Latest on Mystery Missile Over West Coast

This is a statement on the missile launch being circulated by the AP. Navy Times picks it up.

The Pentagon says it's trying to figure out whether a missile was launched off the coast of southern California and who might have launched it.

Spokesmen for the Navy, Air Force, Defense Department and North American Aerospace Defense Command say they are looking into a video posted on the website of Southern California television station KFMB.

The video appears to show a rocket or some other object shooting up into the sky and leaving a large contrail over the Pacific Ocean.

Pentagon spokesman Col. Dave Lapan said Tuesday that officials can't confirm that there was a launch and if there was, by whom. He says officials are talking to the Air Force, Navy and NORAD as well as civilian authorities who control and monitor air space.

Maybe Col. Lapan hasn't seen the video, but news helicopters don't fabricate ballistic missile launches for audience consumption, and the video suggests there was a launch. There isn't a question of whether there was a launch, the question is who launched it.

And does anyone else think the Pentagon answer of "we don't know" is probably the worst possible answer 20 hours later? There were no notice to airmen that I could find, indeed I can't find any announcements anywhere in the usual places.

My questions are:

• Where was the missile launched from?
• Who launched a missile?
• Where did the missile land?

NORAD gave the LA Times blog a bit of non-information worth consideration.

"We are aware of the unexplained contrail reported off the coast of Southern California yesterday evening," according to a statement Tuesday from the North American Aerospace Defense Command and the U.S. Northern Command, which operates the U.S. and Canadian missile warning system. "At this time, we are unable to provide specific details but we are working to determine the exact nature of this event.

"We can confirm that there is no indication of any threat to our nation and we will provide more information as it becomes available," the statement said.

When someone makes an unannounced launch what looks to be a ballistic missile 35 miles from the nations second largest city (at sea in international waters), and 18 hours later NORAD still doesn't have any answers at all - that complete lack of information represents a credible threat to national security. If NORAD can't answer the first and last question, then I believe it is time to question every single penny of ballistic missile defense funding in the defense budget. NORTHCOM needs to start talking about what they do know, rather than leaving the focus on what they don't know.

If this missile was launched at sea, was it launched from a ship or sub? If it wasn't our ship or sub, then whose ship or sub was it? Did anyone cross-reference the launch with public AIS logs from the port of Los Angeles yet? How many dozens of times have we had someone give Congressional testimony regarding the scenario where a non-state actor launches a short ranged ballistic missile from a ship off the coast?

I raise that last point to note, if the mystery missile didn't come from our military, you have to start looking for alternatives... and most of those alternatives are a threat to national security.