Anatomy of a Black Triangle Sighting

Created by the Object Report

On March 20th, 2013 we received an exceptionally detailed email from an eyewitness who recounted an up close and personal sighting of a very large black triangle craft near Camarillo, California, which he observed from within a 400 foot range. As our readers know, we have reported on the recent upswing in big black triangle sightings, but this one was different on multiple points which we’ll go into in further detail later. We will refer to the eyewitness as “Willard” from this point on as we respect his privacy. Over the course of about 7 weeks we corresponded with him, asking detailed questions and recieving equally detailed answers. What follows is a transcript of those communications, unedited and in their entirety.

Hi,

Sorry, this email got way too long but I want to share and capture the relevant details. You may post this account but please do not post this with my full name. You can contact me if you want more details.

 

I observed a big, black triangular craft hovering motionless from about 300-400 feet away last night (Tuesday, March 19th, 7:55pm PST) near Camarillo, CA in the vicinity of the Naval Base (Point Mugu NAS) just inland.

 

After sharing my account last night with my family and two friends one of them directed me to your website today. Like everybody, I hear occasional reports of UFO sightings in the news but I don’t follow it in much detail. Frankly, in contrast to your story (http://theobjectreport.blogspot.ca/2012/12/special-report-update-dramatic-increase.html) I’m skeptical about these being of extraterrestrial origin and put more faith in the military. But whatever it was I was very surprised to learn that others had seen something so similar. When I think of UFO’s I think "round" and now here are all these reports of a black triangle. I observed this relatively close up and got a very good look at it from within a few hundred feet, watched it hovering motionless for a few minutes on approach, then was able to study it as it hovered within a distance I’d estimate to be about under 400 ft away. This morning I still can’t get over the fact that now I know these accounts are actually happening because I experienced this first hand.

 

I don’t have a photo of the craft because I was driving and had the phone attached to the hands-free cable tucked inside the console. I didn’t want to take my eyes off the road or the craft to fumble with a phone. After I parked, rolled down the window and was staring right at the craft just off the road side I was mesmerized studying it’s details, knowing I’d want to be able to describe this and that it probably won’t photograph well anyway, just another grainy out of focus UFO shot on the internet. Within probably 15 seconds after I sat there with the window down, craning out of the window and observing it, it shot away and disappeared from view in under 10 seconds. But as soon as it was gone I called a friend partly to create a timestamp for what I’d just observed. I know the location because I recall crossing Laguna Road, thinking how it’s the only bright intersection in the middle of this field area. I believe it’s difficult to accurately judge size and distance when looking at something in the sky. In my experience objects tend to be larger and further away than they look to me when I have to opportunity to get to them up close to them. So, for my size and distance estimates I’ll use something familiar from the ground – the tallest building in Ventura Country. Based on that, it appeared the craft was about 300 feet above the ground and about as tall as a "slice" of that office tower 1-2 stories high. I’ve attended a few Camarillo Air shows and seen aircraft up close, and watched one Blue Angels show close to where this sighting occurred, so I also use that for comparison of surface materials and noise levels.

 

Original image provided by the eyewitness.

When I got home I immediately searched the web for "black triangle UFO," then Photoshop’ed a similar image that resembled what I saw to make it a closer approximation. It really needs a 3-D rendering program to capture the mass and edges of the thing. An important distinction compared to the descriptions on your site is that the bottom of the craft I saw was smooth and devoid of any lights. In fact, that was one of it’s most striking features. When observing it I remember thinking how it had no visible means of propulsion or any openings. Just a really big, smooth, black triangle with steady blue-white lights on the tips. It did not have the domed lights, black circle or stadium-style light(s) on the bottom that others have described. It appeared to be made of a seamless composite material, though at that distance small seams would not have been visible. I recall thinking for that reason maybe it was an unmanned drone but that it appeared large enough to easily hold a crew and more.

