Tang saw a UFO

[tangaroa]

While on a cross-country flight today, I saw a very fast two-engine jet heading east over Colorado. Since I couldn't identify what type of aircraft it was, it is a UFO. Other notable features:

• It flew solo. There was nothing else in the area.
• It flew about level with civilian airliner traffic, perhaps a bit higher.
• The exhaust was black and vertical, suggesting gravity taking down some dirty and heavy exhaust. Perspective probably caused an optical illusion as well.

I wonder if it was an SR-71 or whatever they're planning to replace it with. It was too far away to see any detail.

Comments

[siliconshaman]

Unlikely to be a Blackbird since they're all grounded and accounted for, as far as I know they're not flight-worthy any more. [there's two that are moth-balled in a 'possible to recall to flight-ready' status that were research platforms for NASA, so just possible though.]

Equally unlikely to be a SR-72... they don't even have a flight ready prototype, and it uses a hydrogen slush fuel so the exhaust trail is wrong. Plus, for all reports it'd move so fast it's doubtful you'd see it!

Probably it was some skunk-works prototype, or a private one-off.

[tangaroa]

It might have been an F-15 out of Mountain Home, Idaho. Reviewing the flight path (Google Earth is fun), we were probably over Wyoming rather than Colorado and that puts Mountain Home on the east-west flight path. I would not expect fighters to fly solo on training missions but that could be explained by the sequester and budget cuts.

[siliconshaman]

Sounds plausible.. could've been one of the instructors logging some flight hours solo. They do that to stay on form.