Contrails, Missile Plumes, and the Birth of Conspiracies

It’s been a few days since a KCBS News Helicopter in Los Angeles caught the spectacular rising plume of a missile launch thirty-five miles off the OC coastline. Looking at a still photo of the column of smoke it’s hard to believe that the image is not exactly what we are told we are looking at...the exhaust plume of a very big missile launched off the California coast. If you read the reports what we have is primarily a series of self proclaimed experts weighing in on the video. In one sad case, KCBS dug up retired Ambassador Robert Ellsworth and showed him the video clip of the launch …not only did Ellsworth confirm the footage as the “spectacular” and “breath taking” launch of a “very large” missile he offered his expert testimony that it could have come from a submarine and that it could be an ICBM (Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile).

When you watch this news report not only does the station offer no explanation for the launch other than that of a missile they lend credence to the theory by showing a video clip of a real missile launch for the viewer to compare for themselves. If you even realize that the video clip of the real missile is not the same footage you might take the time to make this comparison and see the distinct differences. If you don’t, witness the birth of a conspiracy.

As the days go by and the official response from the Government does not adequately explain where the missile came from…the conspiracy grows. Since it’s already been ruled a missile launch anything less than a full disclosure confirming what we have already been told is a massive government cover-up. 48 hours later the Pentagon denied the event as a missile launch and explained that it was an aircraft contrail. That was too late.

Spectacular video and immediate expert testimony that gets picked up and reported by the news service is a strong medium for the message. I’ve looked at the video over and over again and I agree it’s pretty amazing. It’s hard not to believe the story unfolding before my eyes as true. So we wait patiently for the government to tell us it’s a Navy missile test gone awry or another Country is putting us on warning, or the best yet…another quip coming from Ambassador Ellsworth, the US is conducting a show of force pointed at Asia (at this point Ellsworth’s reliability as a witness get’s called into serious question). We are seeking explanations for that which we know to be true, a missile launch. Not explanations for that which might be deceiving our eyes…that something other than a missile launch caused this phenomenon.

When I studied the JFK assassination a number of years ago I became interested in conspiracy theory and what it takes for a conspiracy theory to really take root in the psyche of a population. It’s actually fairly simple. If the magnitude of the underlying cause of the occurrence is out of balance with the magnitude of what has actually occurred, conspiracy theories spring forth to fill the gap. It’s that simple. JFK was the President of the United States, well loved by many he represented a great future, “Ask not what your Country can do for you, ask what you can do for your Country”, and all the symbolic rhetoric. Balance that with the actions of a lone gunman. A single deranged individual who changed the course of the world history. It can’t be that simple. It’s totally out of balance. But it actually is that simple. The same thing holds true with the conspiracies surrounding 9/11. The magnitude of that one cannot be balanced out even with the colossal evil that is Al Qaida bursting into the public awareness.

Now we have the pretty simple and extremely common occurrence of a jet aircraft generating a vapor contrail at cruise altitude while being viewed head-on against the bright pallet of a California sunset. The contrail is so spectacular in appearance but from such a marginal a source, water vapor, we have a mental disconnect. Further, the image it paints is so similar to a missile launch it appears Southern California must be under attack. That presents an even greater disconnect. Known experts weighed in early, John Pike, always looking for quick paycheck tried to dispel the growing myth early on, but slanted his opinion with his typical shot at the Federal Government’s inability to respond with the truth early enough. (This is another topic altogether but I’m not sure which Federal agency he thinks is responsible for responding to vapor trails – it’s not NORAD, it’s not NASA nor is it the Navy or the USAF at Vandenberg, AFB. No one seems to have asked the Federal Aviation Administration).

The next day a web site known as ContrailScience.com did a pretty rigorous debunking of the missile launch theory with a lot of technical detail and evidence of another contrail that looked very similar to a missile plume that happened last December. It’s a very common occurrence. Yet the missile theory continued to grow along with the conspiracies and the wishful thinking that we are once again witness to a large Government cover-up. Let’s pin this one on Obama is perhaps the unconscious theme.

Perhaps the balance is upset by an incessant search for the guilty as if someone is to blame for acts of nature and their inability or unwillingness to respond quickly enough to quell our anxieties. George W. Bush, in his new memoir, Decision Points, regrets the photo of himself taken on Air Force One looking out over the New Orleans flooding in the wake of Katrina with what has been interpreted as an unconcerned and detached expression on his face. We have to believe that although he might have been slow to react, the expression on his face could not possibly have been detachment, yet that’s what we are told and or lead to believe. Another conspiracy is born.

In an earlier post, March 2009, I provided a “spectacular” eyewitness testimony of a space shuttle launch at sunset, about the power of God and the power of man. I posted about the launch of STS 119. In this post I describe what a column of rocket smoke looks like as it billows skyward in a vertical column changing colors as it climbs higher and higher into the atmosphere. The same powers of God that paint the unbelievable pallet of pink and orange hues of a California sunset reveal that which separates the horizontal from the vertical. An actual missile would have burst into the white light of the California sunset as it rejoined with the sun on its vertical flight skyward. The same thing happens at sun rise (see photo). This did not happen…nor would it happen with an aircraft traveling west to east in level horizontal flight. The plume remained orange until the contrail ceased to be produced (according to contrailscience.com when UPS Flight 902 entered the drier air mass of the coastline).

Nevertheless the extreme optical illusion presented to us by nature demonstrates that the power of God’s hand trumps the imaginative and perceptive powers of the human mind, every time.  The reporter who captured the spectacular images should not be held responsible for shooting the footage rather the media should continue to remember that they are in possession of a powerful medium, too, but never all the facts. Their cameras are certainly not the watch dog for missile launches. Our Country has spent billions of dollars on knowing when and where a missile launch occurs anywhere in the world.

When NORAD reports that there is no threat or danger, if that message doesn’t get out far and wide, I’m not sure the purpose of a news media anymore. If stirring up conspiracies is their main focus they have ceased to be of any value to the public. They might as well be reporting on crop circles…and of course vapor trails.