Flash Back:
Nov. 9, 2010 ABC NewsMilitary officials are still unclear as to what caused the "mystery missile" contrail spotted off the Southern California coast last night, but the most likely theory appears to be that an airplane was responsible.
Some experts believe the "mystery missile" is an optical illusion involving atmospherics and the contrails of a plane flying off in the distance.
Military officials have spent all day trying to determine who or what may have been responsible for what seemed like a mysterious missile launch caught on tape Monday night by a news helicopter off the Southern California coast.
North Korea EMP attack could destroy U.S.
North Korea has already successfully tested and developed nuclear weapons. It has also already miniaturized nuclear weapons for ballistic missile delivery and has armed missiles with nuclear warheads. In 2011, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. General Ronald Burgess, testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that North Korea has weaponized its nuclear devices into warheads for ballistic missiles.
In fact, North Korea is a mortal nuclear threat to the United States— right now.
In summer 2004, a delegation of Russian generals warned the Congressional Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Commission that secrets had leaked to North Korea for a decisive new nuclear weapon — a Super-EMP warhead.
Any nuclear weapon detonated above an altitude of 30 kilometers will generate an electromagnetic pulse that will destroy electronics and could collapse the electric power grid and other critical infrastructures — communications, transportation, banking and finance, food and water — that sustain modern civilization and the lives of 300 million Americans. All could be destroyed by a single nuclear weapon making an EMP attack.
A Super-EMP attack on the United States would cause much more and much deeper damage than a primitive nuclear weapon, and so would increase confidence that the catastrophic consequences will be irreversible. Such an attack would inflict maximum damage and be optimum for realizing a world without America.
Both North Korean nuclear tests look suspiciously like a Super-EMP weapon. A Super-EMP warhead would have a low yield, like the North Korean device, because it is not designed to create a big explosion, but to convert its energy into gamma rays, that generate the EMP effect. Reportedly South Korean military intelligence concluded, independent of the EMP Commission, that Russian scientists are in North Korea helping develop a Super-EMP warhead. In 2012, a military commentator for the People’s Republic of China stated that North Korea has Super-EMP nuclear warheads.
A Super-EMP warhead would not weigh much, and could probably be delivered by North Korea’s ICBM. The missile does not have to be accurate, as the EMP field is so large that detonating anywhere over the United States would have catastrophic consequences. The warhead does not even need a re-entry vehicle, as an EMP attack entails detonating the warhead at high-altitude, above the atmosphere.
If North Korea and Iran both acquire the capability to threaten America with EMP genocide, this will destroy the foundations of the existing world order, which has since 1945 halted the cycle of world wars and sustained the global advancement of freedom.
U.S. Intel: Iran Plans Nuclear Strike on U.S.
Iran has carried out missile tests for what could be a plan for a nuclear strike on the United States, the head of a national security panel has warned.
n testimony before the House Armed Services Committee and in remarks to a private conference on missile defense over the weekend hosted by the Claremont Institute, Dr. William Graham warned that the U.S. intelligence community “doesn’t have a story” to explain the recent Iranian tests.
“They’ve got [test] ranges in Iran which are more than long enough to handle Scud launches and even Shahab-3 launches,” Dr. Graham said. “Why would they be launching from the surface of the Caspian Sea? They obviously have not explained that to us.”
Another troubling group of tests involved Shahab-3 launches where the Iranians "detonated the warhead near apogee, not over the target area where the thing would eventually land, but at altitude,” Graham said. “Why would they do that?”
“The only plausible explanation we can find is that the Iranians are figuring out how to launch a missile from a ship and get it up to altitude and then detonate it,” he said. “And that’s exactly what you would do if you had a nuclear weapon on a Scud or a Shahab-3 or other missile, and you wanted to explode it over the United States.”
The commission warned in a report issued in April that the United States was at risk of a sneak nuclear attack by a rogue nation or a terrorist group designed to take out our nation’s critical infrastructure.
"If even a crude nuclear weapon were detonated anywhere between 40 kilometers to 400 kilometers above the earth, in a split-second it would generate an electro-magnetic pulse [EMP] that would cripple military and civilian communications, power, transportation, water, food, and other infrastructure," the report warned.
While not causing immediate civilian casualties, the near-term impact on U.S. society would dwarf the damage of a direct nuclear strike on a U.S. city.
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Pending Container Ship Scud Threat?
It has been revealed that intelligence sources think North Korea may have helped Iran to successfully demonstrate a proof of principle test flight of a Scud-B from an Iranian container cargo ship container in 2006. This is possibly relating to the eventual deployment of a ship container based Scud-B or more probable ship container based No-dong-B IRBM. Exactly where and when this Scud-B flight test was demonstrated remains unclear.
The critical point noted by John Pike is that “this new missile has the advantage that it fits inside a standard 40 foot shipping container, which would be really hard to detect on container ship on the open ocean.” This author notes that is it would be easier if the warhead is interchangeable or unattached. That in fact appears to not be the case for this potential strategic application. This autonomous concept could be applicable to ship based containers, land based container trucks and is known to be based on the North Korean and new Iranian, transporter erector launcher (TEL) designs. The fact that the North Korean No-dong-B, the new Iranian Shahab-4 missile is designed and installed on a land mobile transporter erector launcher for selected pre-surveyed launch sites some what confines its applications. The whole erector system some what modified from the No-dong-A heritage packaging mobile unit can perhaps without its transporter and full pad structure be placed in the container on a palate tray and erected trough a top hatch of the container. That hatch would automatically open up with hydraulic jacks for launch as a self contained automated operation. The palate tray carries the supporting controls, instrumentation, electronics, batteries, auxiliary power unit (APU) power system and pneumatic electro hydraulic mechanical systems for erection the launch pad with the missile to carry out the launch operations. The missile is believed to be pre-fueled at the factory and armed with a nuclear warhead as a packaged unit. This game could conceivably be played by both Iran and North Korea. Pike further points out “that the small cargo ships can call in the North Korea or Iran port, get containers loaded with a missiles loaded on board, and roam the oceans waiting to fire it when the orders are received by preset on-board mother board command and control (CC) system.” As Pike notes, "Such a basing mode could be attractive to North Korea because under many scenarios it would under-fly the missile defense system currently being deployed by the United States. It would also require less complex technology than the un flown Taepodong-2 ICBM." CPV
