A silent black triangle with nine lights drifted over downtown Kansas City on New Year's Eve 1999 — classified as NL on the original page but clearly a structured craft observation.
THINK ABOUTIT UFO|UAP SIGHTINGS REPORT
1999: Triangular Craft Sighted in Kansas City
On the last night of the twentieth century — New Year’s Eve 1999 — a pool player stepped into a downtown alley behind a Kansas City bar and looked up to see what he initially took for a flock of geese flying in V-formation. Nine lights, one leading and four trailing on each side, drifting silently overhead. Then he saw the dark triangular outline connecting them. It was a black triangle, moving so slowly it was nearly hovering, yawing at a forty-five-degree angle from its direction of travel, and making no sound whatsoever. He had seen one before, years earlier near McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita. His friend saw it too. Neither could explain how a silent, slowly drifting, fully illuminated triangular craft could fly directly over a major downtown area without generating a single other report.
Date: December 31, 1999
Sighting Time: Approximately 10:00 PM CST
Day/Night: Night
Location: Near 10th and Broadway, downtown Kansas City — likely Kansas City, Missouri (the Quaff Bar area is in the KCMO downtown district, not Kansas City, Kansas)
Urban or Rural: Urban
No. of Entity(‘s): None reported
Entity Type: N/A
Entity Description: N/A
Hynek Classification: CE-I (Close Encounter I) — structured craft observed with clear morphological detail at an estimated 700–1,000 feet; NL classification on the original page does not fit, as the witness described a defined triangular outline, light configuration, and flight characteristics, not merely a point light source
Duration: Approximately 2 minutes
No. of Object(s): 1 (with 9 lights in V-formation across its underside)
Description of the Object(s): Black triangular craft with nine lights on its underside arranged in V-formation — one leading light and four trailing on each side. Completely silent. Drifted rather than flew, moving at extremely low speed, nearly hovering. Exhibited significant yaw, drifting at approximately 45 degrees from its heading.
Shape of Object(s): Triangle
Size of Object(s): Not precisely determined; witness noted it appeared smaller than a previous triangle sighting near McConnell AFB, but could not determine whether this was due to smaller actual size or greater distance
Color of Object(s): Black (body); lights on underside
Distance to Object(s): Estimated 700–1,000 feet altitude
Height & Speed: Estimated 700–1,000 feet; extremely slow, nearly hovering, with pronounced lateral drift
Number of Witnesses: 2 (primary witness using the handle “Scarecrow” plus one unnamed friend)
Special Features/Characteristics: Complete silence. Pronounced yaw — object drifting at approximately 45 degrees from its heading. Extremely slow, near-hovering flight profile. Witness explicitly distinguished the object from known stealth aircraft based on flight characteristics, speed, and illumination pattern. Witness reported a prior triangle sighting near McConnell AFB in Wichita.
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Source: “Scarecrow,” personal website (colaw.net/scarecrow.html, now offline)
Summary/Description: On New Year’s Eve 1999, two witnesses in a downtown Kansas City alley observed a black triangular craft with nine lights in V-formation drifting silently overhead at an estimated 700–1,000 feet. The object was nearly hovering, exhibited pronounced yaw, and made no sound. The primary witness had previously observed a larger triangle near McConnell AFB and explicitly ruled out known stealth aircraft based on the object’s flight characteristics.
Related Cases: 2000: Prairie Village, Kansas Hovering Triangle | 2007: Triangle Over Bowdoinham, Maine
Detailed Report
On the evening of December 31, 1999, a witness using the online handle “Scarecrow” was leaving the Quaff Buffet, a bar near 10th and Broadway in downtown Kansas City, after a pool league session. In the alley behind the establishment at approximately 10:00 PM Central Standard Time, the witness looked up and initially thought he was seeing a flock of geese in V-formation — nine lights, one at the leading point and four trailing on each side.
