But to GlobalSecurity.org director John Pike, there’s an easy explanation: “It is obviously an airplane.”
“The aircraft is flying towards the observer; the air over the Pacific is clear, so the contrail is visible all the way to the horizon. This creates the optical illusion of a rocket flying up, rather than the actual situation of an airplane flying horizontally
,” Pike tells Danger Room. “The object generating the contrail is moving too slowly to be a rocket; the contrail is not expanding as the ‘rocket’ gains ‘altitude’ — which would be the case as the exhaust plume expanding into less dense high altitude air.”
MIT astronomer Jonathan McDowell tells New Scientist pretty much the same thing. Although he does note that the Navy owns a missile target and launch facility at nearby San Nicolas Island.
This wouldn’t be the first time a plane was mistaken for a missile. On New Year’s Eve, an aircraft was photographed above San Clemente, California, looking eerily missile-esque. In December, 2008, there was a similar case of mistaken identity when a plane flew near the coastal town of Carmel.
“The short explanation is that we don’t see a lot of jet contrails head-on, especially from the vantage point of a helicopter. So, it looks like a missile to everyone else,” writes Danger Room alum (and New America Foundation analyst) Jeffrey Lewis. “But it probably isn’t.”
He adds, “That would explain why no one else in L.A. saw a missile launch other than the helicopter crew — or, rather, why everyone else from every other angle saw a typical jet contrail — and why [America's missile-warning system] didn’t light up like a Christmas Tree.”