 

This craft hovered silently for a few minutes as I drove toward it, heading north on Las Posas Road, I had just exited PCH. From a distance of 1-2 miles during my approach I thought it was odd that a helicopter would have just three lights and in a triangular arrangement. I thought maybe there was an accident or something up ahead and it was a police helicopter hovering over the scene. As I got closer I was wondering how the lights could be so evenly spaced on a helicopter, and it became apparent there was no one else around or anything happening on the ground. Then I got close enough to see it was not a helicopter but a triangular craft, hovering motionlessly over the field just off the side of the road. When I was almost directly under it I pulled off the road and rolled down the window to get a good look at it. It was very clear conditions and the craft was relatively close to the ground. The sky was getting dark but there was still ample light to easily see it. No noise whatsoever as it hovered, then after 10-15 seconds it shot off in the direction of the ocean/base with a roaring sound, nothing as loud as a fighter jet but more like the roar of a really powerful truck engine. Acceleration was fast from its static hovering position but not supernaturally, physics-defying fast.

 

Here is my Photoshop mockup of what I saw and the location. It’s based on a picture of a similar craft but altered to more closely resemble the one I saw. When viewed from an angle, the edges of the craft had a smooth curve and revealed its relative height and more massive form. Interestingly, I selected this picture from Google images because it looked the most like what I saw. Turns out the site I took this picture from was about a craft spotted just a few weeks ago in Oakdale, CA only 300 miles from here (http://massufosightings.blogspot.com/2013/03/ufo-sightings-mufon-case-black-triangle.html). And my location is less than 100 miles from Palmdale where the B-2 was unveiled. My event was adjacent to a Navy air weapons center. So, it’s probably some classified military craft.

 

Willard

On Mar 20, 2013, at 3:35 PM, Object Reporter wrote:

Fig 1. Cross section diagram provided to the eyewitness.

1) I’m curious about the cross-section shape of this craft which I’ve noticed varies greatly between reports. The Highland, Illinois craft was very thick/tall and had very sharp edges along with what looked to be vertical floor-to-ceiling windows, whereas other people have described rounded edges and a slight curvature to the dorsal and ventral sides. Take a look at this chart (Fig 1) and tell me what might be closest to what you remember seeing.

Definitely "A" in the set. I remember vividly that the edges were rounded.

2) In terms of the size of the craft at the distance you were observing it from, would you say this is too small, too large or just right? This street view (Fig 2.) is taken from the approximate vantage point you pointed out in your Google maps image looking toward the naval air station. This is approx. 400 feet away based upon some very rough distance calculations. I agree with you that it’s very difficult to determine the size and distance of something hovering in the sky, especially if your adrenaline is pumping.

Fig 2. Initial "sketch" provided to the witness to determine relative size and orientation.  Actual location: 34°10’56.09"N, 119° 4’10.79"W

I was actually much closer than the perspective of the observer in your mockup. As I interpret this, it was where the nearest vehicle is, on the right hand berm, with the craft a little closer to the road. The object was much larger that what’s shown, it should take up 4 or 5 times the area of what’s in your image. I was heading away from the base just like that car and stopped when the craft was directly perpendicular to my position, the closest I could get without crossing the road.

Color was a dark gray, very uniform as if it was new. I saw no evidence of seams. It had no insignias, no markings of any kind, no openings, no windows. To give an idea of its perceived size, if it had been created with windows or doors they could have been a full story high, meaning a man could stand in them and probably raise his arms over his head without touching the top, like a story of an office building, with enough room for the hull of the ship. That’s what gave me the idea to use the height and size comparison of the tall building in Ventura (http://www.emporis.com/building/300-esplanade-oxnard-ca-usa). Imagine being in the parking lot of that building at a distance about 6 lanes from the base, looking up, with the top 1 or maybe 2 floors of that building hovering steady at about 80% of their normal height. Then you’d have a good feel for the distance and height of what I saw. The "base" area was perhaps at most half the size of a floor of that building. That’s why I looked like it could hold a crew of several people with room for equipment or cargo. Often I’ve referred to this as "black" but actually it was dark grey. If it had been truly black it would not have been as visible as it was. And I’d describe it as a smooth matte finish. It looked very much like dark gray sand-able primer for automotive use.

