Photos of the "sky penis" were posted on April 27 on an unofficial US Air Force Facebook page. The post had been shared almost 500 times by Monday.
Retired Air Force Master Sergeant Steven Mayne first received photos of the "sky penis" Friday morning, the website Task & Purpose reported. It was Mayne who shared the images on the Facebook page.
Facebook users were torn between whether the contrails resembled a penis or non-phallic symbols like eyeglasses.
A spokesperson for the 52nd Fighter Wing told Task & Purpose on Monday that no abnormal flight patterns were flown over Ramstein when the photos were taken.
"The pilots conducted their normal flight patterns, which are based on planned tactics frequently involving circles and straight lines," Air Force Captain Andrea Valencia said in a recent email to the news site.
"The weather permitted those contrails to be visible from the ground and simply showed the patterns that our pilots do on a day-to-day basis. The contrails were not intended to signal anything to anyone on the ground, the pattern and multitude was not an intentional act," Valencia added.
This incident follows a similar situation in which two US Navy aviators faced disciplinary action for scribbling a large sky penis above Okanogan County, Washington, on November 16, 2017.
"When they came down, the aviators were apologetic," US Navy spokesman Commander Ron Flanders told the Union-Tribune in November.
"The aviators admitted that they had done it after it occurred. When they appeared before the [Field Naval Aviator Evaluation Board] they were contrite. They realized that this was an embarrassment to naval aviation and the entire Navy," Flanders added.
— Adam Gessaman (@adamrg) November 17, 2017
On the April 27 post on the Air Force's unofficial Facebook page, many commenters compared the the Air Force's "sky penis" to the Navy's.
— Anahi Torres (@anahi_torres_) November 16, 2017
"The Navy's artwork was much more crisp though. I give this a 6/10. Good attempt," one user wrote.
"That's why the Air Force has pilots and the Navy has aviators," another user added.
