The local news mystery that became a national story has been "solved" by an amateur plane spotter. He analyzed the data, flight path, etc. and has come to the conclusion that this week's captivating mystery missile was actually just a jet's contrail:
I wonder if I'm the first to call it, the reported unexplained missile launch off the coast of California, was US Airways 808.
I did a lot of extrapolation of what flights could be at the right position (off the coast) at the right altitude (for contrail formation) and came down to two possibilities: UPS flight 902 (UPS902) or US Airways flight 808 (AWE808).
As I was researching tonight (24 hours later), I realized that today's AWE808 current position (at around 4:50pm) was almost the same as it was the day of the incident. I quickly pulled up a Newport Beach webcam and found tha (apparently) AWE808 was making an identical contrail, 24 hours later!
Others disagree with his conclusion, and it's entirely possible he's latching onto false data that inadvertently helps the Pentagon deny that they were testing some new, insidious super-weapon. However, he seems sincere and the 'smoking gun' could be an identical contrail left 24 hours later.