 

And, yes, the entire structure of the tips glowed internally. The lights at the tips emitted their light uniformly from within. I couldn’t really see the tops but as it sped away it appeared the tips gave off light on all surfaces. Imagine frosted white plexiglass with extremely powerful bluish-white light evenly distributed from within. These were not specular lights or spot lights in any way. The light coming from these helped to illuminate the surfaces of the craft so that I was able to see it so well, and contributed to some ground illumination but did not appear to be landing lights, per say. And the craft did not appear to have any intention of landing.

They did not look like landing lights. Because they are so diffused it’s sort of curious what they are for but they are very bight and big. They gave off enough light that I could "read a newspaper" and it was an even, diffused light. I’m absolutely certain there was no red light on the bottom. No features whatsoever. The bottom surface appeared perfectly flat and smooth.

 

Something more about the scale of this thing as it relates to your mockup from my description. Because in my account I initially thought it was a helicopter from the distance that may have you thinking it was about that size. It was much larger than that. If it wanted to serve as a floating landing pad it would have enough room for at least 2 heliports on the upper surface. Part of what hit me on the approach that it could not be a helicopter was the sheer size of it. Each side of the triangle was about the length of three houses – typical southern California track houses packed wall-to-wall. That’s why I say there was plenty of room for a crew and cargo inside. It was like a flying floor of an office building. That’s also what made its acceleration so impressive, like a small tanker going "0 to 60 in 3 seconds." Those lights on the tips appeared to be at least half the size of a car. So, not enormous like "Independence Day" but more like a sea vessel than an aircraft. That’s what makes the stationary hover so amazing.

 

For an instant as I was taking it in from my parked car I thought "Could this be a balloon designed as a prank, intentionally made to look like some kind of UFO?" but the way it took off just implied a structural rigidity that seemed like it was solid and massive, and even a big balloon seems unlikely to have remained so stationary with no hint of movement for the duration it was hovering. Its always seemed to remain at the exact same altitude. From the first time I noticed it in the distance until it was out of site it appeared to never move up or down so much as a inch. The more that I think about it, the only "logical" explanation for something of this scale hovering would be a balloon, something the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade people or a hot air balloon company would have to manufacture. But the movement was not like a balloon. Balloons inevitable bobble and want to move up. This object’s altitude was rock solid. It moved more like something on rails than as an air craft.

 

I have a friend who’s going to help me measure out the distances with a tape measure so we can put some hard numbers to the dimensions. I’ll pass that along.

As it hovered it was complete silence from the craft. A semi-truck crossed Laguna Rd as I was approaching the intersection on Las Posas. I suppose there’s a slight chance the sound was coincidentally coming from across the field and just seemed like it was the craft, but honestly it stuck me as interesting, too, since you always hear these things are silent but I feel pretty sure the sound I heard was coming from the craft and seemed to start as it accelerated away, and in fact I even remember thinking "I thought these things didn’t make any noise." There was no smell of ozone or cinnamon, and I have a pretty good nose. No unusual odors at all.

Acceleration was abrupt, non-aircraft like. I’ve watched a Harrier jet take off vertically and dart away and it was way faster than it could do. It was more like a ground vehicle that just very quickly got up to speed like a sports car doing a quarter mile, but after it got moving fast it appeared to maintain speed and was gone from view within 5-8 seconds. Today I asked myself why I didn’t chase it just in case it stopped again, but I could never have kept up with it and I was in a spry little car if I were crazy enough to drive that fast. But if it weren’t for my limitation of being on streets and it headed off diagonally from the road where I couldn’t actually chase after it, I could have pursued it for a few more seconds, so I’ll guess it topped out under 150 mph, maybe even under 100 but it got started so fast it wasn’t worth doing a U-turn. I might try to draw something on paper. If I do I’ll scan it and send it over.

