Coast to Coast: APRO Files and Iowa Landing

 

For those new to the field, they might not know much about the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO), which was created by Coral Lorenzen in the early 1950s. At that time there were two prominent UFO Organizations with APRO being one and the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) being the other. There were dozens, if not hundreds of smaller, local organizations. I was a member of the Denver UFO Society in the late 1960s, but that was a group that operated in the Denver area and had no real investigation arm.

Jim and Coral Lorenzen

I mention APRO because of its size, the membership in the thousands and Coral, and later Jim and Coral Lorenzen published several good books about UFOs. Unlike NICAP, which seemed to focus on Congressional investigations and pressing the Air Force for transparency, though they certainly collected thousands of UFO reports, APRO focused on what might have been seen as the fringe areas of UFO study early on. They collected reports on landings and occupant sightings and were the first American organization to research alien abduction cases. Although they had known about the Vilas-Boas abduction in 1957, they didn’t report on it officially until the 1960s when the Barney and Betty Hill case was investigated. Interestingly, Betty Hill contacted Don Keyhoe of NICAP about her sighting and abduction. Eventually, her interest was diverted to APRO.

The point here is that the files of NICAP, the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) and even many if not most of the Project Blue Books files have been collected by various civilian research and investigation organizations. The exception was the APRO files. Upon the deaths of both Jim and Coral Lorenzen in the mid-1980s, the files ended up in the hands of the Lorenzen children after. Attempts by various organizations and individuals to obtain the files had been made over the years without success.

I provide this brief history to put all this into context. As many know, David Marler, who has created the National UFO Historical Records Center, a name that does not lend itself to an easily pronounceable acronym, has announced the acquisition of the APRO records. This means, that his Center is now the repository of the largest collection of UFO records. This includes the records and investigative activities of several foreign researchers and organizations.

Marler, and his team have been digitizing these records at the headquarters of the organization, which means that searches for specific cases, and all relevant data will become a searchable file, or as Marler wrote in his press release, the files are digitized for electronic storage, analyzation, transfer and ease of access.

Interestingly, there have been, in the past, UFO researchers who guarded their records and files with a tenacity that rivals various governmental agencies. That barrier seems to have been broken to some extent now.

As I say, the important point here is the transfer of the APRO files into Marler’s group. They are currently located in Albuquerque, New Mexico and can be found at www.nufohrc.org.

APRO was the first UFO organization to take reports of landing and alien beings seriously. They sent the first investigators into Pascagoula to interview Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker. And were in Socorro, New Mexico, within hours to interview Lonnie Zamora about the UFO landing and occupant sighting there in 1964.

One of those APRO cases was a landing in rural Iowa on June 6, 1972. The witness, identified in the APRO only as Mr. T., but his name was Edward Tieg. He said that a flash of light caught his attention. He thought it was an airplane, but the object came closer. He saw that it was egg shaped and as it began to land, legs grew out of the bottom. He said that it was about ten to twelve feet in diameter and fifteen to twenty feet tall. He said that it cast a shadow when it was sitting on the ground.

Illustration of the sighting created by Edward Tieg.
From the files of Kevin Randle

It was about a hundred yards away. A hatch opened and according to him, some people got out. The beings were about five feet tall and were wearing a one-piece flying suit. They messed around in the corn, returned to their ship and it took off.

Investigators on the landing site.
Photo by Kevin Randle.

He said that as it lifted off, a blue flame shot out of the bottom, there was a roar and the legs retracted. The corn stocks in that area looked as if they had been caught in a whirlwind but they weren’t burned. I’ll note here that Lonnie Zamora talked about a blue flame and a roar as that craft lifted off. I’m not sure if a farmer in Iowa knew about a New Mexico policeman who described some of the same features.

Although reluctant to talk about the sighting, he did provide an illustration of what he had seen. As happens so often in UFO reports, there were no other witnesses to this sighting, though there had been others in the area about the same time.

