Remember the absurd panic a few months ago about the vertical-appearing airplane contrail that appeared over the Pacific Ocean, and the tin-foil hatted crowd were screaming “Chinese/North Korean/(insert your boogeyman here) ICBM test!!!”? And remember that the rational crowd replied, “No, it’s just an airliner’s contrail seen from a rare perspective that gives it the appearance of rising straight up.”? And do any of the tin-foil hatted crowd remember that a very similar photo was taken at almost the same time the very next day, essentially proving to all but the hardened conspiracy theorists that the vapor was, in fact, merely the contrail left behind by a regularly-scheduled airliner?
Well, I give you a photo I snapped in San Diego the other early evening, looking south towards Mexico:
It’s a contrail that, due to the perspective, looks like it rises straight up rather than reaching horizontally across the sky. I watched the plane with my own eyes, so no, it wasn’t a missle being launched from Mexico. (And no, no one was aiming for the moon though some in the “it’s an ICBM test” crowd would tell you that such a shot might be worth a try seeing as how blue cheese sure is tasty…)
Thus endeth the condescening sermon.
