"missiles" off the CA coast and "missiles" over NYC. OMFG, don't
these people EVER go outside? These are nothing more than aircraft
contrails near the horizon seen almost straight on. Spend any time on
the water and you'll see such many times.

The weirdest illusion I ever saw was a UFO that followed my sailboat
one very cold night in the Gulf of Mexico. An aircraft approaching
from astern but very far away was seen to make very rapid changes in
direction, far faster than any aircraft can do. The illusion was
caused by the motion of the backstay relative to the boat as the wind
gusted. We would see the light relative to the backstay which we
think is at a constant angle wrt to our line of sight but actually
moves a tiny bit. This caused the appearance of rapid course changes
in the light.

Of course, then there was the time I was going up the Apalachicola
River and came around a bend and an ultralight aircraft coming
downriver at an altitude of 40' nearly hit my mast. That was an
unexpected nav hazard.