Could your next flight over Europe result in a close call with a Russian spy plane?

While this might seem like news from the Cold War era, it turns out there are reportedly secretive Russian spy planes flying around Europe incognito. Like, right now. Even more worrisome is that the planes are flying around "dark," which means that they are in the air without activated transponders, so they don't show up on conventional air traffic screens as identified objects; rather they are UFOs only visible as dots on radar without any other indications of speed, height or specific location.

As you might expect, these invisible planes have already been causing conflicts with commercial aviation. An Irish government report revealed this week that there have been two close calls in recent months. The "cloaked" jets were Russian Tu-95 bombers and flew only 25 miles off the Irish coast on February 18th while criss-crossing commercial aviation lanes — including incoming flights from America.

There were also two separate incidents last year involving a near-miss with a Swedish passenger jet that had just taken off from Copenhagen's airport. In each case, the airliners were immediately ordered to take evasive action to avert disaster. The European Leadership Network has even put together a report relating to the crisis, which identifies 11 especially aggressive airborne incidents that are quite shocking in their provocation. The group also compiled a map pinpointing the 40+ near-miss incidents over the past year:

Russia has, of course, denied any involvement in any of the incidents. The number of near misses only seems to be rising, leading to speculation that one doomed mistake could set us on a collision course for a serious escalation of tensions between the West and Russia — especially given the murky situation relating to Malaysia Airlines flight MH70 reportedly shot down last year above a disputed region of Ukraine.