PHOENIX — People across the Southwest got an early morning show Thursday, courtesy of a trio of unarmed missiles fired from New Mexico.
The twisting cloud-like formation was visible in southern Colorado, Phoenix, Salt Lake City and Las Vegas just before sunrise, and led to hundreds of calls and e-mails to area television stations.
Law enforcement agencies in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado received some reports of a crash, but those were quickly discounted. A sheriff’s deputy in New Mexico who saw one of the missiles leaving behind a contrail said he spotted what appeared to be an explosion.
The “explosion” was a normal separation of the first and second stages of the unarmed Juno ballistic missile that was fired from Fort Wingate near Gallup, N.M., said Drew Hamilton, a spokesman for the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range. The Juno missile was then targeted by advanced versions of the Patriot missile fired from White Sands, about 350 miles away, as part of a test. Two of the missiles hit the incoming Juno missile.
