I feel like a geek doing another vapor trail post, but has anyone heard about this?
What’s the big deal, anyway?
CNN vapor trail story
Hmmm. After seeing this topic, I went to news.google.com and did a search on “contrail”. That returned links from sfgate.com and defenselink.mil that said basically the same thing as the CNN.com story.
Looks like no clue so far if this is really significant.
I wonder if it could have been related to the “space junk” which was reported to have been falling across the Northwest US? 
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/11/28/space.junk.ap/index.html
I also fail to understand what the big deal is. My local paper ran a full column article on the story, and we’re nowhere near any of the sightings in question. I can understand why an unknown aircraft heading towards the US from the Caribbean would warrant an investigation, but what I’m trying to figure out is the reference to Florida and Indiana. I’m not an airline pilot, but how could they determine that it was the same unknown contrail? Florida I can understand, but Indiana? I see about fifty contrails over my house every day, and I assume there are even more in the midwest and northeast. So how was it possible to link the Indiana sighting to one over the Caribbean and Florida?
While I do not doubt the authenticity of the CNN news story, sit back and think about what was written.
Notwithstanding the space debris sighted over the Pacific Northwest, are you telling me that fighter jets are scrambled because of an unknown contrail? Oh pleeeze!
NORAD is far more sophisticated than scrambling jets as a result of a contrail. Sure you can fly under the radar but an aircraft flying high enough at altitude to generate a contrail will be tracked on rader, be it NORAD or something else.
Maybe it’s those damned Alpha Centaurians again.
You would also think that if an airliner sees it, it’s in the “lane” where airliners fly and it’s an airliner.