Triangle Sighting Tonight

Dec. 29 7:30 P.M. St. Petersburg FL
While walking to the local store for a 6 pack I observed a set of lights to the west that seemed to be approaching my location(5th st. & 37th av). From my view it appeared that the lights were coming in off the Gulf of Mexico somewhere in the vicinity of Indian Rocks Beach. The lights were at my 10 o'clock and had an apparent height of 1,000 ft. and an air speed of 75 knots.
There were 3 lights in a triangular configuration that stayed on continuously and 1 flashing in the middle. when they were approxomitly 1/4 mile away the object made a slow left hand turn and headed north. During the turn I could discern a dark triangular shape between the 3 lights. There was no sound. it moved away from me to the north and eventually the trees obscured my view. the entire episode lasted between 5-10 minutes. I didnt have a watch so thats approximate. I knew it was 7:30 because I glanced at a clock before I left home.
The sky was clear and the temp about 60 degrees, lots of stars visible. No other air traffic visible or audible.
I have called the 3 local airfields TIA, St. Pete/CLWTR, Albert Whitted and found no radar sightings or flights scheduled for that time or place. The local Coast Guard station had no planes in the air. The local city desk at the St. Pete Times hadnt recieved any calls but they have my name and number in case anyone calls. SOCOM had noone available for comment. I'll try them again tommorrow.
This is the third sighting I've had in my life and the first triangle. I am currently filling out the proper forms for MUFON,CUFOS, et al and should have them in the mail tommorrow and I expect to interview neighbors tommorrow as well. You see around here I seem to be the UFO guy so I help folks out as best I can. You know givin them forms and makin calls and such. But now I am investigating my own sighting. And BTW......it was awsome.
If anybody here has anything to offer I would appreciate it. You can even email me if you need to. I dont mind at all. Oh and sorry no pics I didnt think to bring a camera. I mean I was just goin for a beer for cryin out loud.
If you have any questions fire away. That would only help me in my investigation. You know bring out things I might have missed.
Thought you good folk would like a real time sighting to feast on.

did it look like this?

external image

It could well have been that(the shape fits) unless there is a noise involved. It was dark and no moon so all I saw was a vague dark triangular shape.
What I saw moved slow and quiet.
My first thought was it was one of the Coast Guard planes since they fly low and slow around here but they also make quite a racket.
There was no sound and it was well within range for me to have heard engines of some type.

I'm sure you're familiar with Big Black Deltas, cowboy.



I tend to think "airship" when I hear something is cruising silently at a constant slow speed. Large changes in velocity and direction are what I need to think, "craft of unusual origin".

A slow, low-flying airship would explain the lack of radar returns. The "stealth blimp" especially. An interesting sighting either way, though.

The question I have is, "What were the characteristics of the flashing light?"
Was it like an aircraft's navigation light? Or did it look different altogether?

How weird I was in the vicinity of USF at 20:00 on my way to Brandon, I saw a set of lights in a triangle formation with a flashing light in the center. It did not appear to be moving. I immediately realized it was a DC-9 or MD-80 at a low altitude and the angle (directly behind and below) made it look like it was hovering in place. I actually thought of taking a picture of it with my car phone to show how easy it is to misidentify a plane for a UFO (I mean that is how UFOy it looked). It already being dark and the fact I was driving made me decide it was not worth the effort.

Anyway, it’s strange that this happened and here someone is claiming to see a UFO, of almost the exact same description, just to the west of me about a half an hour earlier.


[edit on 12/30/2005 by defcon5]

The thought of an airship or blimp has crossed my mind. I've seen a few around here especially on Sundays when the Bucs play but I havent seen the light config on them as I've seen them during daylight. The flashing light I saw was strobe like not like a navigation lite.
Iwish there would have been a full moon then maybe I could have got a better look. There were definitly three lights at three corners. I stood and watched for 5-10 minutes as I stated. It approached me with one light in front and two trailing. It made an obvious turn as the lead light turned to its left and the others followed. It seemed to move with one point leading.

defcon- which direction did you see the lights?where in the sky? Read my above location and where i saw the lights and which direction. Were they to the east,west south,north?
thanks for the local help.

I was on Fletcher Ave, between the university and I-75, They were to the Northeast of me. Did not appear too far off, but far enough that there was no noise, maybe 4 to 6 thousand feet up by appearance based on how large it looked. Time should have been around 20:00 to 20:10, started my shift here near BRH at 20:30. So I would guess that they came from the South West. Could have been the same thing. But I dismissed it as an MD 80 (I am about 98% sure that is exactly what it was though).

The only funny thing is that there is no airport near there for them to be that low, but who knows, I’ve seen commercial planes that low out here in Brandon and the nearest airport they could possibly land at is TIA which is a good ten miles or more away yet.


[edit on 12/30/2005 by defcon5]

Actually they could have been headed to stp/clwtr. Does the MD-80 have a similar light pattern? But I checked with all the local towers and they said nothing with that trajectory(that I saw) was on the books.

The best thing to do is check flight explorer. I am not totally up on how to use it, but you can track any flights and that should eliminate them as possible candidates.

