re: F-22 Raptor Came To A Rest On Its Belly During Major Mishap Friday At NAS Fallon

Where did that picture come from?!

Back in the early 80's, my brother-in-law - in full US Marine fatigues and while he was stationed in Okinawa - took a few far-off pictures of some F14's sitting on a tarmac. As he described, "nothing they wouldn't show you on the nightly news". As his personnel carrier was leaving the base, it suddenly came to an abrupt stop. The back opens up, and there are 4 MP's with M16's asking him to step out and to bring his camera. He hands them the camera, they strip out the film (on which he had a ton of other personal pictures of his buddies and time in Okinawa), handed him back his camera without saying so much as 'have a nice day'. To this day he doesn't know why, but obviously someone didn't want him to have those pictures.

So... I wonder how pictures like this get taken. Not that you can't find pictures of F22's on the internet, but that someone that close to a operationally active aircraft can get that close and then send the pictures out.