The following is a true and accurate account of my own "close encounter" in Seattle Washington which occurred in 1992 or 1993. I believe it was in the month of November.
It was a Sunday night about 9:30. I often have occasion to be driving north about this time of evening on Sundays and I usually take the freeway. This time, however, I knew that the freeway, northbound, was jammed up due to an accident. So I had taken an alternate route which eventually led me to what I think was East Marginal Way, right next to Boeing Field.
I noticed three red lights low in the sky ahead of me. They were moving in unison, very slowly across my field of vision from east to west. At first I thought they must be the lights of a low flying plane, perhaps about to land. Then I thought, no, they must be helicopters because a plane, even if it was landing, wouldn't be moving that slowly. The trouble was, I couldn't actually see the craft or crafts that the lights were attached to. They were, maybe, a half mile ahead of me, about 30 degrees to my right. Normally, I wouldn't have really paid much attention to this at all because I've been making this Sunday night drive past Boeing (although via the freeway) for the last twelve years.
In all that time I've seen plenty of airplanes and helicopters flying low in this area. But something was different this time. It took me a minute to realize what it was. It was the fact that the lights weren't blinking. I thought that was odd. It seemed to me that every airplane or helicopter I've ever seen flying at night had blinking lights. I squinted my eyes as I drove toward the lights, trying to see just what the heck I was actually looking at. Although I was now only about two blocks away from being directly under the flight path of these lights, I still could not make out what they were attached to.
However, from their slow, steady movement, in unison, I was pretty sure all three of them were attached to a single object rather than being independent of each other. By the time I was directly below their flight path, they had reached the airspace over Boeing Field to my left. I was now convinced it was a single, low-flying craft of somekind and I knew there was something very odd here. I pulled my car off to the side of the road and rolled down the window to get a better look.
When I saw what I thought I saw I said to myself, "Wait a minute! Wait a minute! What the..." I opened the car door and stepped out. It was there alright, and I was stone cold sober and wide awake. It was a gigantic flying black triangle! There is no other way to describe it because that's precisely what it was; a huge, black, flying triangle. I don't mean it was just sort of triangular shaped, like one of those wedge-winged jets or something. It was just one big three-sided, cookie-cutter-straight-edged, black, geometric shape; a triangle with one unblinking red light at each of its three corners.
There was a high, gray cloud cover that evening, subtly lit by the Seattle city lights in the distance. Against this ceiling I could see the object like a huge, dense black silhouette.
I stood there almost not believing what I knew I was seeing. I said to myself, "Ok. What, exactly, are you seeing? You're going to want to remember every detail of this! Just the facts, now. What, exactly, do you see?" I made a mental inventory. "Black triangle. Red light on each corner. They don't blink. It looks like it's about seventy-five to a hundred feet above one of the main Boeing hangars. It's moving very slowly. Maybe five miles per hour. It's heading west. It must be about the size of a football field."
Suddenly I realized, as I stood there in the dark on this quiet empty street, the object didn't make a sound! Maybe more than anything else, that's what made the whole thing so eerie. Something that huge, that close, moving through the air at a snail's pace should be making some kind of a sound! A hum! A rumble! Anything! But, no. It just moved across the sky like something out of a Steven Spielberg movie with the volume turned off. I looked up and down the street to see if anyone else was witnessing this silent event, but the street was dark and empty in both directions. I looked up again at the mysterious thing now blending into the dark horizon. I watched it until I couldn't see it anymore and then it was over.
I got back into my car and closed the door. The window was still open and I took another look. Nothing was there but the gray night sky, softly aglow from the distant city lights. It was as if nothing had happened. I sat there for a minute and lit a cigarette. Then I turned the car on and took one more look, knowing it wouldn't be there, but still wanting to remember where it had been. I shook my head as if in disbelief and pulled out onto the road. All the way home I just kept asking myself, "What the hell was that?"
