During the years 1990 - 2004, the United States has experienced a wave of Flying Black Triangle aircraft sightings. Hundreds of observers have reported enormous, totally silent, black triangular craft hovering or slowly cruising at low altitudes over cities and highways, usually at night. Making no attempt to evade detection, the craft are even described by many observers as having some sort of 'running lights ', either bright white lights or flashing colored lights.

By mid-2004, there were almost 400 separate reports of flying triangles, wedges, or boomerangs clearly visible over densely populated areas and highways, mostly near the East and West Coast of the United States. This geographic distribution also matches the locations of U.S. Air Force bases, leading to suggestions that the craft either belong to the U.S. Air Force or are investigating the U.S. Air Force.

Typical observations are that the craft are at least 61 m (200 ft) long and, although moving very slowly or hovering, appear silently 'out of nowhere', a few hundred feet or less above the ground. Sometimes the craft is reported to be capable of sudden very high acceleration, as is often mentioned in descriptions of other types of unidentified flying objects.

Many recent 'UFO' sightings have turned out to be Unmanned aerial vehicles, which are currently under rapid development by the military and contractors as security and surveillance tools, and often look very different from manned aircraft. On the other hand, the common observation that these craft appear over populated areas and make no effort to evade detection negates any argument that they are some sort of advanced United States military craft under development, like the F-117 Nighthawk or B-2 Sprit stealth aircraft which were sighted only occasionally during testing over sparsely populated areas of the Southwest, usually at night.

The remaining possibilities are

• that they are previously unknown American aircraft, manned or unmanned, which are being deployed in a 'high-visibility' fashion, but without public notice for some reason;
• that they belong to some nation or organization other than the United States, which wishes to display itself in this fashion;
• that they are some sort of common error of identification of some 'conventional' aircraft or other phenomenon; however, this could not explain why their observation started only in the 1990s;
• or that they are of extraterrestrial origin.

The security implications of these possibilities are different after the World Trade Center attack of September 11, 2001, than previously. The implications of some hitherto unknown group which can display such advanced and unknown technology in such a brazen fashion over American population centers is disturbing to most people. On the other hand, the possibility that the United States military has this kind of previously unsuspected low-altitude surveillance technology, at a time when domestic surveillance and defense are heightened, represents a comfort to some, but is equally disturbing to others, particularly in view of the complete official silence on the phenomenon.

One possibility is that the craft represent some form of advanced technology lighter than air craft. This would account for their size, low speed, low altitude, and silence. Such a vehicle would be advantageous in terms of payload size, fuel efficiency, extended time aloft, and ability to remain close to a location on the ground or a ground vehicle or group of vehicles for long periods. However, this would not explain why they would be displayed so freely, but with no official comment of any kind, or the reports of sudden high acceleration as in the Illinois case [1]. This possibility must however be weighed against the Belgian 'Belgian Triangle ' sightings involving Black Triangles identical to the objects sighted in American airspace. These Belgian Triangles demonstrated flight performance characteristics beyond the fighter jets used by the Belgian Airforce in their attempt to intercept them. The Wallonia Triangles were both photographed, filmed and tracked on radar, ruling out mass delusion as the source of the sightings.

Obviously, the other possibilities, that these sightings are either genuinely 'paranormal' in some way, or, conversely, merely some sort of mass delusion or error possibly stemming from heightened anxiety over terrorism (in the American cases at least), open the door to almost any sort of speculation. Until more evidence of a different kind appears, or an American military or other group officially claims responsibility, what reality lies behind the American reports will remain unknown.

The Belgian Airforce Report

The Belgian Air Force has gone on record with the details of its Black Triangle pursuit. It released its radar video footage and its conclusions, ruling out the following origins of the object in question:

1. Balloons. Impossible due to the highly variable speeds (confirmed visually and by radar).
2. ULM . Same as for balloons.
3. RPV . Impossible due to the hovering characteristics.
4. Aircraft (including Stealth). Same as for RPV. No noise.
5. Laser projections or Mirages. Unlikely due to lack of projection surface (no clouds). Light spots have been observed from different locations. Light spots moved over distance of more than 15 NM. Form of inlighted part of spots has been observed with spectacles. Laser projections or mirages can not be detected by radar.

The report concludes that the Belgian Airforce was, "able to identify neither the nature nor the origin of the phenomena".

External links

• Belgian Triangle incidents, 1989 1991
• What are the Triangles?
• Account of a black triangle sighting
• Aereon, a company developing advanced technology lighter than air craft
• A book describing the history of Aereon
• MSNBC: ‘Flying Triangle’ sightings on the rise (September 2, 2004)