Northwest of Phoenix, September 2001 — A 300-foot black triangle with six red portholes glides silently along a desert river at 50 feet altitude, blocking a power plant from view. Single witness, submitted to ufoevidence.org.
THINK ABOUTIT UFO|UAP|ENTITY SIGHTING REPORT
2001: Black triangle with glowing red portholes in the Arizona desert
In September 2001, William E. Hearn — a contractor and small-aircraft pilot from Cape Coral, Florida — was camping alone in the desert northwest of Phoenix when he observed an enormous black triangular craft approximately 300 feet long gliding silently along a river at roughly 50 feet above the ground, with six glowing red portholes along its visible side. The object passed between Hearn’s tent and a nearby power plant, blocking the plant entirely from view. The report was submitted to ufoevidence.org approximately four years after the event. No corroborating witness has come forward.
⚠ UNCORROBORATED SELF-REPORT — SINGLE WITNESS ⚠
This account was self-submitted online approximately four years after the event by a single named witness. A companion was present at the campsite in a separate tent but did not observe the object. No investigation was conducted.
Date: September 2001 (specific date not given; shortly after September 11, 2001)
Sighting Time: Approximately 1:00 a.m.
Day/Night: Night
Location: Small state campground along a river, northwest of Phoenix, Arizona (specific campground name not recalled by witness; near a power plant)
Urban or Rural: Rural (desert campground)
No. of Entity(‘s): None observed
Entity Type: Not Applicable
Entity Description: Not Applicable
Hynek Classification: CE-I (Close Encounter I) — structured object observed at approximately 300 feet distance and 50 feet altitude
Duration: Approximately 3 minutes
No. of Object(s): 1
Description of the Object(s): An enormous jet-black equilateral triangle, described as blacker than the night sky. Six large glowing red portholes (approximately 20 feet in diameter each) were visible along one side. The red portholes glowed but did not emit light — they did not illuminate the surrounding area or the craft’s own surface. No flashing lights, navigation lights, or marker lights were visible. No features other than the portholes were observed on the visible surfaces. The craft moved in a slow, steady glide described as resembling anti-gravity locomotion
Shape of Object(s): Triangle (equilateral)
Size of Object(s): Approximately 300 feet long, 150 feet across the back, and 80 feet tall (witness estimates, based on claimed professional experience as a contractor and pilot)
Color of Object(s): Jet black (body); glowing red (portholes)
Distance to Object(s): Approximately 300 feet from the witness’s tent
Height & Speed: Approximately 50 feet above the ground; estimated forward speed approximately 35 mph
Number of Witnesses: 1 (William E. Hearn; a companion in a separate tent did not observe the object)
Special Features/Characteristics: Complete silence — both from the object and from the ambient environment. The witness noted that normal night sounds (river, coyotes, insects) went silent before the object appeared. The witness attempted to call out to his companion but reported being unable to hear his own voice, speculating the object may have been emitting some form of white noise. As the object passed in front of the power plant (approximately one-quarter mile away), it completely blocked the illuminated structure from view, providing a direct size reference. The object was observed from the right side, bottom, and back as it passed along the river
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Source: William E. Hearn, self-submitted to ufoevidence.org (submitted approximately 2005, roughly four years after the event)
Summary/Description: In September 2001, shortly after the September 11 attacks, William E. Hearn of Cape Coral, Florida, was camping with a friend at a small state campground along a river northwest of Phoenix. Unable to sleep at approximately 1:00 a.m., Hearn observed through the mesh screen of his tent an enormous black triangular craft gliding silently along the river at approximately 50 feet altitude and 300 feet distance. The craft was approximately 300 feet long with six glowing red portholes along one visible side. It was completely silent and the ambient night sounds had ceased. Hearn attempted to alert his companion but could not make himself heard. The object passed in front of a brightly lit power plant a quarter mile away, blocking it entirely from view. Hearn, a contractor and small-aircraft pilot, submitted the report to ufoevidence.org approximately four years later.
Related Cases: 1997 Phoenix Lights
Detailed Report
William E. Hearn, a 41-year-old contractor and small-aircraft pilot from Cape Coral, Florida, was vacationing in Arizona with a friend in September 2001, shortly after the September 11 attacks. The two were heading into the mountains northwest of Phoenix to do some gold panning. They found a small state campground along a river near a power plant (Hearn did not recall the campground’s name) and set up separate tents during the evening. Wild horses were visible along the road, and the landscape was sagebrush desert. The power plant, approximately a quarter mile away, was brightly illuminated at night.
