Search For the Great Flying Whatsit

I saw my first flying triangle as a child. Actually, it has been my only flying triangle. I'm not even sure what I really saw. It was less a sighting and seemed more like a perceptual glitch.

This was back in the mid-1960s (probably 1964) and a wave of UFO sightings had been taking place around the country. This was back in the days when newspapers and TV stations actually reported such sightings and the news accounts were extremely inspiring to youthful imaginations. So a group of us kids in my neighborhood spent a perfectly lovely summer afternoon enjoying fresh air (we still had that back in those days too) and scanning the sky for anything that we thought was moving.

That is when I spotted a solid black triangle shape moving like a silent silhouette against the pristine blue of the day. Though it seemed to have been high up in the sky, I distinctly saw what appeared to have a single bright red light at its center. The vision lasted barely 5 seconds and then it vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. It was the first time I truly appreciated the phase “out of the blue.”

At the time, I thought maybe I had something in my eye because the whole experience certainly didn't seem exactly real. Likewise, I undoubtedly had my mind focused on seeing a UFO, and obviously my imagination did not want to be disappointed. But oddly enough, I was looking for those saucer-shaped thingies that I was use to seeing in the movies. I had never heard of flying triangles. Somehow it didn't make sense and I wouldn't know anything about this form until many years later (not until the early 1980s).

So what did I see? If I were a debunker, I could comfortably write the whole thing off as a combination of too much television and too little lemonade. What else do you expect from a bunch of dumb kids on a hot summer day who probably should be doing something more with their time than wasting it on a wild goose chase into phony land. Besides, we were kids, so our opinions don't count and it is just anecdotal data anyway, so go blow junior.

On the other hand, I know that I actually did see it. It wasn't that hot of a day. I like to think of myself as being reasonably intelligent. There really wasn't anything in my eye and I knew that at the time. Besides, I wasn't alone. Two of the other kids saw it as well.

But since it wasn't saucer shaped, we couldn't be sure what it was and were mainly left scratching our heads. It simply wasn't the shape we were seeking and it is often amazing the ease with which we forget something that doesn't fit our expectations.