[Ronin]

One poster on the thread over at Popular Science speculated that, while the bird was being launched and recovered out of Kandahar, it was most likely spending its mission time over Pakistan.

That would make sense if it is as quiet as it is stealthy looking. I can imagine a lot of interesting places in Pakistan where close range quiet observations would be of extreme interest.

[katana]

If it is what it looks like, a smaller UAV version of a B2, it would be very quiet. I was at a flyby of a B2 back in the late 90's and it passed close at around 3 thousand feet with nothing more than a low tone whisper sound. And that was with a backdrop of tall downtown (Cleveland Air Show) buildings for the engine noise to reverberate off of. The lack of sound was actually more impressive than seeing the dark bat wing profile against a summer sky.