Unable to sleep at approximately 1:00 a.m., Hearn lay in his Kelty tent — largely mesh screen, chosen specifically for stargazing — listening to the ambient night sounds: the river, coyotes, insects. Then it went silent. Not just quiet — completely silent. Hearn looked around for predators and then saw the object.
An enormous black triangular craft was moving along the river approximately 300 feet from his position. It traveled at roughly 50 feet above the ground at an estimated forward speed of 35 mph. The craft was jet black — blacker than the night sky — and Hearn could only see it because it occluded the stars and the illuminated power plant behind it. He observed the right side, bottom, and back as it passed. Six large portholes, approximately 20 feet in diameter, glowed a deep red along the visible side. The red glow was self-contained — it did not illuminate the surrounding area, the ground, or the craft’s own surface. No navigation lights, flashing lights, or other markings were visible.
Hearn described the craft as approximately 300 feet long, 150 feet across the back end, and 80 feet in height. He cited his professional experience as a contractor (distance estimation) and pilot (size and speed judgment) as the basis for these estimates. The craft moved in a steady glide without any visible means of propulsion. As it passed in front of the power plant, it blocked the entire brightly lit structure from view — a direct size reference that Hearn found particularly striking.
Hearn attempted to call to his companion in the other tent but reported that he could not hear his own voice during the object’s passage — not that he was unable to speak, but that no sound seemed to register. He later speculated the object might have been emitting some form of white noise that masked ambient sound, though he acknowledged this was conjecture. After the object passed, he did not pursue it or investigate further. In the morning, his friend dismissed the account as a probable military experiment.
Hearn submitted the report to ufoevidence.org approximately four years after the event, noting that his interest was rekindled when he heard Art Bell describe a similar black triangle on a television program. He stated he had not returned to the area to look for additional sightings.
Researcher’s Notes
The Hearn Sighting — Northwest Phoenix 2001 and the Black Triangle Pattern
- Source Quality and Witness Profile: William E. Hearn is a named witness who provided his location (Cape Coral, FL), age (41), and professional background (contractor, small-aircraft pilot). These details, while self-reported and unverified, provide more specificity than many self-submitted online reports. His claimed professional experience is directly relevant to his size, distance, and speed estimates, which are unusually precise for a single-witness nocturnal observation. However, the report was submitted approximately four years after the event, the campground name was not recalled, the specific date within September 2001 was not provided, and the companion who was present but did not see the object has not come forward. The source is ufoevidence.org, a UFO reporting aggregation site that did not conduct field investigations. No follow-up inquiry by any research organization is documented.
- The Black Triangle Category: Large black triangular craft — silent, slow-moving, often at very low altitude — constitute one of the most persistent categories in modern UAP reporting, sometimes referred to as “black triangle” or “BT” reports. The pattern was extensively cataloged by the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), which documented a wave of similar reports across the United States in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The Hearn report fits the archetype closely: enormous size, jet-black appearance, slow forward speed, extremely low altitude, complete silence, and self-luminous features (in this case, red portholes) that do not cast light on the surrounding environment. Whether these reports describe a single class of object, a family of related phenomena, or unrelated misidentifications remains an open question in the field. The proximity to the 1997 Phoenix Lights corridor (also featuring enormous silent structures over the Phoenix area) provides geographic context.
- The Sound-Suppression Detail: Hearn’s report that he could not hear his own voice during the object’s passage is an unusual detail. If taken at face value, it suggests either a localized acoustic phenomenon (noise cancellation, masking, or some form of infrasound that overwhelms normal auditory processing) or a subjective perceptual alteration (shock, dissociation, or selective attention under extreme stress). The claim is impossible to evaluate without corroboration or instrumented observation. It is worth noting as an anomalous feature but cannot support any specific conclusion.
- Mundane Candidates: A 300-foot triangular object at 50 feet altitude and 35 mph is within the envelope of a large military blimp or airship, though no known airship matches the described equilateral triangle profile with 80 feet of height and red portholes. Conventional fixed-wing or rotary-wing aircraft at that altitude and speed would produce substantial sound. The September 2001 timing places the sighting in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when military air patrols were significantly elevated, but documented post-9/11 CAP (Combat Air Patrol) flights used conventional fighters and AWACS aircraft, not silent triangular platforms. The case is classified Insufficient Data — a single uncorroborated witness with relevant professional experience reporting a sighting consistent with a well-documented pattern, but submitted years after the fact without investigation.
The black triangle over the Arizona river joins a long catalog of similar reports from across the United States — silent, enormous, and impossibly slow. Whether these objects are classified military platforms, misidentified conventional aircraft, or something else entirely, the pattern persists and the archive records each instance as it comes.
