Listen to the cockpit audio of the Navy’s infamous ‘sky penis’ flight

After the laughter died down, many of us wondered what the hell the pilots who drew the Navy's penis in the sky – now known everywhere as the "sky penis" – were thinking. We may never know exactly what was going through their minds, but now at least we know what they were saying when they drew the now-famous celestial phallus.

"You should totally try to draw a penis."

It was a clear day over Washington state in 2017, when suddenly the skies were marred by what appeared to be a huge dong in the wild blue yonder. Thousands of feet above the earth, U.S. Navy pilots behind the sticks of an EA-18G Growler were giggling up a storm after noticing their contrails looked particularly white against the vivid blue backdrop of the sky.

They didn't notice the contrails weren't dissipating quite as fast as they hoped they would. At least, that's what the official cockpit audio recording says.

"My initial reaction was no, bad," the pilot wrote in a statement. "But for some reason still unknown to me, I eventually decided to do it."

While the above recording isn't the official audio – the Navy didn't release the audio, just the transcripts – it's a pretty good replica done by the guys from the Aviation Lo Down podcast. It includes such gems as:

• "You should totally try to draw a penis."
• "Which way is the shaft going?"
• "It's gonna be a wide shaft."
• "I don't wanna make it just like 3 balls."

While everyone involved seemed pleased with their great work, including the commander of the training mission in another Growler, they soon realized the contrails were still there, their magnum opus firmly painted on the sky for all the world to see – and see they did. Residents of Okanogan soon called into their local news station to complain about the large drawing in the sky.

The Navy has not released the identities of those involved in creating the most memorable public achievement made by the Navy since Top Gun, it has only ever mentioned the two junior-ranking pilots were highly skilled and good leaders who one might think would know better.

More importantly, no one knows what became of them. Here's to hoping they got tickets to the Army-Navy Game.