SECRET PLANE -- MAYBE

I’m sure we all have received emails that purport to be true stories.  These are often heart-warming tales of perhaps someone down on their luck, but miraculously helped out, or long-lost family members reunited, or ... well, you know what I mean.

Recently I received such an email, with a bit of a difference.  This was more of a patriotic tone.  This one showed a jet fighter on the deck of an aircraft carrier, and the caption told us that the  photographs showed a prototype of a new F/A-37 "Talon" military plane.

The text went on to say:
"THIS THING IS EXOTIC

The plane in these pictures is still officially the Air Vehicle Number 1, a prototype, onboard the *USS George Washington CVN-73 for catapult fit checks. Not exactly still Top Secret but certainly not yet made public."

"I believe it will be known as the the F/A-37 (Talon). Although specs are classified, it is believed to be a Mach 3.5 (top speed in the Mach 4 range), super-cruise stealth fighter / bomber / interceptor with approximately a 4,000nm range. Awesome!"

WOW!  I, took one look at it, and called Cliff.  “Come look at this!  It’s amazing!”  He took one look and said, “It’s phony.”  Well, how could he know that, I wondered.  So I looked it up on Snopes.  The result?

So what is going on here?  I read further in the Snopes explanation.

These are pictures taken from the forthcoming motion picture Stealth. Although these pictures come from a fictional movie, they were taken aboard a real U.S. aircraft carrier: the USS Abraham Lincoln, which was used for filming while the vessel was at San Diego's Naval Air Station North Island in June 2004.

Good Heavens, that was 6 years ago!  Interestingly, the email text said the plane was aboard the USS George Washington, while Snopes said it was the USS Abraham Lincoln.

Hard to believe these things especially when they cannot even get the real facts straight.

***
And after that, you still want humor?  Well, out of real life (in part)--

Yesterday, went to see my chiropractor, and once inside, a young lady introduced herself as the doctor's newest employee, and her name was Edith.  That reminded me of an old joke, so when the doc came into the exam room, I said to him, "You can't have any cake."  He looked at me blankly, so I delivered the punch line, "You can't have your cake and Edith, too."

I told you it was old.