NIDS black triangle study
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 7
| Date | 3 November 2001 |
|---|---|
| Topics | Bases & Area 51 (topic) |
| People | Robert Bigelow, Colm Kelleher |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 146 |
| Year | 2001 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 2001 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 4 |
The National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), Robert Bigelow's privately funded research organisation in Las Vegas, collected and analysed reports of large, silent, low-flying black triangular craft, publishing a study in 2004 that concluded the craft were being flown openly near cities and highways.[1][2]
The study
NIDS combined databases of sightings reported by hundreds of eyewitnesses. By late 2001 deputy administrator Colm Kelleher cited more than 150 cases at an internal meeting. The study, released in 2004, concluded that the United States was experiencing a wave of "flying triangle" sightings that may have intensified in the 1990s and was continuing, with the craft "being openly deployed over and near population centers, including in the vicinity of major Interstate Highways".[1][3]
Conclusions
NIDS argued that the behaviour of the craft did not fit the covert deployment of a secret Defense Department aircraft. Instead, it said, it was consistent either with the routine, open deployment of an unacknowledged Defense Department aircraft, or with an aircraft owned and operated by people outside the Defense Department — a possibility it called disturbing in the heavily guarded post-9/11 airspace. It said neither the agenda nor the origin of the triangles was known. An example in the study was a football-field-sized wedge with flashing coloured lights seen at 500 feet over Port Washington, Wisconsin, in October 1998.[1]
Background
Black triangles became one of the most commonly reported UFO shapes from the 1980s, after the Hudson Valley sightings and the Belgian wave of 1989–1990. Explanations include secret aircraft, advertising blimps, formations of light aircraft and, in the case of the 1997 Phoenix Lights, military aircraft and flares; Britain's Project Condign attributed many to atmospheric plasmas. Many reports remain unexplained.[2]
People and topics
- NIDS — Robert Bigelow's research institute (1995–2004) that studied UFOs and other anomalies.
- Robert Bigelow — Businessman who founded NIDS and Bigelow Aerospace and ran the AAWSAP contract.
- Colm Kelleher — Biochemist who helped run NIDS and BAASS and co-wrote Skinwalkers at the Pentagon.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
- Hudson Valley — The New York region where a wave of boomerang sightings occurred in the 1980s.
On the Timeline
- Mach effect experiments (June 2001) — Researchers publish an experiment on changing the mass of test samples.
- Howard Cross's own sighting (17 December 2001) — A researcher finds a Blue Book file showing a Battelle scientist reported his own sighting.
See every 2001 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- Leonard David, "Silent running: 'black triangle' sightings on the rise", Space.com (2 Sep 2004) · space.com · archived copy
- Black triangle (UFO) — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- "Black triangle UFO sightings around the planet span decades", Mystery Wire · digital-release.koin.com · archived copy
- amazon.com · amazon.com · archived copy
Further reading
- Wright-Patterson Air Force Base — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Hangar 18 (the legend and 1980 film) — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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