Examiner.com November 09, 2010
Was this UFO off LA a missile launch or optical illusion?
By Ed Walsh
It has a lot of people in Southern California talking. A TV news helicopter from KCBS/KCAL captures what looked like a missile launch in the sky. It was spotted about 35 miles west of Los Angeles. But the military says no missile was launched.
Whatever it was left a long contrail in its wake.
NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) and NORTHCOM (United States Northern Command) both denied any missile was fired.
John Pike, a defense expert who is director of GlobalSecurity.org, told CNN that he believes it was an “incredibly obvious” optical illusion and was not a missile launch but a contrail from a airplane.
Pike told the news network, "It's clearly an airplane contrail. It's an optical illusion that looks like it's going up, whereas in reality it's going towards the camera. The tip of the contrail is moving far too slowly to be a rocket. When it's illuminated by the sunset, you can see hundreds of miles of it ... all the way to the horizon.”
A NORTHCOM official who didn't want to be identified told CNN that the contrail may be from an airplane.
The source said that a similar sighting happened around New Year’s Eve. Witnesses had mistakenly thought they spotted a missile launch.
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