re: #102 bloodstar

But it’s not a straight line…

Curvature of the earth… remember we’re talking multiple tens of miles, which can induce a fairly significant curvature effect.

Just a point I thought worth making

And given that the missile is in the air and so is the viewer - the curvature of the Earth really doesn’t matter in terms of this at all. Bothe the viewer and the trail are in a flat Euclidean space. Also, the scale is about 30 miles. Given the diameter of the earth, how much of a distortion do you think the curvature could have been even if it did matter? Ill give you a hint - divide 30 miles by pi times that diameter.
re: #103 Killgore Trout

Wind patterns move the comtrail, also the plane could be making a turn. It’s a mistake to think the trail is straight. It’s most likely an optical illusion.

Except for that to be true, the thing would have to be coming towards the viewer and we clearly see the shiny ass of the burning engine!
re: #104 yasharki

“It is not possible to make a straight horizontal trajectory look like an arcing vertical trajectory from miles away.”

Take a basketball, put a ruler on it, you’ll see how it’s horizontal at a point where it touches the ball, and vertical further away :)

Yes, except that for that to be the case, you need the scales to be on the order of the curvature of the basket ball. In this case the basket ball is the Earth and that would put the end of the contrail somewhere in Japan.

You also would need to have the thing coming towards you, yet we clearly see the engines pointing it away.

Come one people just think geometrically!