A B-1B Lancer — like this one –flew over my block on Monday. The noise was incredible, weird and thrilling. Ajax did his thunder bark, hackles up, jumping and barking at the ceiling. I looked out the front window and there it was big and banking and low over the end of my block. It looked like a spaceship. The Russians working on the roof of the apartment building across the street dropped their nail guns and whipped out their cell phones to get a picture. But, by the time they could press the buttons, it was gone, a dot. We looked at each other like we might have seen an angel — one of those terrible ones from Rilke. And then we spotted it again on its approach to the LB airport, the other end of its enormous U-turn — looking giant against the far away mountains, roaring out of sight. Here’s a story about what it was doing over my house. And here is a video of a previous B-1-B takeoff from Long Beach airport that gives you some idea of how it sounded. [Frame grab above.]