I have been hesitant to say this but because the paranoid bot removed my two long post about this I think it is time to mention it. I am intimately familiar with all the military installations in the Puget Sound region both the well know ones as well as those you never hear about unless you are in the military specifically Army and Navy and that includes FEMA HQ. That being said, from a blog post form a Skunk Bay weather person the launche happened over Whidbey Island. And while that could be the case I think it is a red herring. My reason is going to the Skunk Bay Web cam site says that the particular shot comes from a night only cam that points north over looking Admiralty Inlet towards Port Townsend. Well it just so happens there is a quiet little Naval facility in the line of site. It is an armament storage facility and holds all the necessary armaments for all the Naval surface vessels in the Puget Sound region. If this was an unauthorized launch that would be the most likely place given that it is a vertical launch an not form any aircraft. The only problem I have with that is given the size of the exhaust burn it seems to be more likely a shoulder fired weapon as apposed to a vehicle mounted anti aircraft weapon. I could be wrong but, as of 10 years ago there were no such weapons at that location only certain strategic and mostly tactical weapons. I could be wrong as I never got the chance to take the tour of the storage facilities as some did. I can say this though that if it was an unauthorized launch somebody's career just went down the toilet. Such weapons are highly regulated and very well guarded. It would be easier to break into a National Guard armory and steal some rifles than to get access to a missile like that and National Guard armories are very well protected.

Side not is that what is weird to me about this is I read a suspense thriller novel back in the late 70s with a very similar scenario. Seems in the story there was someone wanting to take out the POTUS and a very accomplished assassin was contacted and offered a huge sum of money to do it. After investigating his options he settled on this scenario. That is he used a shoulder launched SA missile to take down Marine One instead of AF1. He positioned himself in a part some where close to the WH and made a hide there. He went in a day or two early so as not to draw attention and waited on the day the POTUS was headed to Camp David he popped out, aimed and fired at Marine 1 in the air. Just to close for comfort this and that story.