I’m more inclined toward “missile” than “jet + optical effects,” as the former seems more parsimonious than the latter.

G724, An idea is not more parsimonious because it takes fewer words to describe it. Parsimony is a measure of the speculation required in making an explanation. You can speculate about missile tests, or you can follow the link Nomen Clature posted and discover that there are not one, but two flights on public record that could have generated the contrail.

Regarding optical effects, they are in play regardless what type of vehicle you posit created the contrail. The geometry at play here would require, if this had been a missile launch, a number of atmospheric effects that are simply not visible in any of the images or video. There’s an excellent comment at Nomen Clature’s link that goes into this as well.

Go read what Nomen Clature posted.

Looking at the videos, it does appear that the object is gaining altitude rapidly.

A subsequent interview with the videographer noted that he tracked the object for several minutes. I don’t recall the link, but I found it via Google news.

This is strongly suggestive that the snippet seen on the Web was run in fast-forward, making the routine aircraft hypothesis that much stronger.

Quick, get to a Scientology Center and get your nasty Thetans cleared, so you can be ready to do battle!

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RT is Russia Today, and we can receive it in Oakland CA on one of the digital TV channels (I don’t watch enough TV to remember which). So the Russians are pouring kook-stuff onto the airwaves to turn our brains into mush. That must be the real conspiracy. We’ll know it’s true if they put Ariana Huffington in charge of their health column.

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Seriously, I’m not committed either way on the plane/missile axis. But any time people get curious about something in nature, for example something puzzling in the sky, it’s a good opportunity to teach them a little about how scientific reasoning can be used to help figure out an answer. Recurrent meteor showers are another wonderful example. Major weather events, even better, because those have direct impacts on our lives.

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/11/religion_teabagging_irresponsi.php

And I don’t see why anyone would think that “missile” somehow = alarming, spooky, whatever. This isn’t the Bush era any more; sane grownups are in charge now. There are very few ways to test a missile, much less engage in an exercise such as the one described with Japan, without being highly visible about it. So it follows that if we’re going to do tests and engage in exercises with our friends & allies, then occasionally someone is going to see and possibly take video of, missiles going off.

Wonderful! We get to see a piece of our strategic deterrent working as it should, all being done safely. Seems to me that should be something to be happy about, like fire drills in the public schools.

I should have known that things aren’t always as they appear.

This is actually an interesting comment there:

http://scienceblogs.com/catdynamics/2010/11/missile_firing_off_la.php#comment-2916853

Which provides excellent evidence that it is not a rocket, and somehow uses this evidence as proof that it is a rocket, and bolster’s this argument with equally implausible links between “military tests” and 911.

http://scienceblogs.com/catdynamics/2010/11/missile_firing_off_la.php#more

Nom, there’s a reason your comments automatically go to moderation, though to be honest I don’t remember the original cause.