File 054 · 5 January 2000
Highland police triangle
Highland, Illinois, United States
Opened 9/4/2026
Ledger illustration of the file — not a photograph of the object. Ledger illustration of the report. Midwest town lights on a winter night. — Night Ledger illustration of the file
Standing
Unidentified
On the public record, and still open. A claim, paper, or film — not a finding that it was ours, and not a finding that it was not.
What was claimed
Five police officers in separate towns tracked a huge, silent triangle across southwestern Illinois for more than an hour.
What is on the record
This file is a working record — a report, not a verdict. Official paper, if any, is linked where we have it.
Just after 4 a.m., Officer Ed Barton in Highland watched a massive, unlit triangular object with three dim lights and a larger center light pass over. He radioed. Officers in Dupo, Lebanon, Shiloh, and Millstadt picked it up in turn. They described a craft the size of a football field, walking-pace slow, then sudden acceleration, no sound, at a few hundred feet.
The object passed in front of a water tower for one officer, giving a size estimate. Scott Air Force Base said they had nothing airborne that matched. The case was investigated by the Illinois State Police and by civilian researchers who interviewed each officer separately.
Five trained observers, a radio log, a winter sky: a clean American police triangle, two years after Phoenix, with no flares to hide behind.
Could this have been ours?
The known sky, that night.
The station was flying. Starlink was not. A string of orbs in this year is usually not a train.
Always
Aircraft, balloons, meteors
Landing lights, flares, lanterns, reentries, fireballs. They are on the known sky. They do not close a file by themselves — they are what a serious look has to hold the claim against.
Orbit · Space — the desks for lights that are already named.
Sources
Related files
Same craft, same place, same years. A neighbor in the catalogue — not a conclusion.
Same craft · Same country · 7 October 2026, 10:45 p.m.
Three orbs in a triangle, northern Michigan
Northern Michigan · United States
Unidentified
A night report described three lights that began as a triangle, then scattered before a phone could hold them.
Same craft · Same country · September 4, 2026, evening
Multi-colored triangular objects perform impossible maneuvers with jets present
Bench, Caribou County, Idaho · United States
Unidentified
Two witnesses, one a former soldier, observed three multi-colored triangular UAP executing rapid U-turns and physically impossible maneuvers while heading north. Military jet sounds were heard simultaneously near the objects.
Same craft · Same country · 4 September 2026, evening
Three triangles and jets, Caribou County
Bench, Caribou County, Idaho · United States
Unidentified
Two witnesses near Bench described three triangular objects making U-turns as military jets were heard in the same sky.
Same craft · Same country · 13 August 2026
Black triangle over La Conner
La Conner, Washington · United States
Unidentified
Two people walking near the water described a silent black triangle with red lights at each corner, held for about ten minutes.
Same craft · Same country · August 3, 2026, ~7:17 PM CDT
Dark triangular object filmed from airplane south of Carrollton, GA
Carrollton, Georgia · United States
Unidentified
Passenger on flight from Jackson, MS to Atlanta, GA filmed a massive dark triangular object ~5-8 miles south near the AL/GA state line. It moved slowly relative to the cloud deck below. Captured on iPhone at 3x zoom showing rigid geometric shape with no conventional aviation features.
Same craft · Same country · 13 March 1997
Phoenix Lights
Phoenix, Arizona · United States
Unidentified
Thousands watched a mile-wide V of lights drift over Arizona, then a second set of flares over the Estrella Mountains. The governor later said he saw it too.