Black Aircraft Encounter, Outstate Minnesota 1989

From: "Todd Madson" 
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 97 09:47:42 CST
Subject: Black Aircraft Encounter, Outstate Minnesota 1989

I figure I'd share my sole interesting "unknown" experience with you, which
occurred in Biscay, Minnesota on Valentine's Day 1989, around 10 p.m. at
night.  I live in Minnesota, but we had opted to go on a road trip and were
travelling to the west towards the South Dakota border.

I thought at the time what I had seen might have been F-117s, but they indulged
in a strange behavior when we first noticed them.  I really haven't talked about
it since then since it was so odd.

I was occupying the passenger seat for the night's excursion.

I looked to an empty field to my right and saw a matching pair of red and green
lights, stationary, at a fairly low (<1000 ft.) altitude.

My companion mentioned that she thought they were aircraft warning lights on
"smokestacks" (how else could two lights just hover there except to have some
kind of structure to hold them up?)

I said "There are no smokestacks there.  Whatever that is just happens to be
hovering there."

So we pulled over, stopped and turned out the headlights to get a better
look.

My guesstimate is that the planes were 400-500 feet off the ground when
we first noticed them and they were just sitting there, probably 1/3 of
a mile away towards the north, hovering above an empty farmer's field.

There were two pairs of dull green and red stationary lights, with
no strobes or other marker/running lights.  So each plane had one
green lamp on one wingtip and red on the other.

The night was clear, with a thin sliver of a moon.

Once we stopped, it appears that whatever the hovering vehicles were had
"noticed" that they had attracted some attention as they started moving about
one minute later, first slowly (as in barely faster than walking speed),
Then passing almost directly overhead and then slowly built-up speed to the
southeast and later straight east.

A sodium vapor (orange colored) streetlight (probably 300-500 feet
to the west of where we pulled over) provided a slight bit of
illumination so the bottom of the craft could barely be glimpsed -
they looked to be matte black (or possibly dark grey), no markings or
lettering was visible nor was there any sort of visible lines for
landing gear doors.

The shape appeared F-117-like, at least it is the closest match to
any known aircraft that I am aware of.

In other words, it appeared that there was a triangular shape with a
possible extension to an empennage of some sort towards the rear of
the craft.

Again, it was night so sharp details were not possible and I had
no binoculars or telescope or camera equipment.  I would have
loved to have binoculars or a scanner to see if any radio traffic was
occurring.

As they passed overhead there was a very quiet, muted, jet engine sound
audible from the two craft, which was odd since they were at an altitude
that should have made them much louder.

The reason that they should have been louder for their height is that
I have the distinct privilege of living under the main flight pattern for
the Minneapolis-St.Paul International airport and see all sorts of commercial
and military traffic at a height of about 1200 feet!  Two jets at below
1000 feet would certainly be louder than this.

We then attempted to follow the craft as they passed towards the east.
Within 10 minutes they were gone as we tried in vain to keep up.

These were definetely airplanes, not ufos or other-worldly vehicles,
just very quiet, small-sized jets, painted darkly,  that just happened
to be able to hover.

They certainly were not hypersonic/supersonic craft, nor the "completely
black triangle" reports I keep hearing - beyond the delta shape there
was definetely some sort of structure behind the main wing that was
not completely clear.  For want of a million candlepower spotlight...

I had e-mailed Steve Douglass about this and he mentioned that that I may
have seen a pair of VSTOL stealth craft rumored to be floating around
somewhere.  Evidently sightings of these craft have been seen in the
north and northeast.  I haven't seen anything like this before or since.

And since I'm an eager reader of your page, I figured some of your
readers might enjoy reading my account.

Todd Madson.
Minneapolis, MN.