Update From NORTHCOM on Mystery Contrail (Updated)

I spoke with folks at NORTHCOM, and they intend to put out a press statement shortly that notes the contrail seen near Los Angeles last night is not a foreign military launched missile. At this time NORTHCOM cannot confirm what it is in the video.

A multi-agency process has begun to identify the contrail, and at this time they are still not sure. I will post the contents and link to the press statement to this post when their statement gets posted online.

Here is the DoD statement in full:

DoD statement attributed to Col. Dave Lapan, DoD spokesman.

While there is nothing at this time that leads the Department of Defense to believe this is a missile launch, the department and other US government agencies with expertise in aviation and space continue to look into the condensation trail (CONTRAIL) seen and reported off the coast of southern California on Monday evening.

All DoD entities with rocket and missile programs reported no launches, scheduled or inadvertent, during the time period in the area of the reported contrail. NORAD and USNORTHCOM confirmed that it did not monitor any foreign military missile launch off the California coast yesterday and has determined that there was no threat to the US homeland.

In addition, the FAA ran radar replays from Monday afternoon of a large area west of Los Angeles. Those replays did not reveal any fast-moving, unidentified targets. The FAA also did not receive reports of any unusual sightings from pilots who were flying in the area Monday afternoon.

If any new information comes to light in the coming days, we will update the press and public.

The tin-foil crowd is going to be very happy with this statement. Too bad Art Bell is retired, I bet he'd have a lot of fun with this.