Hi D,

Just wanted to give you a quick reply now and will follow up more within a day or so. Since observing this it really became the focal point of my week, to the detriment of my regular routine.  I re-visited the site 3 times, once with a friend. And, using a tape measure we were able to get some more accurate measurements by walking things out at a distance and stepping back to check the marks. I’ll take a second stab at creating a more detailed image, something with call outs, that betters matches what I saw if only a hand drawing. That will probably help.

 

Regarding the latest questions:

 

Fig 3. Tip shape and shade diagram provided to eyewitness.

It was more like triangle A on the left. The lights on the corners had a distinctly "knocked off" design so that the tips of the craft were not really points but squared off in the last couple feet. That’s clear in my mind. The craft was at least 150 feet on each side and the squared off lights of its tips were probably about 4-5 feet across from "tip" to the point where they met the hull.

 

As for color, I’m inclined to go with "E" in the shades (Fig 3). It sort of reminded me of those matte finish charcoal paints that are popular with high end cars lately. I’d call the color "anthracite with a matte to semi-flat finish."

 

Fig 4. Relative thickness diagram provided to eyewitness.

For cross section, B looks like a good match with C coming in a close second (Fig 4).

 

I’m happy to help you tweak this. I intend to go back and get a photo tomorrow night from the exact angle and time, and another just a little earlier to adjust for the lesser sensitivity of the camera vs. human eye. You could use that as a backdrop. I’ll also get one from about 150 feet away to show the relative distance, angle and scale of things compared to my car.

 

Something worth mentioning is that I got a great look at one side/edge and an ideal look at the entire bottom, plus all of a second side/edge as it hovered motionless. I never really saw the third side due to it’s angle of departure, except a bit as I was approaching from the distance and just starting to realize it was not a helicopter. So there’s no telling if that edge could have had windows or anything else going on. When it departed to my left as I watched it from the side of the road, it lead primarily with the tip on the left, so as it rushed away I got an even better look at the second "trailing" side/edge but never of the far side. However, on my initial approach as I was just realizing it was not a helicopter in the distance, there were no visible internal lights or indications of windows.

 

The bottom was perfectly smooth, devoid of any features, none of the domes and red lights of other pictures I’ve seen, no obvious signs of panels for landing gear.

 

I’ll create some drawings to better explain all this, including drawing on the maps so my angle of approach, viewing angle, and the craft’s angle of departure are better described

Willard

Fig 5. First version of tip lights illustration.

Fig 6. Second version of tip lights illustration.

Fig 7. Tip configuration and shape rendering.

Finally, here’s a render (Fig 7) showing just the shape, thickness and tip configuration of the craft. I don’t think we’ve yet nailed the shape of the tips, so we’ll need a little more input from you on that aspect since we feel it’s one of the most unique details about this sighting. Let us know if this is fairly accurate.

Agent K,

At first, I wasn’t going to talk about this anymore. It was all I could think about for several days but I’m feeling like putting this behind me. Other people just don’t understand. But when I opened your first image it brought it all back. The first image is the closest so I’ll just focus my message on that. You’ve done a very good job so I’ll help you refine this a bit more.

 

You need to rotate the craft so one of its sides is parallel to the road. It was almost directly overhead.

 

It looked about 3 times bigger than in your rendering in BT1 but part of that is due to me being almost directly under it. In your image we’re still approaching it. The edge was lined up with the road. I pulled onto the right hand berm and parked, I don’t recall the power lines obstructing my view at all but I was so in awe of what I was seeing if it turns out the angle is impossible then I’m probably filtering them out in my memory. From my parked view point, I was sitting on the right hand side barely off the road and I deliberately stopped at dead center of the craft’s side. I distinctly recall trying to stick my head out of the open driver side window to take it in, so I guess it must have been partially or almost over the road. but I recall on my approach thinking that it was directly over the left edge of the road. It seems almost as if the craft were to decent directly down and land then it’s edge would have been just a few feet off the left side of the road and parallel to it.

 

The color is right but in your rendering it’s all so dark and uniform you can’t really see any detail. Try to lighten it a tiny bit more to reveal the rounded sides. Maybe add a fill light coming from below. It gave off enough light that some of the light was reflecting back off the ground to provide the eye with plenty of fill light to see the surface. Although it didn’t have defined panels or openings there was still enough illumination to see the curvature of the sides relative to the flat surface of its bottom.

