Tuesday 9 November 2010

Mystery "missile"? I don't think so.

I can't believe the amount of fuss being made over this story. I'm flying into Los Angeles in the next few days and hope my flight makes as nice a show as this aircraft did!

It's an aircraft and contrail. It's fairly clear the contrail is at a steady altitude from the sunlight reflecting off it and at the far end of the trail high-level winds are blowing it apart. If it were a missile launched just off the coast the far end of the contrail would be lower, in the earth's shadow and not reflecting sunlight. But "What a Pretty Contrail" would make for a very boring news story...

6 comments:

Zuzana said...

Oh, that was fun.;) You should have written that to the BBC, as in the clip it seems they have no clue.;))
Have a safe flight.;))
xo

Tom said...

You should see the media in the US. It's insane. And you know what'll be next? Chemtrails.

Oh look, search google for "California missile chemtrail" and I get over 66 thousand pages.

I know not all are about this aircraft and contrail, but jeez...

Is the human race becoming more stupid, is it the media or, more likely in my opinion, a combination of both?

Oh well, take a deep breath and relax, Tom. Perhaps a beer or two? Anything to take away the feeling that much of the western world has become depressingly stupid.

Anonymous said...

yes, it's pretty ridiculous. Slow news week I suppose.

Tom said...

Don't know which channel it was (KGMB?) but switched on the local news here but didn't watch it as I was busy with stuff. I heard it though. Something about the president having to leave Indonesia early because of lava, rocks and poisonous gas.

The volcano is hundreds of miles away. Its plume will cause problems for aircraft hence Obama leaving early, but this news report clearly implied he was leaving because his life was in danger from spewing rocks and lava.

Sometimes you just want to slap your head and put on some nice soothing music instead. So I did. (Jeff Peterson from Maui if you're curious!)

Tom

Tom said...

Jeff Peterson. Very calming!

Keera Ann Fox said...

I think one reason for the hoopla is because this is reminiscent of the trail "Challenger" left when it exploded.

I too sometimes wonder if the world is getting dumber, but I think it's just the media. It's hard to fill up 24 hours of non-stop news with - news.