Impossible Things Before Breakfast

I In roughly 1973, when I was around the age of 13 or so, my father the map maker had my family living for six months in Blackfoot Idaho.

I was spending a moonless night 'urban camping' in the back yard of my only friend in this town, and we had our sleeping bags out in the back yard, under the stars. As we finally settled down to try to sleep, my friend became excited and exclaimed that I should look quickly, that there was a UFO in the sky. I was skeptical and refused to be fooled. Suddenly his voice became terribly serious, and he stated that if I failed to heed him, I would regret it forever. This was an unusual tone for a young person to take, so I looked. Then I stood up and really took stock of what I saw.

Above I have illustrated, as perfectly as I can, the thing I saw. It was the size of my thumbnail against the stars (I deliberately measured it with my hand), held at arms length. All illumination of the object came from the yellow-white street lights of the surrounding city. The object was absolutely silent, and glided across the sky without any variation in speed. The object appeared to be made of some dull, light gray, slightly grainy textured material, rather like concrete I felt at the time, and had no windows, lights, seams, doors, panels, letters, numbers, or any other marking whatsoever. It might actually have been made of smoothly carved granite for all I know. It was silent, had no glow or interesting effects or anything else remarkable to its appearance. It was a round cornered, equilaterally perfect shape, moving gracefully against the sky. The outline of it was like a pool ball rack, a perfect triangle with a heavily rounded contour. The rounding appeared to affect the sides, so that it was rather like a triangular, softly rounded pill. It appeared very solid, and seemed as though it would be hard, from the way it reflected the city lights. It didn't look like metal, it wasn't shiny, but instead was dull. I have no firm beliefs about what it may have been. I can only describe what I saw, which was unlike anything else I have ever seen in my life, including unusual aircraft such as flying wings and stealth planes. It was not any kind of stealth bomber or flying wing I am very reasonably certain, especially since in moved in an aerodynamically impossible way.

The object suddenly changed direction, roughly 90 degrees, a right angle, without veering, cornering or slowing...it moved impossibly, like a sprite in a video game, defying the laws of physics. One moment is was moving in a straight line, then the next instant it was moving at a right angle to its original direction of travel. The object cared nothing for any particular facing, and was the same whether a flat side, or a pointed end, was at the forward position to the direction of travel. It was perfectly, equilaterally triangular, curved and rounded all over, and had a dome shaped underportion that smoothly, seamlessly rose out of it. (although, at the time, I imagined that the dome was a crater, a dimple...this is a common illusion, I have come to understand, depending on lighting of rounded objects). It moved reasonably quickly, faster than an aeroplane, but slower than a jet plane. It was impossible for me to tell the size or the distance of it.

The object glided behind some trees and wires briefly, before I saw it depart beyond my view, blocked by the surrounding buildings. The whole experience took around two minutes from the time I started looking, to the time it passed from my ability to see it further.

An earlier drawing I did of it is provided below:

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