UAPs and National UFO Historical Records Center

 

As most people know, I’m more than a little skeptical of the new government interest in UFOs. We seem to be traveling a path that has been worn out in the past. A claim of interest and investigation that devolves into a propaganda campaign to debunk the idea of alien visitation with half-truths and a suggestion of National Security.

However, there is good news from the civilian side of the house. David Marler, the executive director of the newly created National UFO Historical Records Center, announced the establishment of the largest historical archives that is dedicated to the preservation and centralization of UFO material in the United States.

Marler said that multiple official agencies have begun programs to study the phenomenon and that there have been civilian researchers entering the field as well. They don’t have access to the vast array of historical material in the hands of private UFO researchers. The National UFO Historical Records Center has been created to gather that material. While, at present the physical holdings are in Albuquerque, New Mexico, there are efforts to digitize the materials for, as Marler says, “global accessibility.”

David Marler and his pals and lots of file cabinets.

Marler said that there is a vast array of UFO files and collections already destined to be added to the growing inventory. He added:

Currently, the collection consists of materials from over 25 countries derived from 70+ U.S. and foreign individuals. Some of the largest U.S. collections served as the cornerstone for this center. This included diverse materials from the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS). We are also interested in anyone wanting to donate historical UFO/UAP materials to us. Efforts are underway to acquire a building to house this national treasure and make it readily accessible to researchers, academics, and the general public. Funding and donations will be vital to making this vision a reality. Thus, the creation of the non-profit organization to facilitate achieving that goal. We look forward to working collaboratively with similar free-standing worldwide UFO/UAP archives and those within the university setting. Together, we can preserve the history and, perhaps, gain insights into the mystery.

Marler did provide contact information: National UFO Historical Records Center, which can be found at P.O> Box 15541 Rio Rancho, NM 87174. On the Internet you can find them at www.nufohrc.org and you can email David Marler, the Executive Director at dbmarler@outlook.co.

This lines up with the work of Clas Svahn, the Swedish researcher who has been collecting materials for the Archives for the Unexplained or the AFU since 1973. The Archives contains information about paranormal activity as well as UFOs. You can listen to my interview with Clas here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/51697969

read more about the AFU here (along with links to the radio interviews:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/search?q=Clas+Svahn

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2022/10/x-zone-broadcast-network-clas-svahn-and.html

And civilians continue to report interesting UFO sightings. On October 1 of this year, the witness in Newville, Pennsylvania, said that while walking home he noticed a series of lights on what seemed to be a triangular-shaped object. The sky was a pale gray with light rain. The object was moving swiftly and according to the witness “sort of slid through the sky with no noise.” There were rows of lights on the object that blinked from red to white to green and seemed to be similar to LED lights. They filled the triangular shape of the UFO. The object was below the clouds and had a sharply defined triangular shape.

In Westminster, Colorado, on October 2 of this year, the witness was outside when four faint lights approached. There was a light at each corner of the triangular-shaped UFO and one in the center. The witness said that the object seemed to be translucent and made no noise. It disappeared traveling to the south.

And finally, on November 19 of this year, four people in Joplin, Missouri, said that they were outside about dusk, looking for Jupiter when they spotted a group of blue and yellow lights moving slowly toward them. They thought, at first, it was a formation but as it approached, they saw the dark, triangular shape and that the lights were at each corner of the triangle with one in the center which is an interesting coincidence with the Westminster sighting.

They thought the UFO was about five thousand feet above them, but said there was no way to judge the altitude or the size. They believed it to be large. It moved with no sound and eventually turned to the north, disappearing in the distance. Although they tried to photograph the UFO, it was too dark to be seen and the lights were just bright pin points in the video.

Some of the Promised Updates

 

As I have said a number of times during my various radio appearances, when I have additional information, I’ll publish it. So, here we go.

For those who wonder about the photographs taken in Bettendorf Iowa, on December 24, 2021, I have heard back from the MUFON State Director for Iowa. He reported that no investigation had been initiated in Iowa, but he also checked with Illinois and Missouri with the same negative results. At the moment, I have nothing more on those pictures.

The Bettendorf UFO.

David Marler said, during my interview with him, that skeptics had suggested that sightings of triangular-shaped objects were sparked by Star Wars. Many of the Imperial ships had a very distinctive, triangular shape. David pointed out that sightings of triangles predated Star Wars and provided an example from 1953. I mentioned a chart published in the early 1960s showed triangles as one of the shapes. Someone wanted to know where to find that chart. It was published in several magazines and a couple of books. Here is the chart from the 1964 UFO Evidence published by NICAP.

The UFO shapes chart, circa 1964

I also found a magazine article that dealt with the look of future aviation which included a number of test aircraft that are triangular in shape. We do have the B-1 bomber and the F-117 aircraft that had triangular shapes. This suggests that some of the uptick in such sightings might be the result of tests of these somewhat experimental aircraft.

There is additional evidence of this. On April 14, 2016, an amateur photographer, Jeff Templin, shot a picture of a triangular craft over Wichita, Kansas. Templin said that he used a 400 mm lens, and took the picture when the object was directly overhead. He said that it was making a series of “S” turns and was leaving a contrail behind.

A real triangle, though terrestrial based.

On March 10, two men in Amarillo, Texas, Steve Douglass and Dean Muskett took pictures of three triangles flying over the city. They resembled the craft in Templin’s picture.

I mention this because it does support the idea that some of the triangle sightings are not of alien spacecraft, but are of the next generation of terrestrial airplanes. This does not, of course, solve all cases of triangular UFOs. It just means that some of those sightings are of Earth-base craft rather than space ships.

A triangular balloon that can also fool a witness.

And, if we look into the future, meaning of course, what is being proposed by various aircraft manufacturers, we see that the triangle shape is becoming more common. As more of these aircraft are mistaken for something alien, we also must be aware that sightings of triangular UFOs predate the development of our terrestrial based craft. A solution of one sighting does not translate into the solution for all sightings.

'X' Zone Broadcast Network - David Marler and Triangular UFOs

 

My guest was David Marler, who I had invited on to talk about triangular-shaped UFOs and the scanning project that involved files and documents from a variety of sources, including CUFOS, NICAP and CSI (Civilian Saucer Intelligence). Before I introduced him, I had a couple of other comments to make. You can listen to the radio broadcast here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/49264301

And you can watch the show here:

https://rumble.com/vz47dh-kevin-randle-interviews-david-marler-cufos-scanning-project.html?mref=yqaz3&mc=8uhns

I mentioned that back in the middle of the 1990s, I hosted a radio show on KTSM-AM in El Paso, Texas. Although it was mainly about UFOs, I did delve into some

Hosting the radio show in Texas.

other aspects of the paranormal. I was able to book many guests who had experiences with UFOs, investigated UFOs, and believed them to be alien spacecraft. On the other hand, I couldn’t get any skeptics to participate in the program with the exception of Philip Klass, probably because I knew him personally.

This is relevant in the world today because it seems that it is easier to book a skeptic than someone on the other side of the fence. I’m not sure why, but I suspect it might be because they know they won’t get a free pass on my program. I’m going to ask tough questions and I expect the guest to answer the questions rather than dance off into evasion.

The second point I talked about was a new challenge to the veracity of the General Exon interviews. One fellow approached CUFOS asking for copies of the tapes and transcripts. Told that they were unavailable, he said that he would tell anyone who asked that the quotes were unsubstantiated.

Well, that’s untrue, and for those who would like to see the evidence, scroll on down to the following article. I’ve laid it out there, again, in great detail, including the letter from Exon acknowledging that the quotes are accurate.

David Marler

I brought on David Marler, and we began a discussion of the history of triangular-shaped UFOs. He did point out that sightings of triangles were not new, as some of the skeptics had suggested. One even talked about the inspiration being Star Wars… but, of course sightings of triangles predated the release of the movie in 1977

 As an example of these older triangle reports, he mentioned a sighting from the Albany, Georgia, area on January 28, 1953. It involved both a visual sighting and a radar contact. The Air Force labeled the visual sightings as “astro, (Venus),” meaning an astronomical answer, and the radar as “unidentified.”

Ed Ruppelt, wrote an article about UFOs for True, and one of the cases he touched on was this sighting. He wrote:

On January 28, 1953, at 9:35 p.m., a jet pilot near Albany, Ga., spotted “an extremely bright light” at 10 o’clock high. At first he thought it was another aircraft or an unusually bright star, but when he went up to 10,000 feet it appeared to be ahead and a bit below him. When first spotted, the light was white, but later it began changing constantly from white to orange and back to white again. The object was in view for 17 minutes. In the last 15 second it changed shape from circular to triangular, and the triangles split into two triangles – one immediately above the other – and both disappeared as if someone had snapped off a light.

The pilot called Albany, Ga., but before he could make his amazed report, ground asked him if he had seen anything unusual. They advised him that ground radar had picked up both his jet and a strange target. On the radar scope, when the jet had speeded up, the target had stepped up too, to maintain its lead on him.

There was, of course, a report to ATIC that provided some of the same information. The only differences are minor. For example, in the Air Force report, the object, for the last three minutes of the sighting, cycled from white to orange and back, but in the last fifteen seconds “turned a deep red color and triangular in shape… No trail or exhaust… PRPLN (propulsion) SYS UNK.”

David mentioned that the older reports suggested that the triangular craft were moving with the blunt end forward, which would not seem to be aerodynamic. Later reports had the apex leading which caused me to wonder if this might be a way to discriminate between something strange and something that reflects the current development of terrestrial craft.

We did talk about the scanning project which seems to be as massive as the one that Clas Svahn talked about a few weeks ago. There are many people involved in it including Jan Alrich and Barry Greenwood, as well as Mark Rodeghier. The ultimate goal is to create a digital archive that could be accessed by UFO researchers and interested parties on the Internet. The physical documents will end up in a collect at the university in Albuquerque.

Next week, I’ll chatting with Don Schmitt about the current state of UFO research and why we all should reject the nonsensical UAP designation. If you have questions, and Don has said that no topic is taboo, put them in the comments. They won’t be posted, and I’ll try to get them answered.

The American Airlines Sightings and Other "V"-Shaped UFOs

 

I was looking for additional information about a sighting reported by George Noory on Coast to Coast, when I stumbled into several reports of chevron-shaped UFOs. You can read that report here:

https://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/pilot-reports-odd-ufo-over-new-mexico/

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/39367/airbus-encountered-unidentified-fast-moving-cylindrical-object-over-new-mexico

When asked for more information, American Airlines referred the reporters to the FBI. There has been no explanation for the sighting at this time. Later reports suggest both FAA and FBI investigation and the possibility of something from White Sands.

This means, obviously, that the sighting is being taken seriously by the press and various government agencies. This almost reminds me of the beginning of the modern era in which such reports were taken seriously rather than ridiculed. And in the last couple of days, former air traffic controllers have reported similar incidents.

In the course of my search, I came across multiple reports of chevron-shaped objects. These are objects that looked like the rank worn by soldiers and Marines and differ from triangular UFOs because the base is open. David Marler provided commentary about triangular UFOs in his book, Triangular UFOs: Estimate of the Situation. You can listen to that conversation here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/43515728

The Lubbock Lights.

This all lead to the chevron-shaped UFOs. One of the earliest of those reports came from Albuquerque on August 25, 1951. This report was made 90 minutes before the first of the Lubbock Lights sighting. The witnesses described a flying wing like aircraft, with a series of lights along the edge of the wing. Later, several college professors would report objects passing overhead in Lubbock, which became the first of those sightings. Carl Hart, Jr. took five photographs of those lights a few nights later, which showed a chevron-shaped, or flying wing like craft. Only four of the photographs have survived. Hart told me in 1995 that he didn’t know what he had photographed. You can read more about the Lubbock Lights here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/search?q=Lubbock+Lights

In reports from MUFON and Peter Davenport’s National UFO Reporting Center, I found the following. On January 10, 2021, the witness in Philadelphia, said that while star-gazing, saw a massive V-shaped craft that traveled from north to southwest. The witness said that it was very large and was silent. The V or chevron, was dark with dim running lights along the edges. The witness said the most interesting part was that it seemed that light was bending around the body of the craft and that the ‘stars behind it were visible though were stretched or distorted as it flew.

On January 5, at about ten p.m., the witness in Richmond, Missouri, heard a noise that might have been a snow plow but I kept getting louder. Stepping outside, the witness saw an aircraft that resembled the B-2 Bombers from Whiteman Air Force base. The witness said that the object so low, that it was vibrating the house. It was flying extremely low. The only lights were two solid red at the wingtips. The shape seemed to be a triangle, but the B-2 is more chevron shaped. It was cloudy so that the witness said that “It didn’t silhouette very well.”

In a case from Los Angeles, a witness, only identified as Miguel said that he saw a boomerang flying over the area. He said it was about 300 feet in size and had a dark surface with white lights. He said it emitted nothing and made no noise but did maintain a constant speed and elevation. It had “fuzzy edges,” and he said there was a mist or shroud around it.

One of the best sightings of a chevron-shaped object was reported at the same time as the Phoenix Lights. The object, that could be described as a flying wing with lights in a “V” formation, was first seen in Nevada rather than Arizona. Just before seven (Pacific Standard Time) a man living in Henderson, just outside of Las Vegas, said that he saw a “V”-shaped object that he thought was about the size of a Boeing 747 and that sounded like the rushing of wind. There were six lights on the leading edge. He watched as it flew to the southeast, eventually disappearing over the horizon.

Others reported the lights as they flew from northern Arizona to the southern corner, a distance of about two hundred miles in about thirty minutes, or at about 400 miles per hour. The speed is not outside that of conventional aircraft.

Dana Valentine, a laser printer technician, said he was sitting in his yard when he saw the lights. He ran inside to alert his father, an aeronautical engineer, and both saw the lights, an estimated 500 feet above them. They could also see a mass behind the lights. Neither could see a definable shape, just the formation of lights with a wavy, gray mass behind them. Neither of them could explain what they had seen.

Peter Davenport, and his National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) received dozens of calls from witnesses in Arizona that night.  According to him:

One group of three witnesses, located just north of Phoenix, reported seeing a huge, wedge-shaped craft with five lights on is ventral surface pass overhead with an eerie “gliding” type of flight. It coursed to the south and passed between two mountain peaks to the south. The witnesses emphasized how huge the object was, blocking up to 70 – 90 degrees of the sky.

A second group of witnesses, a mother and four daughters near the intersection of Indian School Road and 7^th Avenue [in Phoenix], were shocked to witness an object, shaped somewhat like a sergeant’s stripes, approach from over Camelback Mountain to the north. They report that it stopped directly above them, where it hovered for an estimated 5 minutes. They described how it filled at least 30 – 40 degrees of sky, and how it exhibited a faint glow along its trailing edge. The witnesses felt they could see individual features on the ventral surface of the object, and they were certain that they were looking at a very large, solid object.

The object began moving slowly to the south, at which time it appeared to “fire” a white beam of light at the ground. At about the same time, the seven lights on the object’s leading edge suddenly dimmed and disappeared from the witnesses’ sight. The object moved off in the general direction of Sky Harbor International Airport, a few miles to the south, where it was witnessed by two air traffic controllers in the airport tower, and reportedly by several pilots, both on the ground and on final approach from the east.

After this point in the sighting, the facts are somewhat less clear to investigators. It is known that at least one object continued generally to the south and southeast, passing over the communities of Scottsdale, Glendale, and Gilbert. One of the witnesses in Scottsdale, a former airline pilot with 13,700 hours of flight time, reported seeing the object execute a distinct turn as it approached his position on the ground. He noted that he witnessed many lights on the object as it approached him, but that the number of lights appeared to diminish as it got closer to overhead. Many other witnesses in those communities reported seeing the object pass overhead as it made its way toward the mountains to the south of Phoenix.

