Personally I don't have a theory...my first reaction to the video is it looked like a missile...no contrail I'd ever seen had that appearance. Some prominent people said the same (and I thought your lighting observation had merit). And the debate began. I thought the official Pentagon explanation to be fishy...not like our government doesn't lie to us at any time, and sometimes for good reason. Personally I'd rather be sure it was a contrail as I live in the LA basin and errant missile shots are not confidence inspiring, no matter what the source. Anyway then you fill in with deductive reasoning (since getting the cold hard facts is often impossible)...like why the camera guy thought this was newsworthy if just a contrail. After all the debate the jury is still out for me. I'm not into conspiracy theory stuff but I'm not a dumb American who always buys the "nothing to see here move along" government mantra either~
That describes my feelings about it perfectly. In addition to impressing Gil Leyvas it impressed Rick Warren enough that he took over fifty photos of it. That can’t be sloughed off as “jazzing up the news for Sweeps Week.”