LOS ANGELES—On Sunday, November 14, Canyon News reported on an alleged “mystery missile” sighting off the coast of Los Angeles. The alleged missile came within 35 miles of Los Angeles before stopping.

The US Department of Defense (DoD) remained ambiguous in the matter, hinting that the sighting was probably the exhaust from a large jet, but not ruling out other explanations. Col. Dave Laplan with the DoD released this statement to Canyon News: “All DoD entities with rocket and missile programs reported no launches, scheduled or inadvertent, during the time period in the area of the reported contrail. NORAD and USNORTHCOM confirmed that it did not monitor any foreign military missile launch off the California coast yesterday and has determined that there was no threat to the US homeland.

In addition, the FAA ran radar replays from Monday afternoon of a large area west of Los Angeles. Those replays did not reveal any fast-moving, unidentified targets. The FAA also did not receive reports of any unusual sightings from pilots who were flying in the area Monday afternoon.”

Former Director of NORAD, Brig. Gen. Jim Cash (ret.), spoke to Canyon News. Cash claims that the observed object was indeed a missile, drawing on his years of professional military experience, saying that the “muted response” approach adopted by the Obama Administration was top-down, and designed to prevent panic amongst the general population. Cash said that there is “absolutely no doubt that what was captured on video off the coast of California was a missile launch…”

During the ”˜80s, Cash observed numerous foreign missile launches and briefed the president within seconds of these launches. Cash says the missile was not an “airplane” as DoD originally asserted, calling the airplane story a “cover-up of enormous proportions.”

“The real threat may very well be that we did not know a submarine was there until a missile was fired.  At one time, the US had the most powerful and silent subs in the world.  China has taken our own technology and improved it to the point that something like this is possible.”  When asked if he believed that China was the source of the alleged missile, Cash continued, saying, “It is my opinion that China is beginning to feel powerful enough to flex their muscles on all fronts, and we may be witnessing the beginning [of] our second cold war. This time it will be with a China who is devoting a major portion of its GDP to military spending and holds our debt to the tune of hundreds of billions.”

Not all experts agree with Cash. John E. Pike, founder of GlobalSecurity.org and military consultant, gave an interview to MSNBC in which he claimed the missile was indeed a commercial jet with an unusually large CONTRAIL. As Pike contended, “Here it’s coming out of the sunset,” he said pointing to the video of the unidentified object. “It looks like it’s being launched out of the water, but it’s not.”  Pike is frequently called upon to testify before Congress.  Many share Pike’s view, namely that the object was moving too slowly to be a missile, including Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at Harvard University.

As McDowell remarked in an interview with New Scientist: “If it’s coming over the horizon, straight at you, then it rises quickly above the horizon.  You can’t tell because it’s so far away that it’s getting closer to you ”“ you’d think it was just going vertically up.  The fact that it occurred at twilight would have emphasized the contrail.  It’s critical that it’s at sunset ”“ it’s a low sun angle. It really illuminates the contrail and makes it look very dense and bright.”

However, McDowell did not rule out a missile launch. “There’s still a 10 percent chance in my mind that it is a missile contrail, but if so, what isn’t clear to me is whether anyone but this helicopter saw it,” he said.
The FAA would not confirm or deny the presence of any commercial planes in the vicinity during the time of the sighting.