1991-07-15 - Houston, TX - Triangle

Two witnesses observed triangular object made of hazy greenish lights speeding back and forth across the horizon.

It the summer of 1991, before my senior year of high school. I lived in the suburbs northwest of the city of Houston, TX, which are near FM 1960 (not sure if the road is still called that). Ambient light in the area was tolerable for skygazing, and there were no military bases in the area. One evening around 9pm CST, I had just come home from eating dinner at a restaurant with my mother. She had observed an object in the sky after I had already gone inside the house. She came in and said I should go look outside, that she had just saw something very strange. At the time I was extremely skeptical of UFOs, but she is a very logically-minded person, and so I indulged her. By that time the object was already gone, but I decided to wait outside for a bit. Around thirty or forty minutes later, as I was about decided to give up and go inside, I saw a triangle-shaped object rather high in the sky. The object was comprised of about twenty greenish, hazy lights. The whole surface of the object was rather nebulous in this fashion; there were distinct lights, but their coronas blended together to form a unified triangular object. It was difficult to judge its distance or altitude from me, as the night was clear and there were no reference objects to compare against. It had to be at least 5,000 feet in the air; it definitely had the appearance of having a high altitude. It was probably a mile or two away from me on the x-axis. Its size between my fingers while at arm's length (i was around 6'0" at the time) was about 1 inch long and about 3/4ths of an inch wide. Since I was viewing it from an angle of probably 30 degrees from its side, and it had the shape of a slightly-distorted isosceles (two sides longer than the base) triangle, it was either flying at an angle, or its side was actually triangular. The object moved silently and smoothly across the horizon in a matter of five seconds, and because it appeared to be so high, I found it to be impossible to be a commercial plane or satellite. And since in the over ten years I had lived in Houston up to that time I had never once seen a military jet fly over, I felt I could safely rule that out, especially given the lack of contrail and running lights. I have seen military jets in flight though, and this seemed to travel at a speed far in excess of any military craft. It also could not have been a spotlight since there was no cloud cover to reflect off of, and the pattern was not predictable as a spotlight would be. The object moved back and forth across the horizon about three times before disappearing. The shape of the object reversed when it came back into view travelling the opposite direction (i.e. the triangle was pointing the other direction). I had the distinct feeling that I was being watched or observed. Given the highly skeptical nature of my mindset at the time about UFOs, I cannot readily attribute this to a sense of UFO "expectation." It was a very primal sensation that registered almost unconsciously. I went in to discuss the sighting with my mother, and then she and I came out together to look for it, and we saw it once again briefly as it once again glided across the horizon. Though I waited outside for some time, I did not see it again. As a sidenote, several months later the show "Unsolved Mysteries" ran a special on UFO sightings which my mother and I both happened to be watching on separate TVs. Some amateur footage of this object was shown which matched exactly with what I saw. We both independently confirmed this. Background of observer: I consider myself fairly intelligent, educated and fair-minded. I have a degree in Advertising from a well-respected university, and am a web designer. My mother is also intelligent, educated and fairly conservative in making "fanciful leaps." She has a Masters degree and teaches.