Posted on 07/02/2026 10:40:24 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
I just had four F-22s fly over our house in the Silicon Valley area by Mountain View. Very low, probably <1,000 ft., and LOUD. Headed due west toward the Pacific Ocean. I figured it was probably a demo team from the USMNT game at Levi Stadium last night. I didn't grab my camera, unfortunately, as I ran outside to watch them go overhead...right over me. I heard one plane go by (which isn't that unusual), but hearing a second in close succession sent me outside to look.
Here are a couple of stills from the NBC News Bay Area video footage.
Turns out figuring out exactly who they were is tougher than it looks. No PA release names a unit, and the F-22 Demo Teams are nowhere near the West Coast right now. They are in D.C. this week and don't hit California again until Fleet Week in October. So this wasn't a demo team stop; it was almost certainly a one-off tasking for the flyover itself. Unless they headed west before turning east for D.C.
My best guess is they staged overnight at Moffett after the pregame flyover and were heading out on the morning of July 2 when I caught them. That fits the timing, but doesn't explain the westbound heading toward the coast. The only F-22 base that makes any geographic sense is Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska, so a coastal routing north would track with that. They could head west out over the Pacific, then turn north.
I tried to run them down on ADS-B Exchange and airplanes.live, even filtered for military on Brave browser, but nothing. No transponder trace at all, which tells me they were flying tactical with ADS-B Out / Off rather than just being filtered out of the public feeds.
NBC Bay Area's own footage of the flyover offered zero details beyond "military flyover." Between the missing transponder data, the lack of any released unit ID, and NORAD's confirmed heightened fighter patrols over World Cup venues such as this tournament, it looks like this was kept deliberately low-profile rather than just an oversight on someone's part.
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Ping!
Well my eyes are not as sharp as they used to be, but I see single engine jets. Which would mean they are F-35’s
Those are raptors.
My mistake. F-35 by the design of the elevators. The 22’s have a different cut on the trailing edge.
F35s.
Message to newscum who’s in charge? /s
F-14 = TOMCAT
F-15 = EAGLE
F-16 = FIGHTING FALCON but is called VIPER by pilots and crew
F-22 = RAPTOR
F-35 = LIGHTNING II
F-47 = (not named yet, but.. PHOENIX ???? THUNDER ????)
Agreed, F35.
Canopy position and shape as well as tail ond single engine.
F-117 = NIGHTHAWK
F-18 = HORNET
F-20 = Tigershark
F-21 = Kifr (used by the Navy and Marines in the late 1980s)
Thunderbolt
Maybe those are holograms. UAP level technology.
“I tried to run them down on ADS-B Exchange and airplanes.live, even filtered for military on Brave browser, but nothing. No transponder trace at all,”
I keep a tab open for Flightradar24 all the time filtered for government aircraft. I very, very seldom ever see advanced fighters or bombers. I know there are regularly F22s and 35s flying over the Gulf of America, but they don’t squawk.
Yesterday, I saw the Budweiser Clydesdales at the super market. I don’t drink bud, but they were no less beautiful than these flying machines. I was happy to see them.
Gregory "Pappy" Boyington was born December 4, 1912 in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. He's a native son. That's why our CdA airport got its nickname (I split time Silicon Valley and CdA area).
I never realized how similar the planforms of the F-35 and F-22 are before, especially the elevators and vertical stabilizers:
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