First two photos are of a Shuttle launch in 2002. The third is the photo of the missile.
IMHO, it was a missile fired last week. You be the judge...
Ok, take a good look at the two shuttle photos. The plume is different colors because the bottom is in twilight and the top is high enough to still be in direct sunlight. The mystery plume is the same color end to end because it is horizontal and from a plane.
Looking at your photos, why does the one from last Monday HAVE to be an optical illusion going the opposite way that it looks, when the other two (of missiles) are allowed to be what they look like, going in the direction they appear to be going?? You know?
My ONLY ONLY ONLY personal beef with the contrail theory is that every weekday I see this beautiful coastal sky, and the planes that are always in it, and contrails when the atmosphere is right, and I have never seen anything like this. I admit to not knowing much, but what I do know is that this was highly unusual.