doubleugly, I do really hope that your story is true. However, facts are:
* Japanese aircraft were, by Japanese law, not allowed to cross the Japanese border prior to 1992;
* the first 'production' F-4EJ Kai was delivered in 1991;
* prior to 1991, seeing other F-4EJ Kai aircraft would be limited to the prototype, which is not the aircraft shown on the picture;
* the flight from Hokkaido to Pferdsfeld over the North Pole takes about 12000km, which is 13-14 hours in cruise mode. A ferry this long itself is worthy of a big and lengthy article in any Western magazine;
* without the A/A capability, the aircraft should have made numerous stopovers and were probably not able to reach the US safely (the island Wake is only just within reach for a regular F-4E, then a transit to Hawaii, then onwards to CONUS), necessitating a route through Asia and the Middle East (they could have picked up the alleged Israeli F-4 here, though
);
* the nomen Polar Route has been in use since Japanese and European civil operators were allowed to cross Soviet airspace to shorten the travel between Europe and Japan. As such, there is no "die Pol Route" for military aircraft as stated by the article;
* Photoshop is relatively new, but it used to be common to alter photographs in such a way that people never existed, or that weapons seemingly are in places where they in reality have never been;
* Germans have a sense of humour too!
I could therefore come to only two options:
1. looking at the way the Germans have been able to paint their Phantoms: a regular Pferdsfeld jet was turned into a Japanese one?
2. it is a very interesting hoax.
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