I have since learned that similar sightings have been made all over the world, with one of the more spectacular incidents occurring in Belgium. I have also learned that some people believe it is actually a craft built by the U.S. government under the code name "The Aurora Project". There is further speculation that the method of propulsion is top-secret technology garnered from years of studying (or "reverse-engineering", as they call it) the propulsion mechanisms from crashed extraterrestrial craft such as is alleged to have been discovered in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.
Whatever it was, it was my one and only close encounter. I waited all my life to see a UFO and, as it turned out, it was nothing like I always imagined it would be. I wanted to see a "flying saucer"! You know, one of those shiney, disk-shaped things that everybody else sees. But, no. I had to see a flying black triangle! Then again, it was probably just a weather balloon, right? A weather kite? Swamp gas. Yeah, that's it. Triangular swamp gas. Well, I'm glad that mystery is solved.
THE FOLLOWING IS AN ACCOUNT OF AN ENCOUNTER WITH THE BLACK TRIANGLE AS TOLD TO ME BY A YOUNG MAN I'LL CALL GREG:
Greg is a mountain climber here in the Pacific Northwest. One day, about 1981, he was climbing at a place called Lion Rock in Washington State. When he reached the plateau, he looked up and saw a dark triangle shaped object several thousand feet in the sky. On his second visit to that same plateau he saw the object again. And again it was positioned very high in the sky.
On his third trip to Lion Rock, he was climbing with a friend (I'll call him Bill) who happened to be a Lockheed flight engineer. When they reached the top, Greg was telling Bill about the triangular object. As he was pointing to the sky to show his partner where he'd seen the object, the same object appeared! Bill of course did not know the size of the object but guessed its altitude must have been about 20,000 feet.
As they stood there looking at the object they noticed it appeared to be getting larger. In a moment they realized it was in a freefall heading straight for them! They dove for the bushes and the object, which now could be quite clearly seen to be a craft, came to an abrupt stop about 150 feet above the ground and about 150 feet away from them.
Greg got out his field glasses to get a really good look at the surface of the craft. He said it really wasn't black but, rather, a very dark amber-hued brown. There was no indication of seams or rivets that he could see. It had the appearance of being a molded piece. He estimates its size was about equal to a football field. He detected what he thought seemed to be windows along one side and a glow of light coming from within the craft. As in my own sighting, the craft had been totally silent all this time. But that was about to change.
Suddenly the craft let out an ear piercing screech and took off at an angle right over Greg and Bill. As it did so, the craft emitted a beam of white light which passed directly over them. In a moment the craft was gone.
The result of this encounter was that Greg suffered from blood in his urine for about the next 6 months and Bill suffered from a rash throughout his groin area for about the same period of time.
It is interesting to note that Greg is a devout Christian and never really had an interest in UFOs before his encounters. His father is a Cristian minister.
I have never met Bill but Greg tells me the event caused Bill severe psychological repercussions. I don't know what that means in terms of exactly what those repercussions were.
It is also interesting to note that Greg's encounter was nearly a decade earlier than mine.
We cruised on listening to tunes. After driving a few more miles, we both noticed at the same time, we could see the familiar formation of lights. It was cruising over the area of the Hillsboro Airport (We've called them and they always deny anything is up there!). We just kept going hoping to get to James' apartment before anything happened.
As we were getting closed to 185th(?) exit we noticed that it was coming right for us! Now to get where we were going we have to exit on the right side of the highway and then turn left at the stop light and drive over the highway. As I turned left, James started screaming," I can't believe they're coming in this close - I can't believe it!"
We were now heading south on 185th and the flying triangle (FT) was about 1/4 of a mile away also heading south. Now it was right over a major shopping center! I know it was late but there were a lot of cars around and nobody thought it was strange that this huge flying craft was flying about 200 feet above a shopping center! I stopped at a red-light and was trying to see it but it veered away to the southwest.
Now that it was heading away from us James was feeling a little braver. "They want us to go meet them" he said confidently. "Where..." I started to say but then I realized where would be an ideal place to meet whoever these things were and put this matter to rest!
We were about 3/4 of a mile from where I worked so I drove in that direction. I worked for a company that was based in a business park that was completely built as far as the streets and curbs were concerned but at that time there were not that many buildings compared to the area. All of the buildings were to the east side of the park. In the middle there was just grass anyone and towards the east - nothing but knee high grass. That's the area I drove towards.
As I pulled to a stop and turned of my headlights off I realized that there were hardly any other lights around except for one street lamp behind us about 45 feet away. We both got out. Keeping with our usual pattern of one of us on each side of the van, so as to not let (or anything) sneak up on us we both scanned the skies, My van was parked facing south and after I got out I noticed that a different FT was coming from the north-east curving around towards us to head south. I started to remember that James had said that they usually travel in pairs.
Just then I heard James say, "It's coming around again!" James was using my binoculars to watch the first one that we had seen and was oblivious to the second one that I was watching. He was very excited and was getting quite a good view of the other craft as it was not very far away (about 200' away). As he was watching this FT cruise in towards us and show him it's underside-he described what he saw in detail.
I was keeping an eye on the one, by now, directly above us. It passed directly over us just after the other one passed to our right. While I watched the one overhead, it seemed to stutter and stop in mid-air for about 1 second. I thought to myself there is no way that this could be a plane.
The other FT by now was heading southwest towards Tillamook and James finally noticed what I was looking at. Just then he screamed," Here they come ! They're coming across the fields!"
I looked in the direction he was looking, which was south-west (the same direction the first craft was heading in). Across the fields, which has knee-to-waist high grass, I saw what looked like two pairs of fluorescent orange eyes. They looked like they were moving towards us but I couldn't be sure. As if on cue, James jumps into my van and starts warning me how we need to get out of here. I tell him that this was his idea and that I want to see what these thing look like.
By now he's pressed up against the roof of my van and screaming at me that we need to get out of here RIGHT NOW !!! I `m looking across this field and these pairs of glowing eyes are getting closer. James says they're galloping on all fours but I can't see that. All I see are those eyes coming at us. Right about here my need for self-preservation over-rode my curiosity and in one motion I jumped into the drivers seat, slammed the door and hit the starter. (I had purposely left the keys in the ignition for just such an emergency as this).
As I `flipped-a-bitch' (U-turn) I saw that these glowing eyes were only about 50' away. I still couldn't see any bodies attached to them but then again I had to drive.
We drove straight to James' apartment as fast as we could to tell someone about it. It was an exhilarating feeling to know we came s close to them `getting us' but then getting away. It was a small victory but a victory none-the-less.
When we got to James' apartment, we told his neighbors but they just looked at us condescendingly. I realized I looked just like James did when everybody thought that he was crazy.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary as I headed north on 185th going from Aloha to Beaverton. Just as I passed the McDonald's and Target store (which is right next to the freeway) I saw to the northeast a FT (Flying Triangle) flying towards the west. As I turned right to go down the on-ramp I noticed that the FT was curving around and was now heading east. The same direction I was !!! I was ahead of it doing probably 70 mph when it effortlessly glided along side of me (actually it was about 200 yards away to my left) and started to pace my van.
I rolled down my window and said "I'm not afraid of you...this isn't going to work!" I then started to laugh out loud and then the FT sped up and cruised over the hills toward Portland. By the time I made it through the tunnels and into downtown Portland there was nothing to see except a few airliners coming in. ( Yes, I can tell the difference between the two!)
The next night this whole scene was repeated almost exactly. The only difference the next night was that when I went through the tunnels and came out on the Portland side I could still see it flying west. As I crossed over the Marquam Bridge, which rises very high into the air as it crosses the Williamette River, I could see it cruising towards Mt. Hood.
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