I am posting this from a throwaway account as to disassociate from my regular account to prevent myself from being identified.

So I live within a couple miles of the Boeing Everett assembly plant. I live close enough where I am able to see most of what is going out and coming in to the airport adjacent to the plant. Over the past month or two I have been noticing things out of the ordinary.

Several weeks ago plain grey jets, I believe marked "Airforce" with Old Glory on the tail were parked on the tarmac. Not really a big deal, Boeing and the Government are bedfellows, no big secret there, but typically it is just commercial airliners going in and out.

Over the past week or so I have seen two of that same exact type of jet, except instead of an American flag on the tail it was a Russian flag. The first one I saw last week and the second I saw today. Curiosity got the better of me and I started digging to see if the Russian government had some public contract with Boeing. I couldn't find a single thing. The plane had four engines so I was able to narrow it down to either a 747-8/747-8F or a C-17 Globemaster iii as far as what is available on Boeing's public website.

Now if I am remembering correctly I don’t think it was large enough to be a C-17 Globemaster. I believe I saw a couple Globemasters flying into JBLM and they were huge. I also don’t recall the planes I saw having the T-tails that the Globemasters have. The digging I did found a couple of contracts for Volga-Dnepr for some 747-8Fs but the color scheme doesn’t fit what I saw. I also saw Russian airline Rossiya Airlines had a contract and have a distinctive Russian flag on the tail but the plans are white, not grey like what I saw.

Any ideas what might be going on? I find it pretty suspicious that these identical planes for the US and Russia are being cranked out right about the same time. Did the US commission the aircrafts to pull off something in Syria to put pressure on Russia?