I saw the Vulcan a couple of times. The best was at Carlisle airport during it's last summer of flying. It came in so quietly that we almost missed it, glided over the airfield in what felt like silence, then poured on the power and roared away for another circuit. It was a beautiful plane.
I had the same happen years ago in Gaithersburg, MD, when I first moved to this area. I got off the bus late at night after a late evening at work, and from the bus stop I walked across a grass field to my door. It was a clear night, full moon, and I kept feeling like there was something in the sky to the south of me (my left) as I was walking- out of the corner of my eye I could see it, but if I looked right at it, nothing there but stars.
It passed over almost silently- even after it passed it was surprisingly quiet for being as low as it was (under 3000 feet-ish, at a guess). Quiet, hard to see in its all-black paint, and gone in a heartbeat past the treetops to the north. If I'd been indoors, I'd never have heard it. Even looking up at it, I couldn't really see IT, just the stars and few clouds disappearing behind its wedge-shaped body and reappearing moments later, the most vague impression of its shape as it slipped past.
I don't have radar, but I do have eyes and ears, and it was invisible to all of that- if I ever wondered just how sneaky a B-2 really was, that was an education. He'd have been able to drop everything but the kitchen sink on me before I'd ever have known he existed. I'm used to military birds flying around the DC area- F-15s, UH-60s, etc.- and it never fails to grab my attention, but that thing was eerily sneaky.
