You will notice that there is an error with the tracking of the low flying helicopter that makes it freeze on the screen momentarily and Flightradar24 even notes this automatically. Then the chopper seems to dash across the channel at unbelievable high speed. This is an anomaly with the tracking, and in reality, the helicopter made its way across the channel at normal speed (around 115 knots at 2,000 feet) right around the time the photo was snapped and exactly where the streak is shown.
With this revelation in mind, the explanation of what you are seeing in the image is the helicopter moving away from the camera towards NAS Whidbey Island, just as it was tracked in the moments after the photo was taken. There is about a minute and a half time difference between the flight data and the time index on the photo. It's likely one of the clocks was slightly off in reference to the data being displayed and we know the helicopter speed data is not fully accurate due to the tracking anomaly anyway.
Airlift Northwest Facebook Page
N952AL, just like N954AL shown here, flies under the Airlift Northwest banner, moving patients around the Pacific Northwest.
When the image is interpreted in that fashion, you can see how the aircraft began being traced by the long exposure starting near the camera and moving away. As a result, it was also much closer to the camera, lower in altitude, and covered far less distance in the short 20-second exposure than a rocket blasting into the heavens far off in the distance would. At 115 knots the helicopter would have covered roughly 3,900 feet. The cloud it disappeared into would also be far closer to the camera when interpreting the image in this way. And all this actually works remarkably well just by shifting the notion of what you should be seeing in the image.
The thing that looks like a rocket at atop a flame would have been a 'ghost image' of the part of the helicopter that was exposed from spill-over from its running lights and the low available light in the environment. This can look nothing like the actual object as the long exposure and how the light plays on the object can result in strange and often elongated shapes—in this case, something like a ghostly image of a rocket.
So there you have it, sadly this wasn't anything more exciting than a helicopter flying in a straight line in the wee hours of a quiet Sunday morning on the picturesque Puget Sound. Above all else, this photo serves as another reminder that sometimes there is much more to an image than what immediately meets the eye.
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/21461/lets-talk-about-that-mysterious-rocket-launch-over-whidbey-island-photo-from-washington
Remember the cover story for this?
Helicopter?
Coincidence re: AF1 re: CA route NK?
Bigger than 25th amendment attempt to remove.
Depth of this is very serious.
Q
These People Are Stupid.
Q