As the lights moved overhead, the witness recognized a dark triangular outline connecting them. This was not a formation of separate objects but a single, solid, black triangular craft with lights on its underside. The witness was not unfamiliar with the phenomenon — he reported having previously observed a much larger black triangle near McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas, though no date for that earlier sighting is provided. He noted that this Kansas City object was either smaller or significantly farther away than the Wichita triangle, and that the light configuration was different.
The object was about to drift behind a building when the witness called his companion’s attention to it. The friend initially dismissed the claim, but the two ran approximately twenty steps into the middle of the alley and reacquired the object visually. Both witnesses then observed the craft clearly for approximately one additional minute. The object was completely silent. It was drifting rather than flying in any conventional sense, moving at such a slow speed that it was nearly hovering. The witness noted a pronounced yaw — the craft was moving at approximately forty-five degrees from the direction its nose was pointing, essentially sliding sideways through the air.
The witness’s companion suggested it was a stealth aircraft. The primary witness disagreed, noting that he had seen stealth aircraft multiple times and they did not exhibit these flight characteristics — the near-zero speed, the complete silence, the pronounced lateral drift, and the fully illuminated underside were all inconsistent with known stealth platforms. The witness also questioned why a classified military aircraft would fly fully illuminated directly over a major downtown area.
The witness reported that no other reports emerged from the sighting, despite the object having passed directly over the downtown Kansas City area. The account was posted to the witness’s personal website at colaw.net/scarecrow.html, which is no longer online.
Researcher’s Notes
The Millennium Triangle — Kansas City 1999 and the Black Triangle Pattern in the Central Corridor
- Hynek Reclassification: The original page classified this sighting as NL (Nocturnal Light), defined as a point or extended luminous source observed at night. This classification is incorrect. The witness clearly described a structured object — a dark triangular body with a specific light arrangement on its underside — and observed its shape, flight characteristics, and yaw behavior with enough detail to distinguish it from both a formation of lights and a known aircraft type. This level of structural detail places the sighting in the CE-I category (Close Encounter I — observation of a structured object within approximately 500 feet). The estimated altitude of 700–1,000 feet is slightly outside the strict CE-I boundary, but the degree of structural detail observed supports the reclassification. At minimum, this is not an NL.
- Geographic Correction: The existing page lists the location as “Kansas City, Kansas.” However, the witness identifies the specific location as near 10th and Broadway, by the Quaff Buffet. This area is in the downtown entertainment district of Kansas City, Missouri, not in the separate municipality of Kansas City, Kansas, which lies across the state line to the west. The sighting is properly attributed to KCMO. This distinction matters for pattern-mapping purposes — KCMO and KCK are in different states and counties, and proximity analysis to military installations differs between them.
- Source Chain and Evidentiary Weight: The account was self-published by the witness on a personal website under a pseudonym (“Scarecrow”). The source is now offline. Two witnesses observed the object, but the second witness is unnamed and contributed no independent account. No MUFON, NUFORC, or other organizational report appears to have been filed. The Insufficient Data status reflects this thin documentation — the account is coherent and internally consistent, the witness demonstrates relevant comparison knowledge (prior triangle sighting, familiarity with stealth aircraft), and a second witness corroborates the observation, but the pseudonymous sourcing and lack of organizational documentation prevent confident assessment.
- Black Triangle Pattern Context: The late 1990s and early 2000s saw a significant clustering of black triangle reports across the midwestern and central United States, consistent with a broader pattern that had been building since the Belgian wave of 1989–1990. The flight characteristics described here — near-hovering speed, complete silence, pronounced lateral drift, and triangular morphology with undersurface lighting — are highly consistent with the standard black triangle profile as documented by researchers like David Marler. The witness’s report of a prior, larger triangle near McConnell AFB (a military installation in Wichita) is notable — McConnell is an active Air Force base, and military-proximal triangle sightings constitute a recognizable subcategory within the black triangle dataset. The Kansas City area produced additional triangle reports in this period, including a hovering triangle in nearby Prairie Village in 2000.
A coherent firsthand account from two witnesses of a classic black triangle profile — but filed under the wrong city, classified under the wrong Hynek category, and sourced from a now-defunct personal website. The record has been corrected; the object itself remains unexplained.
