1999-06-02 - Daytona Beach, FL - Triangle

Four black triangles see close up.

It was around June that I began going to DBCC (Daytona Beach Community College). I didn't have a car yet, so my mother would pick me up from night school around 9:00 pm.

On this night, we were chatting as we took the back route home from my school. We were driving down Williamson Blvd, which is a long and twisting road that is rather undeveloped for the area, but the occasional apartment complex or convenience store can be found. Thick trees are on both sides of the road. I live in Ormond Beach, so Williamson was a straight shot to Hand Ave without having to stop at so many lights. It is a very well known street, and there were quite a few other cars on the road in both directions.

As we were driving home, I looked out the passenger window to see these giant triangular air crafts flying low. I squinted and said, "Mom, look at these planes. They are shaped funny." She couldn't look up until she came around the bend. When she glanced up at them, she slowed a little. "Oh my god, they're black triangles. Is the government testing something new?" She asked me. I shook my head, but didn't take my eyes off them. I counted four. I remarked, "Look at how low they are flying. You'd think that if they were testing something new they wouldn't do it here." My mom commented on the time of night, and the thick forestation on both sides. As I watched them, I noticed that they had a weird way of moving. Focusing on just one of them, it flew straight...then stopped....went backwards....then stopped...then to the side and stopped, all without changing the direction of the "nose". At the blink of an eye they could go from being completely motionless to down the street.

Going 45 mph. with only my window half down, there was no audible sound coming from the four planes. I thought that was extremely odd, considering how close we were to them. I saw one do a slow nose dive into the woods until I couldn't see it anymore. I was prepared to hear a blast, as I thought it was surely doomed. As far as I've ever known, those woods are completely blanketed with trees, but I've also heard there are also small retention ponds somewhere in there too. Apparently, there must have been a clearing back there for the plane to go down like that, only to emerge a few seconds later unscathed.

To the best of my recollection, there were no lights on the planes whatsoever. Being at night, and the planes painted pitch black with no lights, they were obviously meant to go unseen. If it weren't for the moon, light pollution, and the scattered lights of homes and businesses, we would not have seen them at all, and we certainly would not have heard them.

My mother weaved slightly as she tried to drive and gaze up at the same time. We watched them play in the sky. They came so close to us at one point, that I had to crane my neck up to see the whole craft. There was no particular formation, and they didn't seem to have any real destination, until they all turned and sort of drifted in the opposite direction than we were heading.

My mother returned to her normal driving as I twisted in my seat to try to get one last peek at them. The last thing I remember was that even though they were shaped like triangles, the sides were flat and the edges looked like they were sanded down a little more round. The "nose" looked rounded too. Since then, I've looked at photos of the Stealth and other interesting air crafts and none of them have had the shape or contour of the four we saw that night.