1999-10-05 - Rosemount, MN - Triangle

I observed 2 rather small, dimly-lit long, triangular shaped objects flying in formation heading north at a rater low altitude at somewhere between 500 to 800 mph.

At 8:35pm on the night of October 5th 1999, a friend and myself had just put his kids to bed and had stepped outside for a cigarette. It was an exceptionally clear evening and we were marveling at all of the stars out that night, when I asked him if he had ever seen one of those hundreds of satellites we have orbiting our planet. He responded that he hadn't, and so I told him that I could probably spot one for him within 10 or 15 minutes, and began scanning the skies for one. We were in a quiet neigborhood, but the neighbors porch-lights were making it difficult to see good, so I walked north between the two houses where the night-sky became more "observable". I was looking straight above me, when out the corner of my eye I saw a really fast moving blur to which I began to blurt out to my frind, "Look!, a shooting star"....But I only got out the words "Look! a shoo......." when My eyes were able to focus on the object. This was NO shooting star, NO aircraft man has ever built, and NO weather related phenomena! I could very CLEARLY see a long, thinly shaped triangle with only the edges lit up in a pale whitish outline. I had only focused on it for maybe a second or two when I noticed a 2nd one behind it a ways and to the right of the first one. They were flying precisely at the same speed and kept the distance between them so steady that they could have been flying as ONE! (unlike our known aircraft that fly in formation.....they always seem to deviate a little from one another as they fly overhead) There were no blinking lights at all, only the complete outline of the triangles were dimly lit and the light seemed to gently fade from the outside edges inward, where the center of the craft appeared almost translucent......sky-black with just a hint of reflected "ground-light" of whitish-green. It is very hard to determine the altitude of anything in the night sky, but to the best of my knowledge, they seemed to be flying rather low, maybe at an altitude of between 1,000 and 3,000 ft. Agai! n, in a night sky, size is difficult to determine also, and once again, I believe they seemed to be rather small craft, somewhere between 8 to 15 ft. in length, and maybe 5 to 9 ft. at their widest point, which would have been at the aft end of the triangular shapes. At this relatively low altitude, one would think that you would be able to hear some kind of sound, even if it was the sound of air rushing around them, as they flew at a very high rate of speed,.....but there was NO sound whatsoever! I would have to guess they were traveling at a rate of maybe 500 to 800 mph, heading north in a straight line. At this speed and altitude, and given their rather dimly-lit appearance, I only observed them for maybe 5 seconds and they were out of sight. During this time of observaton, I was calling out to my friend and pointing towards them, asking if he was seeing what I was, and wondering why I wasn't hearing a response. Turns out, unfortunately, that one of his kids had called out to him, and he had turned and gone inside the house and didn't even hear me talking to him, much less SEE anything! I am a 50 yr.old aircraft mechanic of 32 years, living in Minnesota for the pat 20 yrs. I often fly comercially and recreationally, even though I do not posess a pilots license. I have always been interested in astronomy and enjoy observing our night skies, and believe me......I will be observing our skies even more now, after witnessing this account, even though I don't really believe I will ever see anything so compelling as what I saw on that night in early October, 1999.