David Ellsworth, former U.S. Secretary of Defense, and myself, fooled by an acceleration effect due to a zoom in a video
December 8, 2010
Local channel KCBS showed a short video clip, showing an object rising into the sky, leaving a trail behind. Considering the apparent movement, with an "acceleration," this evokes the launch of a missile. This is what former U.S. Secretary of Defense David Ellsworth concluded, and so did we.
Dedicated to debunking errors, titled "Contrail Science":
there is a file at the address:
http://contrailscience.com/los-angeles-missile-contrail-explained-in-pictures
After reviewing this document, which is simply the result of a complete investigation, I went back to the video that the KCBS channel had shown, which had led David Ellworth (and myself) to conclude that the scene we were shown corresponded to a missile launch. My friend Charpentier had reached the same conclusion. We had seen a few seconds of a scene showing something that looked like a rocket accelerating upwards, climbing the sky.
What do we see in this short clip? First of all, a zoom. Imagine the scene. A cameraman is in a helicopter on patrol, looking for something to film. The sun has just set, and still illuminates distant clouds or high altitude clouds; cirrus. Above the helicopter, stratocumulus clouds, which are located at low altitude, typically between 600 and 1300 meters above ground. On that day, these stratocumulus were at an altitude of one thousand meters (see the weather data analysis at the end of the page). The helicopter is flying at low altitude, since the team is looking for a scene taking place on the ground. Let's say it is maybe 300 meters above ground, under these stratocumulus, which are already in the shadow area. This gives the following image, the first of the video:
Lhe drawing below explains why clouds that "seem to be above" are actually very dark.
View here is what our cameraman sees, which will catch his attention:
Immediately, he will do what any filmmaker would do in his place. He will
zoom
in on the object. And this gives this video.
The video broadcast by KCBS channel
What does the viewer (Ellsworth, me, or you) do? He visually references the layer of cirrus visible in these images. The zooming makes the image grow very quickly. Optical illusion: it gives the impression "that an object is accelerating" when in fact it is not. This object is not stationary in the sky, but is moving at a moderate speed, which would be that of any commercial airplane. But the zoom has created this impression of speed, and we all fall for it (it's understandable).
Optical illusion due to the zoom. The gas plume fills the screen, seems to stretch. The object seems to accelerate, jumps into the sky
Finish zoom. The cameraman stays in close-up, full frame on the object.
End of zoom. The angular movement stops, but the cameraman (and the viewer) have the impression that the lens "follows the missile in its flight"
The illusion is perfect. It is likely that the first victim of this effect was the cameraman himself. It is a television team that is more accustomed to filming events from above than missile launches. The team thinks they have a scoop. They replay the key image many times and say "it's a missile," but then we would need an expert's opinion. Ellsworth is a former U.S. Secretary of Defense. We rush to his house. Seeing these few seconds, he reaches the same conclusions. It must be added, amid this avalanche of coincidences, that in addition the reflection of the sun's rays on the aircraft's fuselage gives the illusion of the glow at the exhaust!
The sequence becomes the scoop of the day. It is bought at a high price by other channels. Viewership explodes: the Internet goes wild. The military are completely taken by surprise.
Alarge number of people fall for it, and we did too. American scientist Michio Kaku did the same, until he analyzed not just the video, but both (since a second one had been made by another channel), frame by frame, and then could see, by comparing them, that the object's speed was not what it seemed to be.
While this rumor grew to the extreme, others had the luck, what Ellsworth and I did not have, to have access to
this other video, taken by another television team
. Those people operated from a different distance. While the KCBS helicopter was fairly close to the coast, this one observed the scene from a greater distance, and may have flown at a higher altitude, which puts a stratocumulus almost at their level, or at least high enough in the image for it to obscure the image of the mysterious trail.
Translation:
The helicopter continues filming
for several minutes
. The object does not move much (in contrast to what a missile would do)
The helicopter? But it's not the same one, it's from another channel! The cloud in the foreground has nothing to do with the one that blocked the trajectory filmed by KCBS. The cameraman, himself,
does not zoom
. Thus, the "acceleration effect" that had misled Ellsworth, Michio Kaku, and myself is no longer present. With respect to this other reference frame, the object does not move, or very little. So it no longer looks like a missile at all. Missiles could not be pinned on a sky background for so long. If Ellsworth had seen these images, and not the others, he would never have made the conclusions that are known about him. A missile launch does indeed resemble this type of image. Some go straight, but others, launched from submarines, wobble before getting on an appropriate trajectory, which curves, as the vehicle does like the space shuttle. To get into "ballistic flight," an intercontinental missile will quickly acquire a horizontal component of speed. If you watch a space shuttle take off, you will see that it tilts very quickly, too. In the images shown by the KCBS channel, it was the same, but this was due to another perspective effect. In short, several effects combined to create the illusion.
Amissile launch occurs very quickly. An object that would remain fixed in the sky would be ... anything but an intercontinental missile that had just been launched.
Following this video clip:
Translation:
Later, they notice that the object leaves behind a trail, and appears as a dark spot above the old trail, which the winds are dispersing.
The cameraman decides to zoom in and captures an image of a very strange missile, stationary in the sky, with a small plume below.
Translation:
They zoom in on this dark spot, and you can see that it somewhat resembles the condensation trail left by an airplane flying at high altitude, and that everything is distant, too far away to distinguish an aircraft.
An intercontinental missile that cuts its engine and remains suspended in the sky? Impossible. But Ellsworth didn't...