that it was a weather balloon.  The unofficial report is that Hollywood is just doing what they do--making a movie.

[ironglow]

  Somebody's "practice run" in preparation to hit us with 3-4 EMP devices over continental US..
      Who ? Maybe China, Russia, N Korea or Iran...

A "practice run" makes no sense.  The element of surprise is critical in stuff like this.  If this truly WASN'T from the government, all they did was ensure heavy patrols around the ocean borders for a good while. 

The only practical use for a DIFFERENT country to do this would be a demonstration of capability, but with that, you need someone to own up to launching it (otherwise the message is without a sender), and you ALSO don't typically launch that close - you launch such a device further out.  The military leaders of the message recipient will understand, without possibly interpreting it as an attack.

As said, it makes no sense.  Still, an internal test still seems the most likely explanation.

  It makes no sense that the US "make a demonstration" that we can launch a missle from seaborne forces..the whole world already knows we can do that...been able to do that stuff since about 1959.
  Our own testing..could have done that in a much less visible area ..near Antarctica or between Pitcairn's Island and the pole.
   Why not a "practice run" the muzzienuts are doing dry runs regularly , even though they know it will alert us.
          Besides, liberal administrations are notoriously lax (e.g.Pearl Harbor) and will go back to sleep over the next couple months...or they may put a heavy guard offshore from southern California, only to have the enemy strike from the Gulf coast or off the coast of Maine.

[Dixie Dude]

1) China bought 2 submarines from Russia (2 of their older ones) which carry missles. 
2) From the smoke trail, it looks like a solid rocket, have you watched space shuttle launches?  Submarine launched missles are solid fueled.  Either we were testing an anti-missle missle from a sub or someone else was testing one to see what we would do. 
3) 3 EMP bombs above the US could know off the powergrids and about half the vehicles.  Only vehicles in parking buildings or garages would have a chance to be spared. 
This was on the Discovery channel a few months ago about EMPs.  Also, congress 2-3 years ago approved 100 billion to upgrade our powergrids to be EMP proof.  Probably haven't been completed yet. 

[MGMorden]

  It makes no sense that the US "make a demonstration" that we can launch a missle from seaborne forces..the whole world already knows we can do that...been able to do that stuff since about 1959.

I was talking about another country making a demonstration, not us.  It makes no sense in that context either.  As said, if you wanted to demonstrate, you don't do it right next door - you do it farther out so that you get your message across to the military leaders of a country, but without starting a war rather than doing a demo.  Also, for a demonstration to be effective, SOMEBODY has to own up to it.  If no one owns up, it makes a lousy demo.

Doesn't matter which explanation for this you choose - all of them have oddities.  The whole thing just doesn't make a lot of sense.