Missile launch probably just a plane

As should be expected, Michio Kaku gets it right on CNN. Wired's Noah Shachtman also has a good write-up debunking this one.

After seeing video of the so-called California missile launch, I immediately thought it was a plane. Unfortunately, I changed my mind when news reports mentioned that NORAD and the Military were investigating the 'event'. Because news reports indicated the Military brass were referring to this as 'an event', I assumed there must be some sort of colluding evidence, radar data in particular, to support the contrail as rocket theory.

Now I'm kicking myself for not doing a smidge more research and being able to call this one as bullshit immediately.

Yet another example of the power of suggestion, and, for me and I suspect many others, the power of the x-files effect. It's so much more fun to imagine a rogue group sneaking out to sea, launching a clandestine satellite into orbit. So much fun that you want to believe, even though a much simpler and mundane explanation usually exists. Being a skeptic can be a buzzkill.

As an amusing side note, this whole ordeal showed up in my dreams last night as a prelude to some kind of Red Bull stunt. How awesome would rocket-flugtag be?

Edit: I originally referred to this as an example of the power of suggestion. While out walking the dogs it occurred to me that this is an imprecise phrase carrying a lot of hypnosis-baggage. So I did some research into apophenia and pareidolia related ideas but I'm having a hard time finding the right term for what I'm thinking of here. One would think the field of psychology would have coined an apt term for the process of being misled by the framing of an issue. Think of the verbage involved, news stories all referred to a 'launch', and the military is investigating a 'launch event'. Indeed I think the journalistic sense of the term 'framing' comes closest to what I'm getting at here.