I’m sure this was explained but exactly how did a TV helicopter just happen to be filming and just happened to be focused on 35 miles off shore at exactly the right moment to capture this rather brief in-flight video???????????
I have spent many hours in a news helicopter and it would be much more remarkable if they had NOT seen and taped the event. The pilot is constantly scanning the area for traffic and something this big and obvious would not escape detection by the pilot or the camera person. As for taping it, the camera mounted on the helicopter is always ready to go. Focus would not be much of a problem, that’s at infinity.
Notice the other traffic between them and the contrail? Wonder what they saw, they appear to have been several miles closer to the event.
I have lived in Florida most of my life and have watched numerous launches from Kennedy Space Center. This contrail is very distinct and the missile producing it must be pretty darn big. It’s size and speed looks very similar to a shuttle launch when we see it from 100 miles away. I would take that to mean it was probably about 1/3 the size of the shuttle and its assorted pieces at launch.
I’m not sure that is all so uncommon. From a helicopter it would be easy to see that as it happened. When I was stationed on the Mohave desert in 1972 I was taking some pictures of some buddies and caught several shots of the dual trails of a Minuteman II dual launch from Vandenberg AFB many miles away. We dumb Marines didn’t know that they were ICBMs and we wondered for quite a while about what we had seen. Five years later as an Air Force 2Lt I witnessed a launch from a point on a hill above the launch site and it was even more impressive. From a helicopter you can see everything looking out over the ocean and the missile/rocket is in sight for quite a bit of time.