Mystery Missile Off West Coast

When big missiles launch 35 miles from major population centers during daylight hours, usually someone knows something - but apparently not?

If you can't view the video - direct link here.

That video goes with this print story.

A mysterious missile launch off the southern California coast was caught on video Monday evening by a KCBS news helicopter.

The spectacular contrail could easily be seen up in Los Angeles, but who launched this missile and why, remain a mystery for now.

The magnificent images were captured from the KCBS chopper around 5pm. The location of the missile was described as west of Los Angeles, north of Catalina Island, and approximately 35 miles out to sea.

A Navy spokesperson tells News 8, this wasn't its missile. He said there was no Navy activity reported in that part of the region.

On Friday, November 5, Vandenberg Air Force Base launched a Delta II rocket, carrying the Thales Alenia Space-Italia COSMO SkyMed satellite, but a sergeant at the base tells News 8, there have been no launches since then.

And we thought this type of thing only happened off China? Looks to me like it could be a ballistic missile. Usually these types of launches are announced to insure that aircraft aren't in the area, and hopefully we didn't just launch a ballistic missile and forget to tell China or Russia - because that would be very bad policy.