Mystery of blacked-out plane flying over wilderness on Google Earth

However Wiktor Kolesiński found a more logical explanation after taking the anonymously posted data and locating the aircraft to about 80km east of the city of Fairbanks. 

Wiktor, 19, a medical student in Poland who enjoys solving open source mysteries, concluded that the plane is a Boeing 747-400 headed west at about 272 degrees. 

Explaining why the black marks are most likely an imaging error, he said: ‘First, the black rectangles are not positioned in significant identification areas of the plane.

‘Second, if the goal were to prevent identification, why wouldn’t they just blur or cover the entire aircraft so it wouldn’t be visible at all?

‘Third, and most importantly, these black rectangles are visible across the entire area where images from this satellite on that day are available.  

‘This becomes apparent when you locate this spot on Google Earth and zoom out.

‘Identical black rectangles, just like those on the plane, are spread over a radius of several kilometers—hundreds or even thousands of them.

‘Thus, this is a Google Earth error rather than an intentional attempt to block identification of the aircraft.’ 

Wiktor also identified the most likely specific plane shown flying at 64°45’38″N 146°0’13″W on September 27, 2018.  

He said: ‘This aircraft likely belongs to the airline Kalitta Air. It’s a cargo airline from the USA.  

‘Initially, I thought the resolution of the satellite images was too low to determine the airline.

‘However, I later saw that another user pointed out Kalitta Air, specifically the large inscription in the middle of the fuselage of the airline’s aircraft.

‘After looking again at the images on Google Earth, you can indeed make out the outline of the same “Kalitta Air” inscription with two black marks on either side, so it’s likely that this aircraft belongs to that airline.’