The funny thing about this story is that I was pretty close to completely believing the contrail version of the story, but the hyperventilation from a very vocal group of FR posters have made me reconsider. Ask some honest questions and get shouted down with "missile truther". That stinks pretty badly.
FWIW, there are still some aspects of the missile version of the story that are hard to swallow; the largest for me being the apparent complete lack of military response in the area. Funny how it's OK to question the missile theory, but you question the contrail theory and you're right into tinfoil territory according to some folks.
Still many unanswered questions. That is why we are still trying to discuss the issue openly. You could write an entire book just about all the possibilities. Heck a series of books. Too busy myself, and I have already wrote a few. No money in books nowadays.
the largest for me being the apparent complete lack of military response in the area Actually, there was a military response, and if you look at the initial newsclip you'll see it.
I'm not going to post any vid stuff here, just stills.
This is a heli moving into the fram from the upper right. It's moving fast and heading for the missile launchpoint. It looks like (also on larger shots) a chinook - the chinook doesn't have any formal asw role in the US as far as I know, but the Royal Navy listed is as the very best dipping sonar platform there is.
And for the slopokes who insist there is no stage separation:
