Oregon MUFON gets emails every week or so, of course, and some of these emails are descriptions of anomalous UFO events. Here is a recent one from CG, a Beaverton area resident. She was on her back deck at night when she had an unusual sighting of a slow moving, large triangular UFO with an interesting pattern of triangular lights.
UFO Type: Six triangular lights in a triangular pattern.
Sighting Duration: About 10 seconds.
Date: 8/13/2018
Time: About 3:40 AM.
Place: Beaverton area, Oregon.
Witness: C.G.
Here is CG's emailed story:
This is the first time I have had a UFO sighting. What I saw was not normal. This occurred in the early morning hours of 8/13/2018 at about 3:40 a.m. I had woken up about 3:00 a.m. and decided to go out on my deck in the backyard to see if I could observe the Perseid meteor showers, even though I was in the brighter city limits.
Constantly looking straight up to the sky, I had been outside about 40 minutes and had the pleasure of seeing two meteors. I was about to call it good and go inside when I sensed a bright light coming over the roof line to my south. My first thought was "oh this ought to be a great meteor," and then my mind instantly realized it was way too close to be a meteor. In the seconds I had this thought and was still looking up at the brightness moving over the roofline, I saw an equilateral triangle shape of 6 equilateral shaped whiteish lights. It appeared to be a set of 6 lights moving in perfect formation and unity; I could not see an outline of a structure that contained them. This is not to say it was not there but perhaps blended into the darkness. I just could not make that determination.
It moved slowly over the space above me at a steady pace, making no noise and moving from the south to the north above the tree line -- which I later estimated to be about 200 feet high. The entire event took about 10-12 seconds before I could no longer track it due to the trees in yard. My thought was "what the heck was that?"
I stayed outside for only about 5 more minutes as I started feeling very uneasy.
See attached drawing of what I saw. It led with the "nose" of the triangle with one light, followed by a row of two lights, followed by a row of 3 lights. From my perspective, the size of each light could have been about 8 to 10 inches on each lateral side. There was no pulsing or alternating of the lights, but they seemed like they had a "glow" or "halo' around them with a slight blueish tint.
CG's description is excellent. So, I decided I could work with her via email to explain the concept of angular size vs. real size, so we could help nail down the identification of this UFO as a possible genuine UFO. When something is truly unknown (unidentified) and moving along or stationary in a blue sky or in a dark sky at night, we can't know what the real size of the object or phenomenon is (except for astronomical objects). But we can make some assumptions and eliminate in a reasonable fashion some common, identified objects.
After working with her, CG gave me a ballpark angular size of a fist held at arm's length. This is more or less an angular size of 10 degrees from one side to the other. See https://oneminuteastronomer.com/860/measuring-sky/.
Using this estimate we can do some simple trig calculations and eliminate drones, light planes, and commercial planes pretty easily. A four foot across drone would have been only 22 feet above her and she would have heard the propellers' sounds. A light plane would have been 150 feet above her and she would have heard the plane and, additionally, the legal flying altitude over a city is 1000 feet. And finally a commercial airliner would have been about 850 feet altitude and would also have been illegal (except very near an airport which CG is not) and obvious from the engine noise. The Goodyear blimp was not in the area at the time. Prank kites, balloons, and sky lanterns are possibilities but don't fit the entire list of characteristics or her drawing.
Lastly, triangular UFOs are a known type of UFO and well documented from around the world. And they fit her list of main characteristics: slow going and smooth flight, silent, odd (not standard aviation lights) but regular display of lights, too low seeming altitude for a larger seeming object, etc. See David Marler's Triangular UFOs: An Estimate of the Situation and the older book J. Allen Hynek and Philip Imbrogno's Night Siege: The Hudson River Valley Sightings if you need more help believing that CG saw a "typical" triangular UFO. (Unfortunately, as is the norm, you cannot trust the Internet for reliable and accurate UFO information!)
