10-11-10 Secret U.S. Test of Foreign Missile Might Explain Mysterious L.A. Contrail

The use of an obscure U.S. Navy facility at San Nicolas Island to secretly test foreign-made missiles is a possible,if remote,explanation for the appearance on Monday of a mysterious condensation trail in the sky just off the California coast,according to some aerospace experts.The U.S. government says it does not know what caused the plume,captured on video by a local television crew.Analysts,though,are increasingly pointing to the likelihood that it was produced by a commercial airliner.Under certain conditions,a plane's path can create an optical illusion that appears to be the vapor trail of a missile launched from the ground or sea.This might particularly be the case when an aircraft flies from beyond the horizon toward the viewer,several experts said.The phenomenon is even more likely to occur in the visual and atmospheric conditions at sunset,which was the case in the Los Angeles instance.The proximity of the event to the San Nicolas Island facility,though,has some civilian experts musing about the prospect that the U.S. government simply cannot -- or will not -- acknowledge a highly secretive missile launch."This [could be] where we bought something we don't want the world to know we bought," said one former government insider who asked not to be named in discussing a highly sensitive topic.On at least one occasion in the past,the Defense Department has used San Nicolas -- an uninhabited land mass in California's Channel Islands -- for engineering evaluations of foreign missiles that the U.S. military seeks to better understand,experts told Global Security.For example, the Pentagon several years ago secretly procured a number of Scud missiles and used them to test U.S. interceptor technologies,according to one specialist.The use of these missiles has since become public.In such instances,the U.S. government has acquired foreign hardware through clandestine intelligence or military efforts,and the evaluation of these technologies is maintained as a closely guarded secret,observers said.The CBS affiliate's video,shot by a helicopter camera crew,appears to show the object taking a slight turn in flight.This might be an indication that the craft was an airplane,rather than a ballistic missile following a smooth up-and-down trajectory,according to specialists.On the other hand,a ballistic missile can appear to turn slightly as one of its rocket stages separates,aerospace experts said.Vandenberg Air Force Base,170 miles northwest of Los Angeles along the Pacific Coast, is frequently used for testing U.S. missiles and launching satellites into space.However,Vandenberg reported that its most recent shot was a Delta 2 rocket launch staged last Friday,sending an Italian satellite into orbit.If the contrail might be explained instead by the more remote possibility of a U.S. test launch of a foreign missile,sources cautioned that a government acknowledgment of a test program should not be expected."Foreign launches are blacker than black,and the companies that do them are paid very well to say nothing," said the former government insider,using a colloquial term for highly classified military programs.