A reader, to be known as UFO Guy:
Sounds to me like Kucinich saw a Stealth Fighter. 25 years ago would’ve been 1982, which is about right for the secret training flights for that plane. It was angular, and they couldn’t tell which way it was going. That’s called the plane’s aspect ratio. An aspect ration that helps deflect radar waves also makes it difficult to tell which way the plane is going. Stealth aircraft are also very quiet; you can barely hear them as they approach. They’re loud going away from you, though.
As to the touchy-feely stuff about how something so “sophisticated and gentle” moved him, I can relate a story of my own.
In the mid-1990s I was doing a contract in Wichita, putting a system in a hospital. There is an Air Force base outside Wichita where B-1 bombers were based at the time. Rock Road was a busy commercial highway that ran parallel to the runway. If you were a plane nut (like I am) it was really a treat to see a B-1 take off at night- it was as loud as could be and you could make out the plane’s silhouette in the glow of the afterburner.
Once, driving up Rock Road, I saw a B-2 Stealth bomber on final approach to the airbase. (This was when they were brand-spankin’ new.) It literally stopped traffic- everybody on this busy commercial street stopped their cars and got out to watch and wave at the silent bat-plane. The conversation consisted of complete strangers saying, “wow!” to each other. After the plane flew past we all got in our cars and drove on.
I believe Kucinich is a looney, but I’m prepared to cut him some slack on this UFO thing because seeing a Stealth aircraft is so remarkable. Of course nobody “communed with the universe” or such nonsense when we all stopped our cars, but we knew what we were looking at.