This video was posted on Youtube by a user who had taped it in 2002 in Yosemite National Park in California. It is listed as a “UFO” and the person notes that they are close to “Area-51.” In reality, Yosemite national park is not that close to the test facility commonly known as Area-51 and they are obviously looking west, due to the setting sun and the planet Venus visible in the frame, the opposite direction from Area-51. The word “UFO” has come to mean, in common usage, more than simply “unidentified.” It now is used to imply alien spacecraft or some top secret government project based on alien technology. I find it amusing that the person who posted this jumped to the conclusion that it was some weird project from a secret facility when what they saw is pretty cool but obviously explainable – that is if they had done some basic research.

What they saw is immediately recognizable as the classic image of a rocket launch. The plume of the rocket becomes distorted by winds in the upper atmosphere, sometimes causing observers to think the rocket had been zig-zagging through the sky. Of course, it did not, this is just how the cross winds spread out the trail. Evening launches can be quite impressive and have a strange look to them due to the fact that the trail is illuminated by sunlight at high altitudes, even if the sun has already set at ground level. This is true of the vehicle as well, which may appear to glow brightly, due primarily to sunlight.

And is there a reasonable explanation for where such a rocket might come from? Absolutely. West southwest of Yosemite national park is Vandenberg Air Force Base, one of the most active launch facilities in world. Vandenberg had several launches in 2002 (when the video was taken), but it’s hard to know which one this might have been, because the videographer does not give a date and only a general idea of direction can be gained from the sunset. Vandenberg launched at least three satellites on Delta and Pegasus rockets. There were also test launches of Minuteman-2 missiles as part of a series of tests on missile tracking radar systems and intercept systems. There were also other sub-orbital launches including a Scud missile, captured in Iraq and launched as part of interceptor tests.

This looks a lot like a Minuteman launch to me, although most of those were directed toward the pacific and it’s hard to tell for sure if that was the direction. The Minuteman missiles separate from the first stage creating an image which looks very much like what is seen in the video.

Yosemite is not exactly next door to Vandenberg, but it’s well within the area which can clearly see launches. They have even been sited as far away as Las Vegas. Here’s a map of the visible area for a Minuteman II launch:

The source of the map is this page, which gives additional maps for other launches. For some satellite launches the area where the launch is visible is considerably larger than even the map above.

It seems a pretty reasonable conclusion that this is exactly what the person in question saw. It just makes me wonder sometimes why people jump to conclusions of some paranormal, extraordinary alien event when a bit of googling will explain things without much difficulty. And that’s not to say that it’s not still amazing when it’s reality-based. Rocket launches are pretty cool to watch anyway!

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 29th, 2007 at 11:00 am and is filed under Bad Science, Good Science, Space. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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