Other sightings occurred shortly afterward along Interstate 10 in the vicinity of Casa Grande. One family of five, who were driving from Tucson to Phoenix, reported that the object that passed over their station wagon was so large that they could see one “wing tip” of the object out one side of their car, and the other “wing tip” out the other side. They estimated they were driving toward Phoenix at approximately 80 miles per hour, and they remained underneath the object for between one and two minutes as it moved in the opposite direction. They emphasized how incredibly huge the object appeared to be as it blocked out the sky above their car.

What all this demonstrates is that there were more sightings than have been reported by most of those commenting on the lights. More important, some of the explanations offered in the days that followed did not account for the variety of sightings.

But the sightings didn’t end; they just became more controversial and produced a number of video tapes. These were lights that inspired the investigations as well as the media attention because nothing excites the media like a good visual. One of the tapes, shown repeatedly on local, national, and cable television, was analyzed using an impressive looking array of computers and some very sophisticated software. The conclusions drawn in those early investigations were that the lights were not natural phenomena and did not exhibit any of the features of manufactured lights. In other words, they were unique.

Others, including private researchers began to gather the stories of the lights that had moved across Arizona, some of them believing that all the sightings were related. There were those who claimed to have a triangular-shaped object and others who claimed to have seen individual lights in a triangular or “V” shaped formation. Some thought the lights were white, others red, and still others saw various faded colors in the lights.

It might also be said that this is where things become confusing. There is good testimony that one formation of lights was identified as airplanes. Steve Wilson of The Arizona Republic, reported about while others were sighting lights, one man saw an object. Wilson reported:

…Max Saracen, 34, is a real estate consultant who lives in north Phoenix. He and his wife, Shala, were driving west on Deer Valley Road when they saw a huge triangular craft. They pulled off the road, got out and watched it pass overhead. “It was very spooky – this gigantic ship blocking out the stars and silently creeping across the sky. I don’t know of any aircraft with silent engines.

Saracen was not alone in this. Mike Rogers, yes that Mike Rogers, told me that he had seen the large, triangular craft as it approached the Phoenix area. It was clear from what he said that he wasn’t talking about a formation of lights, but of a large, single object. He said that he was on a hillside when the craft became visible. It was not a collection of lights or objects, but a single craft. You can listen to our discussion about this here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/19005920

In my conversation with David Marler, he mentioned that sightings of triangular-shaped objects were becoming more frequent. He also mentioned that he “Tried to remain pure to actually focusing on actual triangular UFOs…” there is a gray area when looking at the various reports. He also said that these chevron-shaped UFOs, or boomerangs, were a category of their own.

The statistics do show more sightings of the chevron shapes. It’s almost as if there has been an evolution in the shape of the craft reported that might mean an update in the technology or another species is now visiting.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - David Marler and Triangular UFOs

 

My main guest was David Marler who wrote Triangular UFOs: An Estimate of the Situation. However, before I spoke with him, I took a few moments to reflect on the death of Cliff Stone. Although I didn’t find many of his tales credible, he did have a wide-ranging knowledge of UFOs and was responsible for a great deal of information that had been obtained through FOIA, including information about Project Moon Dust and Operation Blue Fly. That also resulted in the Air Force being caught in a couple of lies about Moon Dust and Blue Fly projects.

David Marler

David Marler, a careful and dedicated researcher, provided some insights into his investigation of triangular UFOs and how he became interested in them. He noted that they have become a predominate shape here in the 21^st century, though in the past, sightings of them had been infrequent. He talked about one of the very first sightings from the late 19^th century when astronomers saw triangular objects against the backdrop of the moon. You can listen to the interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/43515728

He described some sightings made by pilots, including one near a British airport in which the object violated the operating space of that airport. It was investigated by the CAA, the British equivalent of our FAA and they found no logical explanation for the sighting. The details can be found during the interview.

