On Monday, August 26, 1996, at 10 AM CDT I was walking north on the sidewalk at the south-east corner of 13th and Farnam Streets in downtown Omaha. I had just dropped off something to Rick on 2nd Floor of 1299 Farnam building. I heard the roar of jet engines overhead and thought it was a jet from Eppley Airfield just a few miles away, but I was wrong. It was a jet from Offutt Air Force Base which is south of downtown Omaha about 10 miles.
It was a B2 Bomber. It is called the "Flying Wing". It was an awesome sight like out of a science fiction movie like "Independence Day". It only lasted a few seconds. They were doing a "fly over" of downtown Omaha. What an honor! They were heading for California I found out later. (There was an "Air Show" over the weekend at Offutt.) This object was all black and an ominous shape in contrast to the deep blue sky. It is a Stealth bomber. It was scary! It was! Someone else was walking north on the sidewalk and I pointed to the sky so they also witnessed this unbelievable sight. It was cool. I was not dreaming. He thought it was cool also. I think he went to catch the bus that was waiting on the corner going west on Farnam Street, maybe. I'm not sure if he got on the bus.
When I got back to the office a block away I told people what I had witnessed. One person did not believe me, but most people did. I told my good friend, Kim, in Denver about it. She had called about a problem with a VM mainframe computer that we have not figured out yet. I said, "Maybe they will do a fly over of downtown Denver too. Cool! (I don't imagine that they did. Well, maybe they did at 40,000 or 50,000 feet.)
(I told Kim about my Home Page here on the Internet, so she will probably be surprised to see her name out here "Up in lights". She is a person who was saying the word, "cool" way before it was cool! Have a great day, Kim! Talk to you soon.)
Dan Boeckman's e-mail address:
dboeckm@csealumni.unl.edu
Last changed on August 27, 1996 at 4:20 AM CDT
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