Well......the video clip that I saw on Fox News this morning appeared to definitely be a rocket/missile of some type.....climbing in a parabolic arc, and near the end of the shot, you could clearly see the light from the engine thrust plume.
The caveat that I'll throw in is that since the horizon was not in the shot, I have no idea of what the camera angle was, in reference to the horizon, or the path of the object.
The talking heads on Fox did a side-by-side comparison with aircraft contrails, and it simply doesn't compare......first, contrails are created by an aircraft (at level flight), that is high enough that its passage compresses the air to the point of saturation, where it immediately flash-freezes forming tiny ice crystals, which linger in its path until dissipated by the winds aloft.
The trail left by the object in question appeared (at least to me) like the billowing smoke generated by a combustion process, and since it further appeared that the altitude was initially low, and climbing.......therefore far below the atmospheric freezing level, the contrail theory doesn't seem to fit.
There simply isn't enough information to be certain, but if LAX didn't paint it on departure radar, and this is the only evidence, it would be a safe assumption that it was likely a small shoulder-fired missile, or an amateur built rocket.......however, I'd be at a loss to explain why a bunch of amateur hobbyists are launching 35 miles out to sea.
Putting my conspiracy theory hat on for a moment, I wonder what runway was in use at LAX during this time-frame, as someone might have tried to take a shot at either an arriving or departing flight. However 35 miles out would have required a significantly sophisticated weapon, becausr airliners at that distance from the runway are generally at 15,000 feet or so on approach or departure.
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