Green Triangle, Assuming Military?

a reply to: BASSPLYR

hey you don't count

we're official members of the BT club.....that sounds like a tasty sandwich

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

I just saw something similar tonight north of Wasilla. That's why I logged on here to look and guess what, a new triangle thread. I saw it coming on the usual flight path as the c130s, c17s the big ones that always go over and figured that's what it was. I was outside with my dog and always get her to watch the planes. Normally when a c130 flys over it is loud as hell, this one sounded more like a strong gust of wind and for being just above my head past treetop, it should be loud. The lights didn't look quite right for a 130 and more resembled a triangle, but with the tail just a tad bit further back then the wing tips. It was so quiet.

a reply to: penroc3

Try the backside of an envelope.


You have to understand, this was a normal-running-late dash for work. I spend my first few minutes driving turning the radio on and grabbing my last cig for the day while looking out for deer. As I topped the hill there was a red light off to my south-west. It's very hilly here so my first thought was "there's no cell tower over there".

Here if you can get a company to put one on your property it''s a cash-cow. The intersection with the stop sign I was coming up on, if you go straight there ARE several towers you can see as you descend the hill. So the red light really caught my eye.

I'm still marveling that I'm not commuting in total darkness BTW.

I took my eyes off it for a few seconds as the deer notoriously run from right to left on that stretch just before the stop sign, plus one car oncoming, and another approaching the 4-way from my right. As I came to a full stop it was already right in front of me doing it's Green Triangle thing.

The impression I have is that it was both larger than I thought at the time, and further away. The best way to describe it was like seeing a C-5 lumbering thru the air. You're watching it fly, and it "appears slow" but you know that it can't be going as slow as you think cause it would plummet like a rock.

Plus the banking maneuver....I'm far enough away from the airport planes are out of their take-off routines and are leveled off. Sure you see them "turning" but it's slow and over miles. I'm 30 miles out. So seeing something like I would if I was standing at the airport watching landings & take-off's really threw me.

The other thing that is messing with me is I can't tell if it banked bottom up towards me, or it was topside toward me.
My logical mind says it didn't need to bank at all since it appeared to already be heading NE. It was bearing to my right and the road I take goes to the right, with open fields. It leveled out and red & white lights came on. Much brighter than normal aircraft lights. No halo-ing, just extra bright.

I raced to the next stop sign as I knew I'd get another clear view of it over the high school. Top of hill, no obstructions and I wasn't disappointed. Only it was already way across the Allegheny River by then and looked like a mish-mash of red & white lights in a starburst . Seriously if I'd of seen only that part I'd of chalked it up to "that's weird" then ignored it. Altho I could see how people would have reported it as "totally a UFO". It looked like a flying carnival at that point.

It did "seem" still to be flying lower than the normal 30,000 ft you'd expect it to climb to tho. In fact It was the whole time, so to me also odd.

I'm stunned you saw yours up so close! I'm also glad it was you and not me! This one never did accelerate like you describe. It was far enough away like a regular aircraft it never occurred to me to roll down the window and listen.
Shamefully having read enough about the triangles I didn't expect to hear anything anyways, so what would be the point?

a reply to: bryan2006

Very cool!!!
You are so lucky!!!

DP

a reply to: Caver78

honestly you'll probably never know 100% what it was, any anyone that did know 100% sure wouldn't say what it was in a open post on the internet.

If it was on the same flight paths as normal aircraft it could have been just that. there are allot of strange looking hobbyist aircraft and stuff from places like scaled composites, they make allot of funky looking stuff.

a few of the things i have seen shocked me at first but were later explained away as very earthly aircraft, sometimes lights and the dark can play crazy tricks on your eyes.

but i don't know what you saw, only you really know. If it was strange to you then it probably was strange, ill admit the green lights are strange but not so strange it's unthinkable that it is one of ours. you seem to think it was one of ours.

think of it as a personal air show, if you ever see something like it again pull over and snap a pic

a reply to: Caver78

I'm not saying it was a triangle, just the running lights made it look that way and it was so quiet.

originally posted by: penroc3
a reply to: Caver78

honestly you'll probably never know 100% what it was, any anyone that did know 100% sure wouldn't say what it was in a open post on the internet.

I rather gathered that by page 4. LMAO!!!
Tried like Butcherguy suggested to google my local webcams and there were a shocking amount of 404 errors or "sorry this cam is experiencing difficulties". Basically LOTS of cams experienced issues for last Monday.

I'm slow, but I can take a hint.
It just supports the supposition that "someone" was moving "something" and was forced to pick an unfortunate time to have to do it. I'm looking on the bright side, it's like having Edwards right in your backyard for a few minutes!
YIPPEEEEE!!!

