Was it an airplane? A missile? An honest-to-goodness unidentified flying object? For a couple of days, a mystery swirled around a long bright streak that was caught by a webcam pointing up from Western Washington’s Kitsap Peninsula.
Now the mystery has been solved. But it wasn’t easy.
It took a couple of days for Tyler Rogoway, a writer who specializes in the hush-hush corners of aviation, to figure out what was in the 20-second time-lapse webcam view, which was captured on Sunday by a camera pointed toward Whidbey Island.
Skunk Bay Weather’s Greg Johnson shared the picture in a tweet on Monday:
My good night cam picked up what appears to be a large missile launch on Whidbey Island Sunday AM. I sat on it for a while. After sharing with Cliff Mass he did a blog on it. https://t.co/jBPXRtRGFP @NWSSeattle @WunderCave @WeatherNation pic.twitter.com/RnN8H3IsQ9
— Skunkbayweather (@Skunkbayweather) June 11, 2018
The blog item by University of Washington atmospheric scientist Cliff Mass sparked a host of hypotheses — ranging from the launch of a Trident ballistic missile, to the overflight of an Alaska Airlines jet, to a sun-illuminated contrail, to a Russian rocket body, to an out-and-out hoax. The tale sparked click-baity reports from Russian and British news websites.
Rogoway, meanwhile, gathered some additional details from Johnson about the circumstances of the webcam shot, including its precise positioning.
He checked with Naval Air Station Whidbey Island. No dice there. The Federal Aviation Administration didn’t have anything that matched up with the observation, either. (That Alaska Airlines flight was out of the webcam’s field of view.)
But a look at Flightradar24’s online tracking database revealed that an Airlift Northwest helicopter was flying on a track that matched what the webcam saw.
You can get the full story by reading Rogoway’s recap on The Drive, but the bottom line is that the time-lapse photo’s rocket-style appearance is consistent with the lighting and the geometry of the helicopter’s flight.
Here are a few tweets that tell the tale:
Let's talk about that mysterious 'rocket launch over Whidbey Island' photo from Washington State: https://t.co/WQ7wzojXX6
— Tyler Rogoway (@Aviation_Intel) June 12, 2018
Well, it looks like our secret sub-orbital patient transport system has been discovered…
Just kidding. Here's the flight path our @AirMethodsCorp H-135 N952AL "Airlift 5" out of Bellingham took early Monday morning, from @FHSHealth to @PeaceHealthStJo. No boosters necessary. pic.twitter.com/fCf4FxSCRz— Airlift Northwest (@AirliftNW) June 12, 2018
I always knew @AirliftNW was full of awesome. This should have been early Sunday morning, though? Do your pilots keep landing lights on under a certain altitude? Thanks for keeping the PNW safe!
— Christopher Lee (@propandkerosene) June 12, 2018
It's an honor to serve.
Yes! Sorry, it was early Sunday morning.— Airlift Northwest (@AirliftNW) June 13, 2018
Wow, has this story turned into a cesspool of laughable conspiracy theories and child-like military fantasies. Why people long to believe in absurd notions so badly, I will never understand. Airlift NW has even confirmed their route over the camera at the time. https://t.co/z1BOUZM2U3
— Tyler Rogoway (@Aviation_Intel) June 13, 2018
What kind of lights are on your helicopter? Constant or blinking?…cliff mass, uw
— Cliff Mass (@cliffmasst) June 13, 2018
Just spoke with the pilot: They were transiting from Bremerton to Bellingham on a standard instrument flight plan, flying in the clouds with night vision goggles. The search light was retracted flush under the nose, but did not switch off and was facing straight down. #HEMS
— Airlift Northwest (@AirliftNW) June 13, 2018
We have updated our original mysterious 'Whidbey Island missile launch" photo debunking post with new information from our friends at Northwest Airlift that should put an end to the lunatic theories some people are holding onto: https://t.co/yEeH0QT6eP
— Tyler Rogoway (@Aviation_Intel) June 13, 2018