1999-01-28 - Scottsdale, AZ - Triangle

Dark triangular shape against the darking sky. The object had great speed and no sound or light was evident.

Over the past few days 1-25-99 until yesterday 1-31-99 I've seen some interesting things in the sky over north Scottsdale in AZ. I wont speculate on what I saw but I will provide this brief explanation. The rear balcony of my 2nd story apartment faces east - north/east overlooking Stone Creek Golf coarse so I've a very clear view with little or no obstruction. The other day I was relaxing on my balcony just enjoying the sky as I am an amateur astronomer. Then I saw a streak in the sky low on the horizon about 10 degrees. This streak was black against the darkening sky, and triangular in shape. The time was around 6:30 pm and the sky was turning a deep low saturation purple as is does here in the desert. The shape almost reminded me of an orderly flock of birds but it was clearly not birds as the speed was way to great and there was no variation in its shape, it was solid. The object covered at least 45 degrees horizontally in about 2 seconds. I estimate the object to be approximatly 2 to 4 miles distant making it quite large about the size of an f-15 or larger. At first I thought this is what I must have seen but there were no lights and no reflected light the only way I saw the object was due to the fact that it obscured the darkening sky. The sky was dark but the object was much darker. There was no sound and what seemed to be a dark streak or trail behind the object. I noticed that I could more clearly see the object by not looking directly at it. As all astronomers know when looking at very faint objects it is best to not look directly at the object due to the make up of the human eye, rods and cones. I've a very clear understanding of aircraft, speed, size and action. Just to the north east of me is the Scottsdale Airpark, an airport that can handle many types of jets up to small passenger jets. It is a very busy airport and at any time you can see 4 to 6 jets on approach from the north. I know how fast a leer jet looks as it takes off and lands and this object was approximately 5 times that. Well after this first sighting a couple days ago I didn't give it much more thought, I don't need to dwell on such things as I've seen many unexplained things in the sky. Well yesterday I saw 2 more such objects in the same place at the same time with 2 friends who also saw something. This time I saw the object for a good 90 degrees horizontally it was not quite as dark so I could see it more clearly. This occurred just after the full moon had cleared the mountains in the distance. Again there was no sound and the shape was triangular. I saw one and then within a few seconds another one. I could clearly point at it and follow it across the sky telling my friends as it crossed various reference points such as houses and the moon. I'll be watching the desert skies at dusk in that area everyday now with my camcorder in hand.