Scripps Howard News Service November 10, 2010
Editorial: No aliens, no evil geniuses, contrail proves prosaic
By Dale McFeatters
The principle of Occam's Razor says that the simplest explanation of a phenomenon is most likely the correct one, and it is arrived at by shaving away extraneous assumptions. The more variables -- as in the proposition of visitors from outer space -- the more unlikely.
We saw that at work when a California news crew saw and took video of what appeared to be the exhaust trail of a missile launched in the vicinity of Los Angeles. And the video was indeed spectacular.
Pentagon officials were deluged with inquiries; after all, they're supposed to be on top of this sort of thing.
The Navy and Air Force said they hadn't launched a missile, and the North American Aerospace Defense Command said neither had any other country.
That led to speculation that the launch might have been the work of gifted amateurs, conjuring up the possibility of a James Bond-like villain bent on world domination from his secret command center on the floor of the Pacific.
A more lurid, and entertaining, explanation was offered by California conspiracist Colleen Thomas. She said the missile was an ICBM aimed at Iran launched from Los Angeles harbor, but that it had never arrived because it was intercepted by the Pleidians, who are in league with the reptilians among us, who, in addition to killing and eating us, are responsible for communism and Nazism. It gets complicated, but Thomas has videos all over the Internet to explain it to you.
Regrettably, simpler explanations prevailed.
"There is no evidence to suggest that this is anything else other than a condensation trail from an aircraft," said a Pentagon spokesman, Col. Dave Lapan.
The contrail was dramatically lit by a setting sun, and because it was an unusually clear day it gave the optical illusion of rising. And whatever caused the contrail, likely a civilian airliner, was moving dramatically slower than a rocket.
But many were reluctant to settle for a simple and obvious explanation. In exasperation, John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org told The Washington Post, "This thing is so obviously an airplane contrail, and yet apparently all the king's horses and all the king's men can't find someone to stand up and say it."
That's the trouble with Occam's Razor. It takes the romance and mystery out of interesting patterns of high-altitude water vapor.
© Copyright 2010, The E.W. Scripps Co.
