[D-fendr]

Last year's event photographed from a different location:

"The actual New Years Eve contrail, viewed from Santa Monica. This is what the CBS "missile" contrail would have looked like to most people in LA, which is why nobody reported it."

More photos at Source.

The basic idea is this: Contrails only look like missiles from certain angles, it looks like a "missile" in one place, in other locations it is obviously a horizontal contrail. A missile launch looks like a launch from all directions. That the "missile is only reported in one general location, and not up and down from there, gives evidence of an optical/angular effect.

[adaven]

Looks like our MysteryMissile may turn out to be US Airways flight #808!

Honolulu to Phoenix. Look at the flight path and times!

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AWE808/history/20101108/1955Z/PHNL/KPHX

[winoneforthegipper]

In the video you can determine the thrust of such a launch. Let’s go back to that photo you have? It takes quite the minutes to create a trail like that by a regular passenger jet. The trail left on this video was created in seconds.