I may be wrong about this, but I am too lazy take the time to review the thousands of posts (or hundreds since I saw the UPS plane first pop up on the horizon of explanations, which has been relatively recent). Somebody who wants to prove me wrong can go to that trouble. It wouldn't matter anyway because in HONESTY I must say that the shininess of the finish on the underbelly of the plane isi what would reflect the orange sunlight, not the color, at least, that's what I'd think. So the color of the plane, it seems to me, is very possibly moot.
Of course, an aluminum-finish airliner belly would be the best reflector for a setting sun. But even if these planes were reflecting aluminum, it would not explain the absence of clear space immediately behind twin airline contrails from engines on both sides of the fuselage that cools before those twin contrails fatten up and then merge into one. That phenomenon is absent in the video footage. If it was a commercial airliner at altitude, the naked eye could probably discern that difference, binocular-aided eyes could, and so it seems to me that a professional airborne cameraman could discern it, too. In fact, I think he did. He discerned that it wasn't there.
That would be me. Lots of people were talking about how shiny a silver plane is so I found a pic of the jet used for flight 808. Now that meme is gone and it's a white plane and 808 is history.
But even if these planes were reflecting aluminum, it would not explain the absence of clear space immediately behind twin airline contrails from engines on both sides of the fuselage that cools before those twin contrails fatten up and then merge into one.
That's true too. I have seen the sun reflect off of many silver airliners and it makes a nice crisp bright white reflection even in sunset/sunrise conditions. A very small point of light that isn't sustained because the jet quickly moves out of an angle that directs it to one point on the ground.
He discerned that is wasn’t there filming at extreme range. The MD-11 was still producing a persistent contrail at that time. He was still unable to zoom completely into the object which implies to me that the object was at extreme range. The MD-11 was at 39,000 feet and being filmed at extreme range. Note my MD-11 airliner image posted above (link.)
As the MD-11 approached the coast the persistent contrail dissipates and the MD-11 continues on with a non-persistent contrail. This is visible in the second video footage release. The webcam from LAX also captured the airliner as it approached the coast. Other stills images also proved that the contrail and airliner was approaching the coast and not going away as indicated by the helo cameraman. The still s images also prove that it was a horizontal contrail that approached the coast rather than a vertical ballistic plume.
This was purely a case of an edited video, a cameraman fooled by perspective and a media frenzy leading to an outlandish conclusion.