Have You Spotted This Military Surveillance Plane Circling Over Seattle?

[icymist]

Since July 24, a military surveillance plane has been flying circles over the Puget Sound Region, usually taking off at Boeing Field. Maybe you’ve spotted it through the haze of wildfire smoke. The plane is gray and bumpy, with all sorts of gadgets attached.

I learned about the aircraft from Tyler Rogoway, a journalist who covers military technology for a website called The War Zone (under Time Inc.). Rogoway has spent his life geeking out over “all domains of warfare, from space to the sea, with a focus on military aviation.” He describes the plane, named SPUD21, and its potential capabilities in an article published yesterday.

<snip>
How did you discover that a surveillance plane is making trips around Seattle?

There is a large community of aviation fanatics. These people are into flight tracking. They like to see what airplanes are doing. This particular aircraft was tracked over Seattle for multiple days. We started looking into it more deeply. After, I looked at the information and thought, “Wow, this is odd." It’s at least not a normal occurrence we see.

Who’s operating this thing?

We inquired, not just with the Pentagon, but all the different special operations command, to say, “Can we have some information?" Or even, "Is this aircraft yours?" The answer was confusion. There wasn’t even denial. We couldn’t get anything. They didn’t know what was going on either.

http://www.thestranger.com/slog/2017/08/04/25330289/have-you-spotted-this-military-surveillance-plane-circling-over-seattle

here's a picture of the plane like the one described, from a link inside this article:
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[rusty fender]

1. Weird

That plane is also weird looking

[nolabear]

2. Well damn. Now I have to go look. Oh wait, I can't see anything.

Truly strange.

[Mrs. Overall]

3. Lots of military "machinery" is in the Seattle area for Seafair. Could it be connected?

[icymist]

5. I suppose that it could be training.

From the article:

In Seattle, you have water. You have port facilities. You have high density urban areas. And they're all within the same area. You could see why that would be a pretty cool training ground for these guys, because they can push the systems to the max. It's pretty smoky in Seattle right now. What a great place to test the capabilities of this system in a place that stimulates battlefield conditions where you have smoke in the air.

The part that makes me wonder is the fact that this plane is taking off and landing from a civilian part of Boeing Field.

[delisen]

6. Rogue Alpha Billionaires gathering data on us sub primates

[Warren DeMontague]

4. Jeff Sessions looking for pot smokers