This reminds me of 3 stories from when I was in school:
1) Watching a Cobra gunship pop up from behind a hill to unload Hellfire missiles at a ground target
2) Watching Harriers do bombing runs at targets. These were both during combined arms training with (I assume) the goal of impressing on young Lieutenants the value of using supporting arms instead of trying to do a bayonet charge or something. The Harriers...you learn the textbook technique of engaging jets with infantry small arms. Then you see them actually in action and realize how completely and utterly futile that would be. By the time you see them, they've already dropped their ordinance and are on the way out. So even if you managed to hit one, you're already dead.
3) Watching a Harrier do some training. We were on the way somewhere near an airfield--this wasn't an actual demonstration for us, just something we happened to see. Harrier was just *hanging there* 50-100' off the ground, kind of gently wobbling for 5-10 seconds. Then it started to pivot, its nose tilted up 45 degrees, and it just disappeared like a rocket. [And it was far enough away that you couldn't hear the jet engines--it seemed totally silent.] You know Harriers can do this. You maybe even have seen it on television. But when you actually see it in person...that is when I became about 95% certain that UFO sightings were actually just experimental aircraft. Seeing it in broad daylight at a Marine air base was pretty trippy, but just encountering one at night in the middle of nowhere, you'd swear it wasn't anything made by humans.