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Because it was flying straight at the camera it gave the impression of a missile launch : What many observers thought was the contrail of a missile or rocket fired off the Southern California coast Monday evening instead came from an aircraft, a Pentagon spokesman said in a statement Wednesday. “There is no evidence to suggest that this is anything else other than a condensation trail from an aircraft,” said the statement from Marine Corps Col. Dave Lapan. Outside experts said they had even determined which aircraft: a jet plane traveling from Hawaii to Phoenix, its contrail rendered more prominent by sunlight and a clear sky. “It’s an optical illusion, facilitated by unusual atmospheric conditions,” said John Pike, a defense expert and director of GlobalSecurity.org in Alexandria, Virginia. Defense Department officials also say a review of radar readings showed nothing unusual, that there were no scheduled or accidental launches by the United States, and that no foreign missile launches were detected. A video of the contrail shot by a CBS news crew from a helicopter Monday evening off the Southern California coast caused a stir and prompted numerous press calls to military officials. But Pike, who worked previously as an analyst for the Federation of American Scientists, said his anlaysis of the video reveals the telltale characteristics of a jet contrail, not a rocket or missile. “The thing’s moving too slow to be a rocket,” Pike said Wednesday morning. “Generally, with a rocket, there’s hot stuff coming out the back. But we don’t see any hot stuff. Generally, with a rocket, the plume gets bigger as it gets higher, because the atmospheric density is going down.” That amounts to “direct evidence that make it inconsistent with being a rocket.” Pike said he also agreed with an analysis by physicist and author Michio Kaku suggesting that the object in the video is actually moving toward the camera, and that it is likely an airliner on its way from Hawaii to Phoenix, with a flight known to have been in the air at the time matching its path. “That’s part of the optical illusion,” Pike said. “We’re seeing a contrail about 300 miles long, and we’re looking at it from the front.” The atmosphere was unusually clear, and that, combined with a sunset that lit up the contrail, completed the illusion, he said. “Normally we do not see a contrail reaching all the way to the horizon,” he said. “Normally there are houses or trees or clouds or something, enabling us to see the contrail way up in the middle of the air but not seeing it go all the way to the horizon. So your first instinct is to believe you are seeing a contrail emerge from the horizon.” I’ve seen a number of missile launches out of Vandenberg AFB and they have a distinctive look as the craft climbs high into the atmosphere. This didn’t have the same appearance.