Cheeky rooftop sign 'Welcome to Perth' scares in-flight passengers arriving at Sydney

Passengers arriving at Sydney Airport were greeted with a frightful rooftop sign atop a building in Sydney. A message on top of the building (complex), which is in the flight path of Australia's busiest airport, led people to believe they had arrived in the wrong city. The words 'Welcome to Perth' were painted on top of the building with industrial paint, making them highly visible from above. An observant passenger on a flight into Sydney noticed an unusual rooftop sign as the plane descended to the runway to land. The man, who posted on Reddit, was flying into Sydney Airport when he noticed the sign painted on a rooftop below. The image was posted by u/HiddenTaxes on Reddit, found on a Facebook group called Frequent Flyers Australia, and then once again posted by u/Juan_Punch_Man on Reddit.

Brad Heasman, the man behind the sign and the building's owner, was waiting for someone to notice and only got recognition after three months of painting it. Heasman took advantage of the situation by hiring local painting company Speedy Painters to paint one of his nearby buildings."Our complex is directly under the flight path and we always see planes flying above so I thought 'it's a bit of a laugh, why not?'" he told Traveller. "We've used them for years and the owner loved the idea. It's painted in proper road paint, so it doesn't go unnoticed. I just figured there was no reason I couldn't do the same thing and it'd make people laugh. I've just been waiting for other people to notice, I'm surprised it took this long actually."

He was inspired by Milwaukee artist Mark Gubbins, who has been greeting passengers flying into Mitchell International Airport with a confusing sign that reads "Welcome to Cleveland" in 2m-tall letters atop his house since 1978. Mr. Gubin got the idea to paint the sign while having lunch on the roof of his apartment with his assistant at the time, and she noticed all the low-flying planes that passed by. His assistant suggested that Mr. Gubin make a sign that welcomed the passengers to Milwaukee, but as a joke, he wrote Cleveland instead. It has since appeared in thousands of headlines, reports News.com.au.

"It just keeps coming around. It will not go away. Every now and then I'll go online and look up my name and I get an incredible number of hits," Gubin said in 2015 when interviewed by MILWAUKEE NEWS. "I never did it as any kind of thing to help my business or anything like that. It was just plain madness. You need that in the world."

Netizens loved this prank. "Amazing! That's on top of Pink Storage across the road from Repco, Pet Warehouse and ARB," commented u/xaero101. "Thousands of people are getting micro heart attacks each day," wrote u/ankrich. "I am exactly the type of person that would finally manage to get 5 minutes of sleep just before landing, wake up to this dazed and confused and freak the f**k out. Bravo," shared u/Your-Mask-Is-Tinfoil. "For those interested, coordinates are: -33.91817234770207, 151.16978156554424," u/boltkrank shared helpfully. The next time you're on a plane and decide to gaze out the window as you approach your destination, beware of any pranksters who might be attempting to troll you.