West Tampa man finds F-35 fighter jet in yard

Julio Hector, who lives on West Braddock Street, a couple of blocks from Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, found a U.S. Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II jet in his front yard on Sunday.

“This makes me very angry because we park cars at $35 each here on football game days and this thing is so damn big there’s no room for any other cars,” he said. “We had a great day on Saturday with Alabama vs USF but a terrible day yesterday with the Chicago Bears against the Bucs.”

“I don’t know where it came from but now it’s two days later and still here,” he added.

The United States Defense Department said it’s doubtful their belongs to them because the likelihood of a multi-million dollar piece of combat hardware simply coming up missing and unaccounted for is virtually impossible.

No one seems to know exactly what it showed up or where it came from.

“I have a feeling my son Umberto probably parked it there. Because he’s stupid,” said Hector. “Of course he says he doesn’t know but he’s also a huge liar.”

“His mother and I are very disappointed.”

A Marine lieutenant staffing a 1-800 hotline for missing military aircraft said, “Thank you for this information concerned citizen. Guys, I think somebody found one of ‘em”, before hanging up abruptly.