Mystery Missile Shot

A couple of weeks ago someone popped a missile about 35 miles offshore from Los Angeles. It was filmed by a television helicopter that happened to be in the area. Some have tried to brush it off as a jet contrail. Some alarmists said that it was fired by a Chinese missile sub as a warning to the U.S. I think the real story is starting to emerge and not surprisingly it was one of ours.

The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency is tasked with providing accurate navigation for the U.S. armed forces. www1.nga.mil/Pages/Default.aspx In late October this agency issued a notice to mariners of "intermittent missile firings" in the eastern Pacific off California. www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=235013  It is undoubtedly a coincidence that the area where this missile was launched was directly off the Navy's Pt. Mugu sea warfare test center which describes itself as a:

" ... unique coastal location offers an isolated area, which encompasses 36,000 square-miles of fully instrumented and integrated sea test range for the testing and evaluation of weapons and aircraft systems. San Nicolas Island, 60 miles offshore, further extends this coverage and provides an airfield for launching full-scale target drone aircraft and an emergency divert aircraft operating on the range."

Thus the launch site was well within the 60-mile boundary of this facility. So what's going on?

The U.S. has been worried for a long time about the growing anti-satellite capability of a number of countries, China chief among them. Our military is heavily dependent on GPS navigation, satellite imagery, and satellite communications links. It would be a real problem if several of our satellites were taken out by an adversary, particulary in the early stages of a conflict. What to do?

My guess is that the answer was tested a few weeks ago off Pt. Mugu - a nav sat launched from one of our ballistic missile subs. This explains the copter sighting, the notice to mariners, and the reluctance of the government to talk about it. Such a satellite and launch capability would allow us to pre-position these nav sats around the world on our ballistic missile subs and as soon as one was needed, up it would go. I am open to other interpretations of what happened but this fits the facts better than anything else. It's also a great idea.