Military and aviation officials said Tuesday they don’t know who may have launched a mysterious object spotted in the sky late Monday off the Southern California coast, but noted that whatever the projectile was, it did not pose a threat to national security.

A KCBS news helicopter spotted what appeared to be a missile traveling through the sky northwest of Catalina Island, about 35 miles west of Los Angeles.

via Mystery ‘missile’ launch near L.A. no threat to national security, government officials say [Updated] | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times.

My immediate thought on this when I saw it was “that looks like a jet contrail to me.” Sure it resembles a missile exhaust plume too, but I’ve seen contrails that look like missile exhaust plumes before. Using Occam’s razor here, I’d say it is far more likely this is a mis-identified jet airplane contrail than it is a missile launched from 30 miles off the coast of Los Angeles by some nefarious unknown power. Just my $.02