The SUN has relevance. An airline contrail would have been above the sun, and the sun would have lit the underside of the contrail. The part farthest away from our POV would have been many hundreds of miles away, and it would have been UNDERLIT, as the sun was below the horizon and the contrail was five miles high, flat and level.
And what about that missile burn "illusion"? The sun reflecting so brightly off the bottom of a plane flying straight and level that it looks like flame requires the sun necessarily also to reflect off the underside of the straight-and-level contrail flowing behind. Those contrails began hundreds of miles ago, and that's what you see at their "base."
Watch this video. Among other things, it shows a spectacularly back-lit vertical plume taken at sunset. About 31 seconds in is a spectacular shot; it's headed northwest, against the sun. Tell yourself the base of that thing is underlit 300 miles away and 10 minutes in five-mile-high wind currents. R-i-i-i-ght. Uh huh. "Optical illusion" for "gee, this contrail looks like a vertical plume if you freeze its motion and look at it fuzzy" so that's what that dimwit camerman shot -- yeeeeesh.
All the "expert" you need is in your own noggin. Use it. And pray for our country and our military.
None of the missile folks have explained to us why, when viewed from the north, does it travel to the left (east) if the missile is going northwest? If you are looking south, things moving northwest must move to your right.
I asked this several weeks ago and no one came forth with an answer. So I ask again.
You guys make such basic mistakes.
In this case you're forgetting that the Earth is round and that the Sun is very far away.
BTW, here is the pic that by itself shoots down the missile theory:
It was taken by a webcam several miles north of where the video was shot. It clearly shows the contrail heading inland from the west. In the video the plane appears to be traveling upward, but that's because its ground track is pointed almost directly towards the viewer. In this pic we get to see the flight in semi profile, which makes the true direction obvious.
That video is the entire story. Everything else is just carnival side show. And the side show is run simply to counter the video evidence of a rocket launch.