2011-01-25 - Riverside, CA - Triangle

Extremely fast black triangle

On the evening of 01/25/2011 I was on my back porch, looking at the sky. The sky was cloudless, but there was haze or smog which was reflecting the city streetlights, making it rather bright. The stars were visible, notably Orion, which I was looking at while facing East.

At 1911 hours I noticed movement to the left in my peripheral vision. I was surprised to see a pitch black object moving swiftly from North to South across my field of vision, passing just below the constellation Orion. While the object was directly in front of me it appeared as an isosceles triangle, the length being approximately twice the width, with the point at the front. It was angled slightly away from me, consistent with the object's "wingspan" being parallel to the ground and me observing it from underneath from the West. The object disappeared quickly into the haze as it departed to the South. I estimate the duration of the sighting as 1, not more than 2 seconds. There were no lights on the object, it was completely black against the slightly orange cast of the sky. The edges seemed very sharp while it was directly in front of me, but it was more vague as it approached and departed. There were numerous airliners and general aviation aircraft visible at the time which were clearly audible. I heard no sound that could be attributed to the passing of the object. I estimate the object was considerably lower than the airliners I could see which were on final approach to Orange County and LAX.