[DontTreadOnMe2009]

Here is my first photo that I asked everyone about:

Tell me, do you really think that this is an airliner and not a missile launch, as the Jane's expert is calling it and as the former Under Secretary of Defense is calling it???

http://state-of-the-nation.com/ Rises up and then bends north ... away from the cameraman.

Tell me, do you really think that this is an airliner and not a missile launch, as the Jane's expert is calling it and as the former Under Secretary of Defense is calling it???

[Tolsti2]

Look at the way they both distort from the wind with distance.

[Frantzie]

This is the picture I saw. Contrails do not go up. The ocean is out there. WAY too much propellant was used due to upward smoke plume to be a Star Wars interceptor or anti aircraft missile.

The smoke plume going up used a LOT or propellant. I have seen the shuttle plumes and this is not as big but it is a big rocket. Look at how high it went up before going downrange.

Sea launched ICBM. No doubt about it.

[raygun]

What you need to get your brain around is reconciling image posted at #58 and yours at #303. They are depicting the same event from two different vantage point. Where is the evidence of the vertical zoom in #58?

Secondly, review what I posted at #189, your image (at #303) illuminates what is described in the upper-air rawindsonde synopsis (w/isotach contours), there's a profound zonal flow abeam from port-side of the aircraft. Winds aloft from the entire length of the west coast and due west extending west into the Pacific for about 500 miles is in excess of 50kts.

The magnitude of the shearing forces on the contrail are plainly evident at the oldest portion of the contrail. Notice the two lateral bands of cirrostratus emminating to the right and left from the contrail. Both bands of clouds, i.e., traversing left and right, are at the same altitude. The band that juts to the right is farther away. The band jutting to the left is closer to the camera. Moreover, the dark almost black clouds evident in the image at #303 are knwn as stratofractus - from cumulus - aka 'scud' clouds. By definition they can be no higher than FL050. I'm estimating the altitude of the helicopter is FL020 and I'd call the stratofractus broken 'estimated' at FL0350.

Now, that being said, the vertical component of the contrail is purely an optical illusion due to vantage point. The image posted in #58 is entirely devoid the vertical component evident in image at #303 (and yet they're the same object). IF there truly was a vertical component in the contrail, no matter which vantage point you examine it from: it'll be vertical; you can revolve around a vertical rocket exhaust pillar and it will be vertical from all aspects.

[eyedigress]

That’s the new Dreamliner trying to land at Houston. No wonder Boeing was behind this.

[D-fendr]

Here is my first photo that I asked everyone about: Tell me, do you really think that this is an airliner and not a missile launch

Yes. Same thing as was shot the same time the next day:

And quite similar to this one taken a year earlier.

And one the day after in NY or Wichita...

It's not that uncommon.

What would be odd is if an ICBM were launched 30 miles from a city of ten million and almost no one noticed. That alone makes the missile theory extremely weak.