Great story.
Outstanding aircraft still...
I was fortunate to see one do several flybys at a Navy airshow at Pt. Mugu in SoCal years ago. The announcer said there was an SR-71 in the area (which probably meant he was somewhere over Wyoming at the time) that was going to come by and do a couple of unscheduled flybys. He showed up a few minutes later and did a "slow" flyby, went out over the ocean to turn around and come back. Then did another flyby with the nose pitched up so it was probably as slow as he could fly it. Then turned around, came back, pointed the nose up about 45-degrees, lit the candles and DISAPPEARED!
After reading the story, I bet the "demo" was just a little inter-service rivalry: "Let's go show those Navy guys what a REAL aircraft can do!" LOL