Message posted by Ron on May 24, 2008 at 0:02:08 PST:

I am still leaning towards fake. Not absolutely ruling out that it is real, but some things just dont seem quite right. Has the person ever let anyone see the unedited or uncropped pic?

With a 5x zoom on the F717 I used to have, I took a pic of a 747 flying overhead, from independence pass in Colorado, from an elevation over 12,000 ft at the pass. Granted that is a smaller zoom, but a much larger aircraft, and it still looks much much further away. Someone can try to take a pic of an fighter sized aircraft, shooting from near sea level, of it at contrailing altitudes and see if it is anywhere near that detailed in the pic.

Contrail does not look entirely right either, just that it starts way too close to the aircraft, and its not very symmetric either.

Some of the people saying that it was a cool day means it is great for contrails are not entirely correct, since upper level temps and humidity are not a direct relative correlation from what is on the ground.

I am leaving a chance it is real, but I am thinking probably not.

In Reply to: More on the california mystery aircraft... posted by benthook on May 23, 2008 at 13:45:40 PST:

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