 

When it took off, it nearly followed the edge of the road, as if there were an imaginary lane for it in the sky, except that there was ever so slight a departure angle that as it moved away it quickly moved further away from the road, more into the fields and abruptly into the darkness.

 

The shape of the lights are all wrong, but the lighting effect is very accurate. You’ve depicted rounded lights but they are actually trapezoids, i.e. four trapezoidal sides and a rectangular end. I wasn’t clear about this before but it’s one of the things I remember vividly. Aside from their shape, in your rendering the amount of glow effect makes them appear to protrude beyond the top and bottom of the craft but that’s not correct; they perfectly match the edges and extend the surface of the hull.

 

I wish I could draw better than a 5 year old so, in lieu of drawing skills, let me try to describe how to construct it if working with real materials. Imagine you have an equilateral triangle cut from, say, a piece of 3/4" plywood. Now, to give it the rounded edges take some 3/4" half round trim and, using a miter, cut them to the properly length to fit perfectly against the sides (edges) so they meet at the tips. Then you can glue them onto the edges of the triangle to give it rounded sides (essentially, you’ve got this part right). At this stage of our model construction with its rounded sides, at each tip the trim strips we’ve added butt against each other so their otter surfaces results a circular cross sect. (I think each trim board is mitered at a 60 degree angle to form it’s half of the 120 degree angles of the triangle’s corners.) Now, we want to flatten off the corners (i.e., the tips of our triangular model) to make them blunt. Suppose you had some sort of flat belt sander mounted such that it operated in a vertical, 90 degree position to a table top, and you placed our model flat on the table top (just the way it hovers over the road) and you touched each tip to the sander to slightly grind each tip flat. Forget about aerodynamics and do just the opposite – give it a blunt flat nose on each tip. Now, since everything is made of wood, we need to indicate where the lights begin. So, draw a line a short distance in from the tip on each surface to denote the "seam" where the light meets the hull. For the finishing touch, to give the lights flat sides, using a sanding block flatten the sides of the lights from the squared off tips to where you’ve drawn the line. Where the bottom surface meets the light i think this will be a line because it’s where two flat surfaces meet. On the sides, it’s some sort of curve because the squared off "nose" at each corner is transitioning into the curvature of the sides. I’ve tried to draw this in plan view (attached).

 

Finally, your lights are too big. If you measured from the tip of the light to where they end, make them at most 1/3 the size you’ve shown. They really must look more like trapezoidal light fixtures on the corners. In your rendering they look like gigantic illuminated bumpers. But you did a great job on the lighting effect. It really takes me there.

 

Lastly, the whole size and perspective thing deserves to be closer. As mentioned, this is a good sense of what it looked like in the final approach (but the craft needs to be rotated to have a side parallel to the road). But I remember trying to crane my head out of the car and wanting to get out the car to really look up and see it, but was fumbling with getting the window down and getting out of the seat belt because it was restricting my ability to turn and stick my head out of the car to really take it in. I recall an extreme sense of frustration and feeling so restricted by the car, and at the same time not wanting to take my eyes off the craft because it was so amazing. The car became my enemy in that moment, I just wanted to peel it off and take in the craft with my eyes. I had put the top up just a few miles before when re-entering PCH on my return and kept wishing I had come upon this with the top down. Anyway, I digress on the feelings in that moment, so back to your rendering…

 

I’ve zoomed in more on your image and enlarged the craft. Wow, it’s really starting to put me back in time. The sheer size of the thing. How it hovered so perfectly still. So utterly silent, just hanging there in the sky overhead. And the erie glow of those lights. It was so bright I could have read a newspaper, yet the light was wonderfully diffused and not at all specular. Given the massive surface of the craft’s bottom, it reminded me of being in some domed amphitheater, except there were only three lights producing all this illumination. And no feeling of heat. Then, it suddenly accelerated and it was just gone in seconds. I mentioned hearing the roar of an engine, and I’m not changing my story, but after returning to the spot it is possible that it was from a truck on another road since the land there is just miles and miles of perfectly flat fields, crisscrossed with a grid of roads. Sounds carry a long distance, not to mention the naval base airport was not far away.

