More "Mystery Missile"

Patrick Minnis is a contrail expert at NASA. Yes, they have such things. It seems contrails can lead to the creation of cirrous clouds, which in turn can affect the climate. Research by Minnis and others indicates 1% more cirrus clouds over the U. S. per decade exist due to contrails, and that can help push global warming.

So, after a KCBS news photographer captured what looked like a rocket launch off the California coast, Minnis was contacted by a reporter and asked his views. At first, he thought it was a rocket launch, he acknowleged, but after doing some research-- it turns out that whatever-it-was was picked up by NASA assets in orbit, which likely means the intelligence community has even better data on the event-- Minnis decided it was a jet contrail. He notes that a commercial airliner was scheduled to be at exactly that position at exactly that time.

That sounds fine, but here's one quibble. According to SPACE.com, Minnis notes data shows that conditions were right for the forming of contrails and cirrus clouds in that part of California on November 9. The event captured on professional television equipment by a professional photographer, however, happened the evening of November 8.