Update at 2147 GMT on Wednesday: The Pentagon says the contrail was caused by a plane. 鈥淲e have no evidence to suggest that this was anything other than a contrail caused by an aircraft,鈥� Pentagon spokesman Colonel David Lapan said, according to .
Update at 1640 GMT on Wednesday: The Federal Aviation Administration no fast-moving unidentified objects were seen in the area on radar and no commercial companies had applied to launch rockets from the region.
What appeared to be a rocket blasting into the skies off the southern California coast on Monday was probably just an approaching plane, a Harvard astronomer who tracks space launches says.
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Around 5 pm local time on Monday, a KCBS news helicopter shot a showing what appeared to be a missile launch above the Pacific Ocean. A Pentagon spokesman said that so far there is no explanation for the observation, according to the . 鈥淣obody within the Department of Defense that we鈥檝e reached out to has been able to explain what this contrail is, where it came from,鈥� Pentagon spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan said. 鈥淪o far, we鈥檝e come up empty with any explanation.鈥�
So what was it? , an astronomer who tracks space launches at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, says it was probably an optical illusion caused by a plane.
鈥淚f it鈥檚 coming over the horizon, straight at you, then it rises quickly above the horizon,鈥� he told 快猫短视频. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 tell because it鈥檚 so far away that it鈥檚 getting closer to you 鈥� you鈥檇 think it was just going vertically up,鈥� he says.
The fact that it occurred at twilight would have emphasised the contrail, he adds. 鈥淚t鈥檚 critical that it鈥檚 at sunset 鈥� it鈥檚 a low sun angle. It really illuminates the contrail and makes it look very dense and bright.鈥�
Airborne Laser?
鈥淚 would say that鈥檚 the 90 per cent guess,鈥� he says. 鈥淭here鈥檚 still a 10 per cent chance in my mind that it is a missile contrail, but if so, what isn鈥檛 clear to me is whether anyone but this helicopter saw it.鈥� Since no one in LA apparently reported seeing the missile, he says, that suggests either that it looked like a jet contrail from their perspective or that a relatively small rocket was responsible.
McDowell points out that the US Navy runs a base on , which lies 120 kilometres west of Los Angeles. Small rockets are launched there every few weeks, he says.
He says some of the rockets are used as targets for tests with the Airborne Laser, a Boeing 747 jet with a nose-mounted laser designed to shoot missiles down. 鈥淭hey鈥檝e been flying this 747 around and using it to fire at little rockets they鈥檝e launched from San Nicolas,鈥� McDowell says. 鈥淪o you can imagine if this helicopter is zooming off the California coast a bit away from LA, near the San Nicolas area, and this thing goes up right next to it, the crew would go, 鈥極h my goodness, what is that?'鈥�
But a spokesman at the Missile Defense Agency, which launches those rockets, told 快猫短视频 it was not one of their tests.
