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All I did was repeat the original publisher's warning that they thought it was a composite, given the original anonymous source and the description that accompanied it.

They have since retracted that claim after receiving the photo through "official" channels. They also made some additional comments that a photographer friend explained as one of the likely reasons they thought it was a composite.

They admitted their error, and I wanted to be sure it was passed on.

Thanks. That's the problem now with things that look just too cool, people assume they had to have been faked. It's interesting to consider what this means: they assume that if something doesn't look like what they experience and that since what they experience is real then something that is outside the realm of their experience is, therefore, probably less than likely to be real. I call to mind the photos of jets breaking the sound barrier. It looks just too bizarre. But then there's the MPEG of the flyby almost at sea level. That was a great MPEG.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/040204/480/vg10102042024&e=11

Seen in a photo released Friday, Jan. 30, 2004 by the U.S. Air Force, Capt. Christopher Stricklin ejects from the USAF Thunderbirds number six aircraft less than a second before it impacted the ground at an air show at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, Sept. 14, 2003. Stricklin, who was not injured, ejected after both guiding the jet away from the crowd of more than 60,000 people and ensuring he couldn't save the aircraft. This was only the second crash since the Air Force began using F-16 Falcons for its demonstration team in 1982. Nobody was injured in the crash. The Air Force blamed the incident on pilot error. The Thunderbirds are based at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/ Bennie J. Davis III/U.S. Air Force)