Growing up in the country in Central TX with lots of wide-open sky and not much to do inside, I spent a lot of time watching the heavens. Always loved watching planes, how sometimes they had contrails, sometimes not, but no contrail ever lasted that long before fading out.

Then one day I saw a plane leaving the longest contrail I'd ever seen and pointed it out to my sister, it was so strange. Contrails never lasted like that. That was in the late 1960s.

As the years passed, the persistent contrails happened more frequently, some even crisscrossing, until finally there were checkerboards in the sky.

Then about 15+ yrs ago I watched a jet emitting a trail all the way from the far horizon to over our heads, turn above us and head back the way it came right beside its trail. Thing was, it laid a thick white trail from horizon thru curve and then the trail stopped, with nothing following, resulting in writing a giant "J" in the sky.

Contrails don't and can't do that.