I just had thought the rows of green lights may be a configuration someone here knew about and if I was lucky they'd be able to say. If not then that's ok as well. Butcherguy IS 100% right that we get lots of test flights over PA cause it's so
easy to get away with. Close enough to the east coast DOD guys, but just about guaranteed it'll get reported as a UFO.

Try looking up Cooperships, airship. Its a very large triangle shaped airship that was in development about a decade ago. I believe Amazon might be looking at using a similar design for their airspace located warehouses (provided they can get the OK from the FAA)

a reply to: bryan2006

Every now and then some things show up around JBER.

My sighting, the thing went north of the runway (heading west towards the inlet) then was south of the runway (straight down 6th). It flew directly overhead on one lap and I was lined up with Merrill Field and the Park Strip. So everybody should have seen this thing. And there was no sound. Strange.

I heard a jet take off from JBER a few months back. Was watching it climb, had to cross a street so looked for traffic, made it to the other side (still could here it), looked to where it was... and there was nothing! I could see contrails from the engines but no jet fighter! I also heard it bank and still could see nothing. Clear day, afternoon, people driving around going about their business, nobody but me looking up at nothing to see at all!

Even if a group sees something, with all the ridicule of "a UFO sighting" it gets dismissed!

Sounds like you are in a good spot to watch things! I usually see stuff wayyyy up there. Points of light slowly moving, like a satellite, then suddenly zip off at a high rate of speed. Even saw another triangle appearing to chase off this point of light once.

@OP, thanks for the picture! Glad you got to see the air show!

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Yeah, I've spotted a f35 out here, and the raptors fly by a bit. This one was on the same flight path as the cargo planes run, but it was solo. Pretty easy for most people to just think it's one of them. In any case the flight traffic has been very elevated lately.

Trust me on this, everyone see's super cool stuff except me usually!!


My favorite are the C-5's cause I will stare with my mouth hanging open trying to figure out how they stay airborne.
Plus...AWESOME!
It's been years but they used to fly out of our local reserve air wing and up the allegheny river valley. Usually in groups of three so just a jaw dropping sight.

TEO aren't you the one who goes biking and gets to see all the nifty stuff?

Bryan it's still sweet you're in a awesome flight path. All we get here is stuff in the overflow holding patterns when there is more commercial traffic during like the holidays.

Back in the day after we bought this house we had an issue with the garage door being open at random times. It had an archaic garage door opener but, hey it worked. Anyways we blasted the kids one day about leaving it up AGAIN and much to everyones surprise a commercial jumbo jet was incoming setting up for it's run at the airport ( 30 miles south) and the door closed!

Yeah, mystery solved and the kids NEVER let us live it down.
Fortunately the airlines have changed their frequencies over the years but we'd never have believed it if we didn't see it. I'll add it happened a lot an every time it was a lower altitude passenger plane responsible. We gave up and installed a manual cut off to the motor.

a reply to: bryan2006

So, there's another sighting of it last night by one of my employees. I told him about it yesterday and he was out around 2130 and spotted it with his father in law. They both said same as me that it looked like a huge triangle that barely made a sound. It's been way too windy for civilian aircraft or drones out here.

a reply to: bryan2006

Now this thread is getting interesting...

Whereabouts?

a reply to: Barnalby

Meadow Lakes, Alaska. I was out looking, but got tired. He told me today that they saw it and his f in law works on base and said he's never see any like it.

a reply to: bryan2006

So this has been two nights in a row, around the same time. Since the tensions in NK and China the flight traffic has been way elevated. One night earlier this week I counted 22 military cargo planes go over.

a reply to: bryan2006

I can only imagine what we might have up in those parts. Times have been interesting for sure as of late.

a reply to: Caver78

My real big sighting was while walking home from the local tavern! Like you, saw something out of the corner of my eye and watched the events unfold (a triangle circling the city).

a reply to: Barnalby

We, like the rest of the Lower 48, have had hellish (as in cold as h3ll) winds the past few days! So anything going slow is either flying into the wind or falling out of the sky! JBER's runways run east-west and the winds have been mostly from the north. That does not sound like it was flying into the wind.

Might have to do a little sky watching later tonight!

a reply to: bryan2006

Amazing!

A few weeks ago we had AWAC's running across the northern tier and it was just a random oddness.
Now it looks like lots of assets are on the move!

We seldom get news from Alaska or the Northwest territories concerning different craft, so this is like hitting the jackpot.

Pointy arrow shape?How much do those 2 flying F117,s get around?