Planes 'seen in close encounter'

[Kier]

A picture like that would have been taken with a 200mm or longer lens, which has the effect of drastically reducing the effects of perspective.

Those two planes could have been a mile apart and the effect would be as seen, especially as the higher plane is a significantly larger aircraft than the lower.

Panic over.

[CeleronXT]

It's also clear from the pixelation on the tail of the upper aircraft. It's far more pixelated than any part of the closer craft, suggesting it's much higher.

[Kier]

It's also clear from the pixelation on the tail of the upper aircraft. It's far more pixelated than any part of the closer craft, suggesting it's much higher.

Actually that is an artifact of the nature of digital cameras and the JPEG compression scheme, not evidence of tampering.

CCD and CMOS sensors in digital cameras, with the sole exception of the 'Foveon' sensor have twice as much green detail than blue or red. Combine that with JPEG's lack of aptitude for representation of vivid reds and the picture can be explained quite simply without declaring it to be a fake.

Once again, this picture simply shows the compression of perspective characteristic of a long telephoto lens, no doctoring or post processing is required to make this real-life picture appear like a near miss.