Yes. Without the staging/separation, you would see how someone would think of it as a comet or large meteorite.Really sobering to see that something so deadly can be so beautiful.
This was well out to sea and most of the stunning pictures came from telephoto zooms, either from cameras or modern smart phones.
Also, this is in the ascent stage as the missile gets near the edge of the atmosphere.
Of course actual incoming RVs would not have the large exhaust plume or any separation. They may well glow on reentry like meteorites and have some small tail...but nothing like what we see here.
The real horror would be to look out to sea and see several hundred such glows, with small tails coming at you, and then see them MIRV.
The beauty of that would not last long.