2013-10-12 - Schaumburg, IL - Triangle

I saw a large, low flying, silent, slow craft in the shape of a triangle. It was the color of the sky

I went outside from the side door of my house at 2:50 am for a final cigarette break before bed. The side door is on the north side of the house. I usually turn on the outside light but this time I didn't. The lights in my house were also off. I was alone outside. There were other people inside the house but they were sleeping. I am absolutely certain of the time I walked out the door. It was 2:50 am. I checked my clock right when I walked out the door. My clock is accurate. I lit my cigarette and sat down on the bench and soon saw small and odd flickers of light a number of times for about 1 minute in the backyard, reflecting in the grass area on the west side of my yard to my right.

A short few minutes later, probably about 2:55 am, I saw a flying craft in the sky come in to view to my right from the west headed east. There is a large area of trees on the west side of my backyard that are about 50-60 feet high. I saw the craft as soon as it passed the treeline. It was an equilateral triangle. It seemed large. If I had to guess, I would say each side was maybe just under 20 feet. It seemed rather low flying, just above the tree line, maybe at about 80-90 feet. The triangle was the same dull black color of the sky but the sky had stars that night and the craft did not. It seemed very thin, practically flat, I could see hardly any dimension to it. It moved very slow. It flew directly over my seated location above my head. It never changed pace. It did not make any sound what so ever. There was an off-white light on each of the 3 points of the triangle. After it passed I saw an additional light in the middle of the back side of the ! triangle that flickered at an odd but seemingly calculated rate. I don't recall the color, I don't think it was exactly the same color as the others. I went back inside the house through the side door again after the craft went out of view. I went upstairs when everything was quiet and went to bed, afraid to turn on a light. I spent probably about an hour thinking about it, wide eyed and awake, then I must have somehow drifted to sleep. I woke up the next morning but did not recall the events until a few hours later and everything came flooding back to memory.

A note about my location: We have a large airport for small private planes which is about 1 mile west of my home. In the summer just one year before, in 2012, we were constantly seeing black hawk helicopters coming from the direction of the airport so I assume they sometimes have military contractors using the site. As I understand it, on record from an FAA map , unmanned military drones were not permitted to be flown in this area at that particular time. I've seen all kinds of planes and helicopters and jets and model toy drones and even Chinese lanterns but I have never seen anything like the triangle I saw that night.