FIRST OF ALL, keep up with current events and understand that the camerman, according to a FReeper who has interviewed him, stated that the object was in view for no more than two or three minutes. The majority of the video was of lingering plume. Do your homework and read the threads. I'll not do it for you.
If the majority of folks who claimed to have shot missiles and/or flown fighters were saying what you say -- that "this was clearly a jet contrail," and IF it looked even remotely like it could be a contrail on a horizontal east heading in a photo taken AT SUNSET (!!!), I'd believe you believed what you're writing.
The thing is that in public forum after public forum after public forum, and I have read quite literally THOUSANDS of posts from what appear to be unique users, of those thousands, in the MANY dozens I've read by folks claiming military experience in missileering, the vast majority believe the video was a missile launch, and of that vast majority, most of them say the idea that it was the condensation trail of a commercial airliner is ludicrous. I've done the reading. Anyone who doubts what I've observed in the vast majority of those claiming professional missileering experience who are posting on forums, can go read for themselves. It's that simple.
Even more simple: one does not need to be an expert to understand the lighting and the perspective in the video, and one SURE AS HELL doesn't need to be an expert in live time to discern a live airplaine contrail from a live missile plume. It's absurd to think otherwise, and anyone who actually believes that any congnizant human could be fooled for more than a few moments that an airliner was a missile, is missing something.
Since, after a brief review of your posts, find myself with no real reast to doubt your claims of having shot missiles and flown fighters (did you shoot the missiles from the ground, or from the air? How much experience do you have watching ground-launched missiles?), I must conclude that: you know full well that the setting sun reveals the vertical plume of a north-west-bound object, and you seek to protect or comfort Americans from knowing a very scary truth.
Why do I assume this? Because I know that the phenomenon in the video wasn't an airliner leaving a contrail. I know it from the evidence and my own empirical experience, I know it because of MANY aviation experts ranging from military to non-military with whom I have spoken, several in a unique position of authority to know exactly what this wasn't and who have assiduously avoided comforting me and others by reassuring us that it was just a harmless airplaine, all sources that I will not divulge on a public forum. Further, it makes perfect sense that quite a few FReepers have sources that they also will not divulge, and so have info at hand that confirms what their brains told them was true from the first viewing of the video:
It was a north-west-bound VERTICAL plume. The setting sun proves it, and the pretend "optical illusion" involving curvature of the earth is pure and simple nonsense.
Sorry, Hulka, but that's just the way it is. If you're what you say you are, I don't for an instant believe that you truly believe that it was a UPS plane.
Yes, shot A/A missiles. Also a graduate of the USAF FWS and now a “weapons” focal for a major defense contractor; been to WSMR, Vandenberg as well as other locations outside the CONUS to witness many ground-based missile shots.
The contrail was a contrail from a jet.
http://contrailscience.com/los-angeles-missile-contrail-explained-in-pictures/ for an analysis that explain the situation.
Eight minutes was from other eyewitnesses and in my post to you, I did not say the cameraman saw it for eight minutes
You never do address the points I raised regarding the different characteristics between missiles: “The speed of the object was a great give away: if traveling at moderate speed (i.e., low Mach for a missile), there is no way it would have remained in view as long as it did. Further, missiles/rocket motors have a short burn time and never burn for “8 minutes” (that was observed), and that includes ICBMs as they have a boost phase that takes them vertical into a ballistic flight profile, peaking around 700 miles or higher. . .that is why they are “ballistic” missiles. Cruise missile do not fly a ballistic profile and they do not fly very high, as it is tactically unsound for a sub-sonic missile to do so. They also do not leave a smoke trail as they use an air-breathing motor. Besides, a smoke trail makes interception by a fighter soooo darned easy.”