Mystery missile leaves Pentagon puzzled
American officials are struggling to explain a possible missile launch off the coast of Los Angeles.
The Pentagon says it has no explanation for the apparent missile launch, which was caught on tape by a KCBS news helicopter on Monday night.
“So far we’ve come up empty with any explanation,” Colonel David Lapan said.
“We’re talking to other parts of the US government. We’re doing everything we can to try to figure out if anybody has any knowledge of what this event may have been.”
He said the Missile Defense Agency, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), Northern Command, the Navy and Air Force all had been consulted but the incident remained “unexplained”.
“Sometimes we don’t find these things out in a timely manner. But right now all indications are that it was not DOD involvement in this launch,” Lapan said.
The Federal Aviation Administration ran radar replays from Monday afternoon across a large area west of Los Angeles but saw no sign of fast-moving, unidentified targets.
Robert Ellsworth, a former NATO ambassador and former deputy defense secretary, said the billowing trail of condensation was unlikely to be from a Tomahawk cruise missile.
For more video on stories like this, go to the Channel 4 News Youtube channel.