2021-03-31 - Alcoa, TN - Triangle

Small black triangle with three solid white lights passed low over my car.

I was driving south on highway 321, somewhere close to, but before the first red light preceding the outskirts of Alcoa. It was sometime between 5:30 and 6am, but closer to 6. It was still very dark but the sky was clear enough in patches that I could see stars. I don’t remember any other traffic around me on the highway at that time, but since the pandemic, at that time of the morning traffic is usually pretty light. From the corner of my right eye, I saw a dark shape moving in the top of my windshield. I leaned forward and saw an aircraft flying very low across the highway, passing directly over my car. If I had to guess, I’d say it was probably only about as high above the ground as the top of a three story building. It was small, maybe the size of a small plane (think a “very light jet” of a size that would accommodate a pilot and possibly a co-pilot, but not passengers.) It was moving across the highway from my right toward my left, so roughly west to! east. I don’t recall hearing engine sounds, other than my car, but I was driving with windows closed and my heat on low, so I might not have discerned a sound. The craft was triangular in shape, solid, and it appeared black from below. It blocked out the sky and stars in a solid triangle as it passed over. It had three bright white lights — constant, not blinking. One was on the “nose” (The leading point of the triangle) and there was one on either “wing” tip. There may have been a fourth white light in the center of the back of the triangle (like a jet port) but honestly, I only clearly remember the three solid white lights on each of the tips. I thought it was odd that they were not blinking because I thought plane lights were required to blink. I didn’t take my eyes off it for about 8 seconds as it passed over and moved off to my left, but then I had to look at the road again so as not to go off the pavement. I only looked down at the road for a second, but when I look! ed back, I couldn’t see the craft anymore. 8 seconds sounds fa! st, but I remember thinking at the time it seemed to be going more slowly than it should have been. I can only assume it was some type of military craft. There is an Air National Guard base at McGhee Tyson Airport in Alcoa, and the direction of travel was roughly toward the airport. I didn’t tell anyone for about a week and a half because, even though it still seemed “weird” to me, I just kept thinking it was a military craft, like a stealth plane of some sort. I finally told my husband and he said he didn’t think it sounded like any stealth plane that he had heard of. Based on the proximity of the Air Guard base, it really has to be a military craft, but I’ve never seen anything like it, so I’m reporting it in case anyone else has seen it, or knows what it might have been.