 

Attached is a re-scaled image with a placeholder car to help appreciate the relative sizes, at least this is what it seemed to be.

Yes, nearly overhead, me pulled off to the right, it hovering off the left side, with one of it’s sides mostly parallel to the road.

Yes, I got a great look at one of it’s sides, the side parallel to the road. Had I known what I was approaching I might have gotten a better look at what turned out to be the "front" but when I parked it was no longer visible. I never saw the far side.

 

Willard

The final rendering (Fig 8) has been posted here for our readers and we feel that it’s as close as we could get to the eyewitness account based upon the input we gathered. The next step in this investigation will be the release of an animated 3D sequence currently in development which recreates the overall motion, point of view and speed of acceleration.

Fig 8. Finalized rendering of Camarillo, CA black triangle sighting. View full sized version of rendering here. Illustrative rendering © TheObjectReport.com

Final Thoughts

I find the general tone of his final email to us to be quite telling. The fact that he does not believe his own sighting speaks volumes about the stigma associated with giant black triangle sightings, as well as UFO sightings in general. I’m a firm believer that most eyewitnesses fall into two categories: People who accept that what they’ve seen is genuinely unexplainable and people who continue to struggle to find a logical, rational explanation for their sighting. I think Willard falls into the latter category. Regardless of the reality of his sighting and the impact it had on him, he continues to believe it’s military-related because the alternative possibility is too hard to accept. People will go out of their way to debunk those who have witnessed something extraordinary, our society has been taught to ridicule anyone with an alternative viewpoint and to immediately place an ‘unknown’ into a ‘known’ category, regardless of the facts and details. Did Willard have an up close and personal experience with a highly classified military craft above farmland in Ventura County? It’s a possibility. Or did he witness something not of this earth? Perhaps. The silent black triangles are still a mystery so it’s difficult to form a conclusion, although we can form a good visual based upon eyewitness testimony like this and hopefully we will have more black triangle close encounters to dissect in the near future.

We thank the eyewitness for his cooperation in this investigation. For any further inquiry into this sighting or to share your own black triangle sighting, please contact us directly.

– AgentK

_____________________________________________________________________________
Some additional information about Point Mugu Naval Air Station

NBVC (Naval Base Ventura County) is a diverse installation comprising three main facilities: Point Mugu, Port Hueneme and San Nicolas Island. NBVC supports approximately 80 tenant commands with a base population of more than 19,000 personnel, making it the largest employer in Ventura County. At Point Mugu, NBVC operates two runways and encompasses a 36,000 square mile sea test range, anchored by San Nicolas Island. The range allows the military to test and track weapons systems in restricted air- and sea-space without encroaching on civilian air traffic or shipping lanes. The range can be expanded through interagency coordination between the U.S. Navy and the Federal Aviation Administration. Telemetry data can be tracked and recorded using technology housed at San Nicolas Island, Point Mugu and Laguna Peak, a Tier 1 facility also controlled by NBVC.

Point Mugu NAS overview.

Nearby Laguna Peak tracking station. The Camarillo Black Triangle craft exited the area directly between Point Mugu NAS and Laguna Peak.

The facility in Point Mugu, California, started as a United States Navy anti-aircraft training center during World War II and was developed in the late 1940s as the Navy’s major missile development and test facility. This facility was the site where most of the Navy’s missiles were developed and tested during the 1950/1960 era, including the AIM-7 Sparrow family and the AIM-54 Phoenix air-to-air, Bullpup air-to-surface, and Regulus surface-to-surface missiles.
Pt. Mugu has dominated the area since the 1940s, and is one of the few places in the area that is not agricultural. The base has been home to many ordnance testing programs, and the test range extends offshore to the Navy-owned San Nicolas Island in the Channel Islands. (Wikipedia)

_____________________________________________________________________________