Yeah an MD-80, DC-9 has three white lights when its ready for landing, one on the nose wheel, rotating beacon in the bottom middle, and one on each wing tip. The wingtip lights drowned out the red/green nav lights when they are turned on. But now that you mention it, I am not sure why the one I saw would have its gear down that far out from the airport, especially heading in the opposite direction.

Chinabean...What's with your picture of the plane? Where did you get it? I ask because of the faint newspaper article that shows through on the right side of the picture.

Cowboy-ya think it might have been heading towards Pensacola NAS? Gulf breeze is virtually surrounded by top secret military bases and if the direction is right it might have been heading back up.
I'd guess a TR series, but they dont have a light configuration such as you described, but rather a bank of lights at rear and a bank in front.

Either way, I'm always interested in FLA sightings of any kind...thanx for sharing.

Pensacloa is a possibility. It certainly was headed in the right direction. My feeling is it might have been too low though to be so far away. I checked again today with the city desk and still nothing. Checked again with SOCOM and they had no information(insert conspiracy here). And thats exactly what I was told. No information. I'd take a ride over to McDill but probably woudnt do much good even if I could get in.
I live in an area with a lot of air traffic so I'm not unfamiiar with the local flight patterns in out of the the airports here. I also am in the path of the local Medivac so I see them quite often. and there's also a Coast Guard station here and I've seen lots of their craft in the air.
This fit nothing I'm used to seeing here. The light pattern and the fact of no sound and the low altitude slow air speed all have me stumped.
So I'll just keep lookin.
Thanks all.

I saw quite a few UFO's in the late 90's up until 1998. Have seen an occasional one here and there since then. Never did I ever seen one with a strobe light on it. Also, I have noticed in the past few years that conventional aircraft seem to be changing their light configurations almost as if they are intentionally trying to confuse things and make themselves more easily mistaken for UFO's. I'm seeing conventional craft now with lights that are constant instead of blinking on and off and are positioned on the plane as to make them look like triangles. The fact that it was silent though. Can't explain that.

interesting, i hope you find what you are "looking for"...

seriously though, if you got a better look at it, then it might be more likely to be out of this world...but with so much as some lights, and a slow speed, i'd be more likely to say it was an aircraft of u.s. origins....but keep up the search..you never know.

i thought i saw a ufo once...a disc shaped object was hovering just over the hill of a school i was attending one night, just after dark, with four lights, and one blinking on top, it was just hovering there about 500 yards out....i ran closer, but as it came more into the light, i saw it was just a water tower i never saw lit up before...

just goes to show how many times you can be fooled by our own inventions..

St. Petersburg FL, that's crazy I used to live right near there.

On November 22nd, I had a similar sighting during broad daylight of 2 triangle shaped crafts over Elk Park, Montana. The crafts appeared to be immense in size and silver in color. I saw them at close enough range that I can say without a doubt they were not the plane posted by chinabean. They had no lights that I could see (daylight) nor any distinguishing markings. I made an online report to the National UFO Reporting Center which can be read here:

www.nuforc.org...

If you browse case listings by state there is a high instance of similar sightings all over the state of Montana and particularly in the Elk Park, Butte, and Boulder areas.

I've since began carrying my digital camera with me whenever I'm on the highway. This was the most intense sighting I've ever had.

EDIT to add that this sighting was one of the things that spurred me to join this website.

[edit on 31-12-2005 by BRCMontana]

Right on BRC...you did the right thing. I keep hard copies of the various report forms because that way I can use diagrams and such. Every time I hear of some one local sighting I try to get them to fill out a report. Some do some dont. not everyone is as open about it as I am.

UPDATE- I conducted a canvas of the neighborhood and was unable to find anyone else who had seen anything. Still nothing from the local media,airfields, or military. The investigation continues.
Defcon may have seen something similar but his sighting was about 30 minutes later and not in the direction of mine. Unless in that 30 minutes the object circled around and headed to the south.
The mystery remains. I all I can say is I stand by what I reported. I dont lie and I am quite familiar with the local air traffic and this was not anything I've seen in these parts since I've lived here(20 years).

I think it is reasonable to assume that these triangle shaped craft are NOT covert Dept. Of Defense aircraft. The fellow from the NUFORC website told me that these craft are almost always spotted near major urban centers or from major interstate highways. This is inconsistent with both covert testing and/or operation of a secret DoD aircraft. I was on Interstate 15 when I saw mine.

Also, when the craft began to move after remaining stationary, it did not appear to be moving fast enough to generate lift. This suggests some other type of propulsion system is utilized, obviously not the propulsion systems we are familiar with.

Keep your eyes on the skies

EDIT: To mention that the guy from the NUFORC website told me that sightings of these craft have jumped by 400% in the past year.

[edit on 31-12-2005 by BRCMontana]

If you ask me, that would be the PERFECT reason for the DoD/Government to use them in that manner. Where is the best place to hide something? In plain sight...

You are so near an airport being next to the big city. Do you ever see other planes make slow turns like that? I drive by Lambert Airport in Saint Louis most nights. It used to be that most planes just had the blinking lights on the wing tips until they were getting ready to land or take off. That isn't true anymore. I'm seeing lights on the nose as well as the wing tips and they aren't blinking. It makes the craft appear to be triangular if you are only able to see lights. I've seen many ships but I've never seen the triangle ones. My sightings were always the disc type.