Mystery missile launch reported off California coast
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Pentagon officials say they cannot explain reports of a missile launch off the coast of California on Monday.
A CBS News helicopter captured what looked like the vapour trail of a missile rising from the water about 35 miles (56 km) offshore.
"Right now all indications are that it was not [defence department] involvement in this launch" Pentagon spokesman Col David Lapan said.
The Pentagon does not consider the missile a threat.
"So far we've come up empty with any explanation," Col Lapan said. "We're doing everything we can to try to figure out if anybody has any knowledge of what this event may have been."
Under normal circumstances, the launch of a US missile would require several different authorisations and notifications, but none are evident.
It is unclear if the suspected missile was launched from land or sea.
An example of a contrail, following a missile launch in 2008
U.S. military officials said on Tuesday they did not know what produced a contrail, or vapor trail, caught on tape the day before by Los Angeles, California television station .  is investigating the incident but does not consider it a threat to U.S. security.

Around 5 p.m.  Monday evening (0100 ), a news helicopter from KCBS recorded the vapor trail of what appeared to be a missile traveling 35 miles (56 kilometres) west of the Los Angeles. However, no standard missile testing procedures were followed in this case: air space was not restricted and ships were not told to avoid the area. Pentagon spokesperson Colonel David Lapan said that any such test was "implausible" due to the close proximity of the sighting to .

The  and the  released a statement in response to the sighting, saying, "At this time, we can confirm that there is no threat to our nation and from all indications this was not a launch by a foreign military. Pentagon officials said they did not know the origins of the vapor trail, but they were looking into the matter. Lapan said that they are "still trying to find out what the contrail off the coast of southern California was caused by," but that currently, "all indications are that it was not a DoD activity."

Some say that there was no launch, and that the plume caught on video were simply part of an optical illusion. ContrailScience.com, a website seeking to disprove conspiracy theories related to contrails, said that an airplane moving directly toward a viewer leaves a contrail that appears to rise vertically. However, this is due to the curvature of the earth, and the vapor is actually horizontal.

John Pike, of , added that the flying object producing the vapor trail was not a rocket because it seemed to change direction. On Tuesday, Pike said that what the KCBS crew recorded was "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."

An anonymous official from the U.S. Northern Command said the vapor trail may have been caused by a plane. He said it was similar to a contrail seen around New Year's Eve last year, also thought at first to be from a missile launch.

 officials said that they examined radar replays of the area around Los Angeles, but no missile-like objects were detected. They also said that no pilots in the region reported seeing anything unusual that around the time of the sighting. Military exercises involving missiles are not rare around the Southern California coastal area, with launches occurring west of .


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