Was there an unannounced missile launch on Whidbey Island early on Sunday morning?

Greg Johnson of Skunk Bay Weather on the northern Kitsap Peninsula has one of the most impressive weather cam facilities in the nation, including high quality digital cameras photographing the clouds at night.  He is an extremely reliable weather observer.

But early Sunday morning he picked up something that is both startling and unexpected:  what looks like a missile launch from Whidbey Island.

Here is the picture (with a 20-second exposure) at 3:56 AM Sunday morning from one of his cameras (looking north towards Whidbey Island).  Can you see the bright vertical streak on the left side of the figure?   Note the illumination both inside and outside the cloud.  It really looks like the ascent of a rocket.

Greg provided me with a close up of the top portion of the image (see below).   Really looks like an ascending missile.

For your orientation, the map below shows the location of the Skunk Bay camera (red circle) and Whidbey Island Naval Air Station (blue circle)

I have never heard of rocket launches from Whidbey Island Air station in Oak Harbor.   And checking online, I can not find any discussion of this feature.

This feature does not look like a meteor, nor are there any meteor reports for the area that I could find online.  The lightning networks did not show a strike in that area.

Scott Sistek at KOMO TV says that they contacted the Navy about it yesterday.   The Whidbey NAS spokesperson says they don’t have missile launch facilities there; Navy west coast spokesman said no ships in area.

Was there a missile launch on Sunday AM?   Is there some other explanation of this feature?

I would be interested if someone had some insights into this siting.





from Cliff Mass Weather and Climate Blog https://ift.tt/2sYhpxt