Were there really USAF flying saucers?

Fake Internet photos aren't always easy to spot. Here's how you can tell if something actually existed or not.

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If you saw this photo, would it raise an eyebrow and make you think “Hey, I guess the Air Force really did have flying saucers, that could have been responsible for many UFO reports!”

Well I’ll spare you the suspense — this is a fake image. God knows who made it, but you’ll find lots of versions of it online, including the original photo that was altered, which showed a conventional plane flying over that background. But nearly all of us wouldn’t know that, and wouldn’t have the tools at our fingertips to know what the Air Force (or any nation’s air force) has and has not built. We can’t all be aviation historians.

In this post, I’ll give an easy, high-level explanation for why the USAF never built anything remotely like that, and never will either. You will not see anything that could be mistaken for a flying saucer — though some of the aircraft in these wild photos might get close.