[fingpilot]

This is me, first hand account.

Departed Shannon, Ireland, destination Burbank, LaLaLand. Gulfstream 4. Westbound at FL430, M.80 (gas saving speed).

Talking to Artic control, we are way north of Hudson Bay. Has been really quiet on the freq, is VHF thru a remote from somewhere down there. Center calls with traffic.

"Traffic 6 o'clock 60 miles 1100 knot overtake, no altitude readout, in fact is a primary target only intermittently, we're not talking to him."

I look over at the F.O., who puts down his paper, and he asks "and what does he want us to do about it?"

The controller says that we are on a merge track, but he has an idea... be right back.

A full minute goes by...

"Your traffic is on a flight from Mildenhall (mil base in Great Britain) to Mather (military base in California), and is not in controlled airspace (60,000 feet and below), and by the way, your targets just merged."

The hair on my arms sticks straight up, even now as I type this.

I lean forward and look up. The now familiar black double triangle shape was speeding by 20,000 feet above us, with two dark yellow triangle cones from the engines.

From the time he passed overhead to disappearing over the horizon out in front of us was all of 2 minutes.

37 years of amazing things seen while airbourne, that was one of the best.