I got another contrail story.
Way back in olden times, I used to convert money into noise by flying from Bradley down toward Block Island, across the southern edge of Long Island, then back up the Connecticut River back home. One day shortly after the Pierre Salinger missile theory came out about TWA 800 I was flying along Long Island in about the same area 800 went down. I saw what looked like a missile streak in front of me. I tried looking for the endpoint, but couldn't find it. I then looked around for any possible source, but also didn't see anything.Certainly a "What the deuce" moment, although that was before Family Guy.
Some more careful looking, and I finally figured out that I was seeing the shadow of a contrail on the water. The hazy day, and the shadow in the water made the flat image that went off quite a distance look to be a vertical streak. It really messed up my 3-D perspective for a while.
Insert any "Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop xxxxxxxxxx." line from Steve McCroskey in Airplane here.