Another of the pilot sightings he mentioned, this one involving both radar and a military pilot, was from Albany, Georgia, on January 28, 1953, and reported to Project Blue Book. I found it interesting that the case was “sort of” investigated by the Air Force. This was during the time that the Robertson Panel was discussing the reality of UFOs and deciding there was nothing to them. Their recommendations were implemented not long after the Panel concluded their work. Here is some of the information from the Georgia case as found in the Blue Book files.

He also talked about a multiple witness sighting in which a number of police officers, scattered around southern Illinois made a series of sightings. It was described in the March 2000 issue of the MUFON UFO Journal. You can read about this case, as written up by Darryl Parker here:

http://dbarkertv.com/default.htm

We also talked about some of the attributes of the triangular-shaped objects. He knew of no case in which one of these objects landed, with the possible exception the Rendlesham Forest craft. The Rendlesham object did not fit into the triangular category easily.

He mentioned that there were some sightings that did involve occupants, but they were seen through windows on the craft and were silhouettes seen against a backdrop of bright lights. They were described as humanoid, but there was little in the way of external detail.

According to Marler, the triangular UFOs almost never make a sound, do not manifest EM Effects, and sometimes seem to shape shift. I did wonder if that was the result of changing perspectives rather than the craft actually changing shape.

Next up is Steven Bassett. We’ll talk about Disclosure, changes in the attitudes about UFOs, and what the new administration might have to say about UFOs. Questions can be appended here and I’ll get them asked. With Marler, I did get answers to the questions sent in, but not always by asking them specifically. The answers came up naturally in the flow of the discussion.

Coast to Coast - November 12, 2020 - Triangular UFOs

 

As those of you who visit here regularly know, I do something that I call chasing footnotes. Sometimes it’s just chasing references to find the original source. This latest episode came about because I wondered when the first triangular-shaped UFO had been reported. I wondered this because reports of triangles seemed to have exploded in the last few years, but this wasn’t a shape widely reported in the past.

I found several references that suggested that the first recorded triangle sighting was made in the 1890s in the Dutch East Indies. None of these sources gave any details and it took a while to track this down.

I eventually made it to David Marler’s book about Triangular UFOs: An Estimate of the Situation, but that wasn’t the end of the trail. Marler quoted Don Keyhoe who seems to be the source. Keyhoe reported on the sighting in his Flying Saucers Are Real. You can read the book here:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5883

Keyhoe wrote that in 1890 “several large bodies were sighted hovering over the Dutch East Indies. Most accounts described them as roughly triangular, about one hundred feet on the base and two hundred feet on the sides. But some observers thought they might be longer and narrower, with a rounded base; this would make them agree with more recent stories of cone-shaped objects with rounded tops seen in American skies.” This all the Keyhoe said about the sighting and he provides no references for us.

That wasn’t the earliest of the triangular UFO sightings, however. According to Marler, the Scientific American (vol 46 pg. 49) reported that people in Lebanon, Connecticut, on July 3, 1882, saw two luminous appearances on “the moon’s upper limb (as Fort wrote [which Marler cites as his source]). These disappeared and were replaced by two dark, triangular appearances three minutes later on the moon’s lower limb.”

I have tried to track this down but have failed. The Scientific American is on line and I have read through that issue. It is also true that I might have missed it. Depending on how important the story was it might have been just a quick, small note. And, it’s important to remember that the Scientific American is not the same as it is today. It was more of a newspaper in the 19^th century.

This, of course, showed that reports of triangular UFOs have been around for

A young Mike Rogers.

decades. It wasn’t until late in the 20^th century that they came to prominence. During the Phoenix Lights in 1999, there were sightings of a triangular UFO that moved from Nevada south toward the Phoenix area. Mike Rogers, yes, that Mike Rogers, told me he had seen the object as it passed overhead. He said that it was huge and that although he attempted to interest others in his report, they were more focused on the lights seen over the city than they were of a dark object that didn’t fit the narrative. His sighting of the triangle, and that of others, was lost in the discussion of the Phoenix Lights.

