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Artist's concept of a typical black triangle object.

"Black triangles" are a class of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) with certain common features which have reportedly been observed from the 1940s to the present. Reports of black triangles generally originate from the United States and Britain.

Reports generally describe this class of UFOs as enormous, silent, black triangular crafts, hovering or slowly cruising at low altitudes over cities and highways, usually at night and making no attempt to evade detection. These crafts are often described as having "running lights", either bright white lights or pulsing colored lights that appear at each corner of the triangle.^{[citation needed]}

Reported sightings

Trianang]]s have increased dramatically since the 1990s. 1993, March 30: Multiple witnesses across south-west and west England saw a large black triangle at low speeds. Analysis of the sightings by Nick Pope concluded that the object moved in a north-easterly course from Cornwall to Shropshire over a period of approximately 6 hours. The sightings report clearly visible objects over densely populated areas and highways, mostly in the United States and Britain, but other parts of the world as well. A geographic distribution of U.S. sightings has been correlated by a currently inactive American-based investigative organization, the National Institute for Discovery Science, which led to a July 2002 report which suggested that the craft may belong to the U.S. Air Force^[1]; however, a subsequent report in August 2004 by the same organization (NIDS) found that the rash of sightings did not conform to previous deployment of black project aircraft and that the objects' origins and agendas were unknown ^[2].

Typical sightings

Most black triangle reports indicate that the craft are at least 200 ft (60 m) long and similar to the dimensions of a typical football field in width^{[citation needed]}. They typically appear silently and seemingly "out of nowhere", drifting a few hundred feet or less above the ground. Black triangles are usually described as moving very slowly or hovering in one place for varying periods of time, sometimes even landing. The craft are also sometimes reported to be capable of sudden, rapid acceleration, as is often mentioned in descriptions of other types of UFOs.

Some triangular UFO reports are likely sightings of one or more black projects under development by the U.S. military and contractors. However, the facts that triangles are usually reported in and around populated areas and that they putatively make no effort to evade detection cast doubt on whether such sightings are of military craft. (Of course, large populations have more eyes with which to make sightings.) This in comparison to the F-117 Nighthawk and B-2 Spirit stealth aircraft, which were sighted only occasionally during testing over sparsely populated areas of the Southwest United States such as Groom Lake (Area 51), usually at night and by dedicated civilian observers of military aircraft.

Rendlesham Forest incident

A pyramid-shaped craft was reported to have landed near an American air base at Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk, Britain, on December 27, 1980. Military personnel reported having approached at least one landed craft in the forest and observed it in great detail before it once again took flight. Another craft was observed landing in an open field near the base and then taking off at incredible speed. Between 2002 and 2005, reporter Bryant Gumbel hosted a series of exclusive SciFi Channel documentaries, one of which, entitled UFO Invasion at Rendlesham, focused on this incident. Gumbel interviewed some of the men involved with the sighting, and the documentary toured some of the scenes, attempting to gather evidence that something landed in the forest. The History Channel also aired an episode of UFO Files on the incident, calling it "Britain's Roswell".

Belgian Air Force report

A picture purported to have been taken during the Belgian UFO wave, but which did not show up until thirteen years later.

On March 30, 1990, citizens of the city of Brussels spotted what appeared to be a large black triangular craft hovering silently over the city for several minutes. Local police officials arrived on the scene and reported observing the object as it appeared to hover over apartment buildings. One officer reported that the object released a red glowing disk of light from its center which flew down to the ground and darted around several buildings before disappearing.^{[citation needed]}

"The Intruder" video

In a 1992 event, unreported until March 2007, a black triangle was spotted and filmed over the skies of Phoenix, Arizona. Not much is known about the sighting, as only one video has surfaced, which was featured on Phoenix local news network 3TV. The video was nicknamed "The Intruder."^{[citation needed]}

Phoenix Lights incident

One of the more famous appearances of these craft was during the event known as the "Phoenix Lights", where multiple unidentified objects, many of them black triangles, were spotted by the residents of Phoenix, Arizona and videotaped by both the local media and residents with camcorders across multiple evenings beginning on Thursday, March 13, 1997. Some lights drifted as low as 1000 feet and moved far too slowly for conventional aircraft and too silently for helicopters. Some of the lights appeared to group up in a giant "V" formation that lingered above the city for several minutes. Many residents reported one triangle to be over a mile wide that drifted slowly over their houses blocking out the stars of the night sky. Other reports indicated the craft were spotted flying away from Phoenix as far away as Las Vegas, Nevada and Los Angeles, California.

An official report made by the Air Force about the incident concluded that the military had been testing flares launched from conventional aircraft during that time. Eyewitnesses confirmed military jets were scrambled from nearby Luke Air Force Base, but instead of launching flares, they were seen chasing after some of the objects.

The next few nights, in an attempt to recreate the incident, local pilots flew prop-planes over the city in a "V" formation, but the sounds of their engines were easily heard. The original lights made no sound. Flares were also deployed above Phoenix. Comparison of the video taken of the lights (which appeared at night) against daytime images of the same scene show that the lights "disappear" at the exact moment they are shown to fall behind a mountain range. The mountains were invisible against the night sky. There were apparently no reported radar sightings of the objects which appears to be consistent with the flare theory.

Illinois police sighting incident

On January 5, 2000, beginning shortly after 4:00 am, five on-duty Illinois police officers in separate locations sighted and reported a massive, unidentified triangular aircraft.^{[citation needed]} Two of the five officers reported flight characteristics which do not conform to currently known civilian technologies, as the object appeared to move at incredible speeds without making any sound. Sightings in Highland, Illinois, by a civilian who first reported to the local police department and subsequent sightings took place in Lebanon, Summerfield, Shiloh, Millstadt, Dupo, and O'Fallon. Scott Air Force Base public relations office denied any knowledge of the event. The incident was featured in Peter Jennings' final ABC special, "UFOs: Seeing is Believing".^{[citation needed]} The event has been addressed by several U.S. cable television programs and one independent documentary.

This story was also featured in 2005 on a segment of the SciFi Channel paranormal investigation series Proof Positive (episode #108). To substantiate that the police officers did in fact witness the same unexplained aircraft, and that their reports correlated together, all five were given a lie detector test and asked various questions about the incident. All five officers passed the test and the show gave the story a "proof positive".^{[citation needed]}

Common explanations

Black triangles are the subject of much speculation in the ufology community and various conspiracy theories, as well as more skeptical hypotheses. Common explanations include the following:

• craft of extraterrestrial origin
• top secret craft containing suppressed or reverse engineered anti-gravity technology
• the Aurora, an alleged hypersonic spy plane
• common misidentifications of one or more conventional aircraft
• psychological phenomenon, such as the availability of previous reports influencing suggestible witnesses
• B-2 Spirit stealth bomber or F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter
• satellites passing overhead, whose points make what appear to be a black triangle in the sky

References

External links

• Summary of the Black Triangle UFO phenomenon from Space.Com

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