jets attempt to intercept contrail by robert burns ap military writer washington ap the military command responsible for the defense of north american airspace scrambled fighter jets in response to unverified reports of an airborne condensation trail or contrail moving from the caribbean to the united states defense officials said thursday lt col michael humm a pentagon spokesman said the incident happened wednesday and that the north american aerospace defense command in colorado springs colo was continuing to investigate the reported contrail stirred concern because of the possibility that it could have indicated the presence of an unauthorized jet aircraft in or approaching american airspace in the aftermath of the sept NUMBER attacks the pentagon has taken greater precautions to monitor u s airspace a contrail is created by vapor from a jet engine in the presence of cold air the jets that were scrambled to attempt to intercept and identify the source of the contrail found nothing said lt cmdr curtis jenkins a norad spokesman he said norad had developed no new information since the initial report at NUMBER p m est on wednesday norad is reviewing data from its tracking radars in search of evidence he said a pentagon statement said norad received unverified reports of what appeared to be a contrail of unknown origin originally in the vicinity of the turks and caicos islands in the caribbean initially it was reported to be heading northwestward toward the united states the statement said commercial airline pilots later reported the contrail over florida and later over indiana thereafter no other sightings were reported the reported contrail was never verified by visual or radar contact the pentagon statement said at the federal aviation administration spokesman paul turk said i m aware of the reports he referred all questions to norad jenkins said he was not sure who reported the initial sighting over the caribbean he also was unsure who requested norad to launch fighter jets or from which military bases they were scrambled we don t necessarily judge or second guess when a request comes to us to investigate a contrail he said meanwhile reports of a ball of fire streaking across the sky early thursday had people throughout the northwest flooding radio and television stations with calls reporting a meteor shower it was believed that the light came from a russian rocket body re entering the earth s atmosphere about NUMBER NUMBER a m the u s strategic command in omaha neb and the north american aerospace defense command confirmed a russian rocket fell back to earth but gave no further details ap ny NUMBER NUMBER NUMBER NUMBERest copyright NUMBER the associated press the information contained in the ap online news report may not be published broadcast or redistributed without the prior written authority of the associated press terry w colvin sierra vista arizona usa forteanNUMBER URL alternate forteanNUMBER URL home page URL sites fortean times mystic s haven tlcb u s message text formatting usmtf program member thailand laos cambodia brotherhood tlcb mailing list tlcb web site URL vietnam veterans allies cia nsa and steenkeen contractors are welcome to unsubscribe from this group send an email to forteana unsubscribe URL your use of yahoo groups is subject to URL 