One of the more exciting sightings of a triangle seemed to be from El Paso, Texas, on August 31, 2018. The witness said that he was driving to work when he saw the strange, triangular-shaped object. He said that he thought it was weird so he grabbed his cell phone, took several pictures of it and then made a short video. Here is the link:

https://www.mufon.com/?gclid=CjwKCAiA17P9BRB2EiwAMvwNyOXZiWETw2dei50umg5USTDsWYvQfV1xGtai-kN_RL8_i4B8DQ0tvRoCMWcQAvD_BwE

However, I did reach out to Marc D’Antonio who is MUFON’s photo expert. He told me, “There’s definitely something illuminated by the sun which is also in the shot up behind some clouds… It appears to me that it could very well be a jet contrail that’s extremely foreshortened being illuminated by the sun from this particular angle... My thoughts anyway. Either way it doesn’t appear to be too mysterious. It is after all illuminated by the sun and stays in the same relative position.”  

Triangle sightings are an on-going phenomenon. According to Peter Davenport, there have been over 200 reports of triangles in the first half of 2020. Here are just a few of the sightings reported to the National UFO Reporting Center.

Peter Davenport

At 9:00 pm on Thursday October 1st, [in Cedar Rapids] I was taking out my garbage when I saw an aircraft slowly coming towards my home, west to east, going towards Mt. Vernon [Iowa]. I thought it was a helicopter but then as it came to be almost above my head, I realized it was not. It was flat metal gray, almost black, it wouldn’t be easy to see had it not had lights on it. It was triangular in shape but the points were flat, not pointed. It spanned maybe 10 feet across and was 10 feet in length. It had two bright lights on the front, like headlights, and a light on each wing, I guess, one was red and one was green. Both blink opposite of the other. It was traveling at I would say approximately 20-30 mph. It wasn’t fast. I yelled for my friend Cody to come outside when it was directly over me. It was very low, only about 6 feet above the tree outside my balcony. And the sound it made was that if a very far away jet. So oddly super quiet but very distinct. I saw no propellers, nothing moved! or it produced no wind at all and it stayed traveling at the same speed until it was out of site. A car driving by stopped to watch it go by as well, so technically 3 witnesses but Cody came and saw it just as it was passing over head. Not sure what it was. But it was not a helicopter or a plane, at least not any that I know exist. If it was a drone, it was a huge effing drone. We had completely cloud cover the sky not even 10 minutes after this happened.

Also, on October 1, from Johnson City, Tennessee, came this. I was taking my husband to work and as I’m getting closer to his job I happen to look to my left and notice this large object in the sky that looks triangular. I mean it could have been another shape but from the distance it looked like a triangle. It was roughly around 5:53 am this morning and the three big white circles of the lights were in a triangle position it was at a vertical position which I thought strange, it was very, very bright so I figured maybe a plane but then it was just sitting there and I thought that’s odd and kept looking as I’m trying to drive. It reminded me of a Christmas tree position just hanging out. I saw a little red on it at one point on the right side of the craft would be our left side... but the farther I got, the more distant it was but it never moved ... I told him we needed to stop and video tape or take a photo but we were running behind and I tried to catch it on my way back it was gone by then. The location of the object looked perhaps in a wooded area and some back roads. Just from where I saw it and the location of where I was. I wanted to report it because I’ve seen so many aircraft in my time and I’m in a military family ... this was just weird.

On October 2, three triangles were seen over Berea, KY. The witness said, “Driving home and saw three spaced apart black triangular aircrafts with white and red lights hovering still over the interstate I-75. Two of them were hovering above the strip of land which separates the north and southbound lanes and one was hovering on the outskirts of the northbound lane. There was no noise.”

On October 5, in Pensacola, a tree cutting crew said that at dusk saw the triangle that they first thought was a helicopter but when it flew overhead, they could see the black triangle shape. It had a blinking white light at the front and two red lights in the rear. He got a very good look at it before it disappeared.

I should note here that these are merely reports and haven’t been investigated thoroughly yet. And, I mentioned, these are but a few of those reports. On October 1, there were several sightings of triangles reported to NUFORC. It does seem as if they are becoming more prominent.