2010-04-15 - Ventura, CA - Triangle

A Triangular craft that was highly visible

At approximately 9 P.M. PDT on April 15th, 2010 in Ventura California.

I was looking toward the west at the constellation of Orion when I heard a brief "screech" sound lasting around one second and coming from the vicinity which I was viewing. Thinking it was an owl I quickly looked for it and saw a faint silhouette of something moving in the clear sky. At first it looked like it was a large bird high in the air as the front and two sides were heavily darkened against the mostly dark sky. It was moving toward me and over a period of about 2 seconds it became clearer and resembled a hang-glider. It was descending and moving toward the east and seemed to be gliding smoothly, making no sound that I could hear. As it reached its closest point to me, what looked to be several hundred feet or so, a very sharp and definite outline appeared. It was an equilateral triangle and had three circular areas symmetrically placed near the tips. There was a slight contrast between the gray triangular area and the circular areas, as the circular portions ! had a very faint glowing quality to them. As it silently continued moving away from me, the craft seemed to have only 2 dimensions. It looked completely flat like it was a projection. It began to gently ripple with smooth wave patterns and disappeared within a little over a second after doing so. The total event lasted around 8 seconds.

I have my master’s degree in physics and teach college level physics as a career. I am also involved in astronomy. I am about 20 minutes drive from a naval base and do hear and see military aircraft from time to time. Though it is possible that I was seeing a "secret aircraft," I am doubtful that such a craft would be flown in such plain view as it was very apparent what was seen. Judging from the change in angular diameter, its descent was fairly rapid and it changed from a dark, fluctuating shadow into a crisp configuration, lightly contrasted against the clear dark sky. I would estimate the base of the triangle to be around 50 feet, though I could be way off. Once leveled off at around 500 feet, it glided forward at perhaps 100 miles per hour until it disappeared from sight somewhat like a mirage does. The measured angle from the horizontal at which the craft began to wave out of sight was around 20 degrees. It all happened very fast and was short in duration, m! aking it difficult to be definite on measurements. All in all, I saw a craft without doubt and I am perplexed by what I have seen.