What Was a US Nuke Sniffer Looking for Over Missouri Today?

There was some rather unusual plane activity over Missouri on Wednesday. Someone noticed that a United States nuke sniffing plane was snooping over Missouri today apparently looking for something. Coincidence or is something else going on?

Blame my paranoia on me reading too many Tom Clancy novels 30 years ago. If you're familiar with Tom's work, you know he had friends in military intelligence that would share close calls with him about incidents that never made the press, but involved covert military activity. I can't help but think of those stories when I look at a flight pattern noticed by a YouTuber today of a WC-135 Constant Phoenix US Air Force plane. It's code name is COBRA36.

Another coincidence as this happened at almost the same time as a US 'doomsday plane' (codenamed TITAN25) flew just north of Missouri headed west.

What was this WC-135 Constant Phoenix looking for over Missouri today?

The US Air Force describes the purpose of this plane saying its mission involves "collecting particulate and gaseous effluents and debris from accessible regions of the atmosphere in support of the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963". Translation? It sniffs around for nuclear materials.

Due to the geographical location of Missouri, we have many US Air Force aircraft including E-6B 'doomsday planes' and WC-135R 'nuke sniffers' flying over the state frequently thanks to nearby Offutt Air Force Base in southeastern Nebraska. It's just not common to see these planes circling over Missouri instead of just flying a straight flight path to a different destination.

No, I don't think anything sinister is necessarily going on, but I do find this activity curious especially considering what's happening in the Middle East and North Korea, not to mention China and Russia.