Dark coloured contrail

[esa-aardvark]

Maybe an optical illusion, but saw a dark(blackish) contrail yesterday.
Wife & I were travelling from Alicante to Norwich. She saw some puffs of black
smoke (?) out of her window, and looking forwards there was a long black contrail.
We were at height (30,000 + I suppose), the contrail to our left and a few miles away.
Location a bit north of the channel islands. Time 12.30ish UK. Any ideas ?

[KelvinD]

I have seen that plenty of times in the past, seems to be caused by the position of the sun, putting the contrail in shadow.

[dogsridewith]

Their crew "rolling coal" for your crew? (USA expression for something that hopefully isn't "a thing" anywhere else.)

[RevMan2]

Thought you weren’t supposed to flush in the station....

[Anodyne]

Contrail see from below = white
Contrail seen from above = dark

[Council Van]

Or perhaps it was some old Eastern European oil burner��

[Bullethead]

They’re the new dark chemtrails which are only supposed to be spread at night! ��

[Final 3 Greens]

Originally Posted by TangoAlphad

You won't see it often in the back but going head to head with an aircraft a bit below you can make some impressive illusions that look like smoke..
Just pinched this from somewhere online but if you get the right conditions and light and angle you can get some even more impressive sights than this.

Cr*p - that's some serious wake turb (vortex), what aircraft type is that?

[DaveReidUK]

It's a 787, shot from a passing NCA 747, even more impressive in the movie version:

[Downwind.Maddl-Land]

Oh PLEASE someone repost that on one if the Chemtrail Conspiracy sites! They'll go apoplectic!

[Auxtank]

Originally Posted by Downwind.Maddl-Land

Oh PLEASE someone repost that on one if the Chemtrail Conspiracy sites! They'll go apoplectic!

Let them eat cake wih this one;

[Final 3 Greens]

Originally Posted by DaveReidUK

It's a 787, shot from a passing NCA 747, even more impressive in the movie version

You're not wrong