Overview

The 2015 California Missile Test refers to a United States military procedure which involved the unannounced launch and detonation of a missile off of the Southern California coast. The procedure, which occurred at night, was seen by many citizens in the area, and inspired a large wave of commentary, photographs, and videos on social media.

Background

On November 7th, 2015, the United States Navy launched a Trident II (D5) missile from a submarine positioned off of the coast of Southern California.^[1] The Trident II D5 is a long-range anti-nuclear missile, created by Lockheed Martin to be deployed as a part of a counter-strike action against a nuclear weapon.^[2] Each Trident II D5 costs about $37 million dollars, according to Encyclopedia Astronautica.^[3] After it launched, the missile's boosters emitted a bright blue-white light until it was detonated.

Loren Thompson, a military analyst with the Lexington Institute, told the Los Angeles Times that even though the test was a very large and public affair, that it was kept secret until after the fact so that foreign powers would be less able to collect information about the missile's trajectories, speeds, and other characteristics.^[4]

Online Reaction

Residents all over Southern California filmed the missile's flight, but were unaware of what it was. Many referred to it on social media as a UFO or an alien spaceship, and many people took amateur photographs and videos of the event and posted them online. There were thousands of posts on Facebook and hundreds of videos uploaded to YouTube.^[5][6]

Users began using the hashtag #AliensTakingOverEarthParty to refer to the event, and it was tweeted over 37,000 times in 24 hours after the launch. In addition, there were more than 350,000 tweets using the word aliens that day, up from a daily average of approximately 25,000.^[7][8]

Related Alien Creature Sighting

Midday on November 9th, 2015, a Facebook user named Teshawn Michael Stafford posted several pictures on his Facebook profile of a deformed, miscarried cow fetus.^[9] The pictures were then re-uploaded to a Facebook page titled Gianna Peponis, where the poster claimed that after the missile launch was seen, she heard a scream and went to her California backyard, where she took photographs of an unknown creature she found.^[10] The pictures went viral with the misappropriated information, including being reported on in the Inquisitr and the Daily Mail^[11][12] and a highly upvoted post on /r/WTF.^[13]

Left: Stafford's original facebook post; Right: One of Peponis' reposts of the photos

Search Interest

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External References