Mystery Missile!: "The Helicopter"

On Monday evening November 8, 2010, a strange object slowly flew into the western sky off the coast of Southern California. As it shot into the orange-sunset sky, it climbed ever higher leaving an enormous plume. The object itself seemed to pulsate and shimmer; changing from metallic silver to orange to red-hot. This ominous scene filled the sky, and was visible for miles.

Mystery Missile Videographer Gil Leyvas

Fortunately, this dramatic event was caught on tape by a local KCBS/KCAL Chopper 9 TV Cameraman, Gil Leyvas. Said Leyvas “Whatever it was, it was spinning up into the sky kind of like a spiral,” and "was easy to distinguish from condensation trails from jets". He then added “It was quite a sight to see, it was spectacular”.


Leyvas, an experienced Videographer, must have seen thousands of contrails and cloud formations of all shapes and colors. As such, consider the significance of his words: "It was spinning like a spiral" and he "can distinguish it from the contrail of a jet", then added he could do it "easily". Even the statements, "it was quite a sight to see" and "It was spectacular", indicate this event was unique.





Check out the spiral throughout this clip

But let's get back to his statements about the object being "easy to distinguish from a contrail" and "spinning". Leyvas is an eyewitness in the sky; a seasoned reporter with high-tech video equipment. His experience teaches him to carefully observe objects and events and to capture them "live" or "on-tape". Fortunately a helicopter provides an outstanding vantage point to accomplish this task. If anyone is qualified to characterize this event it's him.

His observation, that it was "easy to distinguish" the Mystery's Missile's plume from that of a jetliner, flies in the face of what is now the commonly accepted explanation that it was, in fact, the contrail of a jetliner. This is significant because the Military, who was late to the party, announced that it concluded that it was probably a contrail.


Contrailscience.com, a website dedicated to contrails (or debunking the "chem-trail" controversy), features an article entitled Los Angeles Missile Contrail Explained in Pictures. This is an exhaustive (get it?) study of the behavior of the Mystery Missile's plume, with an emphasis on debunking the idea that it's a UFO.

From Contrailscience.com

UFO Blog pronounces this evidence "inconclusive". Why? Because as far as we can tell, the Contrailscience.com presentation doesn't prove that it's not a missile or an alien craft, but rather seems only to show that the Mystery Missile's exhaust plume behaves like a contrail; "your answer is blowin' in the wind".


Also, jetliner contrails don't spin or "spiral". When you look closely at the Mystery Missile footage, you clearly see the trail left by the object is a spiral. Below it, the rest of the trail disintegrates into a cloud as it's carried away by natural forces, much like a contrail.


Furthermore, the object actually emitting the exhaust glowed continuously, unlike the normal reflection of the Sun on the body of an aircraft, which flickers and quickly ends as the plane moves on. The Mystery Missile wasn't flickering, it was glowing; pulsating various "hot" colors. It was moving so slowly, that the original tape is actually 10-minutes long!


The closer you look at this event, the stranger it becomes. After all these months, perhaps it's time to look at the evidence again and listen to the eyewitness, but also to ask "where is that 10-minute tape"?