B-2 Spirit or new Mysterious Stealth Plane? New image of triangular shaped plane emerges

April 17, 2014 Military Aviation
David Cenciotti

A new image taken in February seems to show the same mysterious plane photographed over Texas last month.

On Mar. 10, 2014 Steve Douglass and Dean Muskett took the famous photographs of three mysterious planes flying at very high altitude over Amarillo, Texas.

The images they took showed what looked like an almost boomerang shaped plane, equipped with two engines (or at least two exhaust nozzles).

Noteworthy, something quite similar was spotted in February this year in Wichita, Kansas.

As reported by KSN, Jeff Templin, an amateur photographer who was taking pictures of wildlife back in February, shot a silent triangular shaped plane leaving what looked like an unusual contrail.

The top image is a crop of the photo Templin took from the ground back then.

Is this the same plane spotted over Texas by Douglass and Muskett or is it just a B-2?

Even though we can’t be 100% sure, the above image (click here for a higher resolution version) doesn’t seem to show a B-2 Spirit, even if the shape can be distorted by reflection, distance, and several other factors.

Provided it is really a new black project, there are several theories about the role of the mysterious triangular/boomerang shaped plane: some believe it could be an RQ-180 stealth drone or, more likely, a prototype of the American next generation LRSB (long range strike bomber).

Updated: user Dayanx on Reddit, filtered the image and highlighted the possible shape of the aircraft. Don’t you think it’s quite similar to the shape I created with Ugo Crisponi from the first blurry images taken at Amarillo?

Judge by yourself:

Mystery plane over Wichita filtered+rendering

Image credit: Jeff Templin via KSN (H/T to Steve Douglass)

 

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About David Cenciotti
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David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.

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9 Comments

  2. while the A-12 was cancelled a long time ago, the shape and proportions of this plane most resembles the A-12 configuration; almost 45-degree swept wing, almost straight trailing edge wingtip to wingtip. Most of the newer stealth designs have not had that straight trailing edge.
    you can’t really tell if its bigger or smaller than the A-12 since you don’t know the altitude the plane is flying at.

  3. I’ve seen this last year in July at 2:35 in the morning. It was heading to the direction Ramstein/Sembach AFB. It was like a shock to me. Half my life I was in the Air Defence and I know what is flying in the skies, but I’ve never seen something like that before. I follwed a little red spot in the sky, heading from right to left, then the spot was flashing for one time and the whole thing got visible. It was very big. I watch a lot of C-130’s heading to Ramstein, so I can estimate the dimension. This airplane is very big. The engines were the most interesting part. It had 5 engines left and 5 right in the wings and they do not glow white like common engines. The colour of the engines were red-orange. And no sound, nothing. It was an amazing experience and I will never forget that in my whole life. I had goosebumps.

    • Interesting Markus.
      What I can understand is how you manage to get all those details at 2.35AM (at night…)

      • If you’re long enough in the Air Defense, you got that special eye ;-)
        it was a very clear sky. I could not sleep, cause it was still very warm that night, so I was sitting in the garden and watched the sky.

        There are some interesting aircrafts in the nightsky over here, but this was the most interesting one. American engineers and scientists are fantastic. I would like to see one right in front of me at daylight and touch it.

        I’m very interested about the engine-technology, how they manage that they are completely silent. And what causes the red-orange colour.

        The other aircrafts spotted my little daughter at first. She said, “dad the stars are moving.” I told her thats normal if you look at a star for too long. She answered but they are two and moving fast from left to right. I looked at it and watched two round white airplanes moving for half a minute until they disapeared, like someone turned the headlights off. We see them often here. Very interesting.

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