  van Dokkum et al. (2023) reported the serendipitous discovery of a thin
linear object interpreted as the trail of star-forming regions left behind by a
runaway supermassive black hole (SMBH) kicked out from the center of a galaxy.
Despite the undeniable interest in the idea, the actual physical interpretation
is not devoid of difficulty. The wake of a SMBH produces only small
perturbations on the external medium, which has to be in exceptional physical
conditions to collapse gravitationally and form a long (40 kpc) massive (3e9
Msun) stellar trace in only 39 Myr. Here we offer a more conventional
explanation: the stellar trail is a bulgeless galaxy viewed edge-on. This
interpretation is supported by the fact that its position--velocity curve
resembles a rotation curve which, together with its stellar mass, puts the
object right on top of the Tully-Fisher relation characteristic of disk
galaxies. Moreover, the rotation curve (Vmax sim 110 km/s), stellar mass,
extension, width (z0 sim 1.2 kpc), and surface brightness profile of the object
are very much like those of IC5249, a well-known local bulgeless edge-on
galaxy. These observational facts are difficult to interpret within the SMBH
wake scenario. We discuss in detail the pros and cons of the two options.
