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Comment by qbasic_forever | Hacker News Reader

It's funny to go back to early 90s conspiracy/UFO culture and its talk of seeing "black triangles" flying around area 51 or other secret military sites. Turns out it was just people seeing testing of the F117 or B2 and not alien technology.

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Knew a dude who operated a bulldozer on contract for the army in the early 60s. He'd get on a bus in Nevada and get taken to "don't ask where." He was given a big bulldozer; which he would use to pile up triangle shaped piles of dirt beside a long, long runway. Then a few days later he'd be back, doing the same thing, the piles he'd made last week mysteriously gone.

Later he found that he was building sound baffles for incoming U2 flights; and the turbulence blew his work away after only a couple landings. Said it was good money and helped him get started. He was eventually one of the bigger military surplus dealers in the USA.

That seems off. The U-2 used the same engine as the Boeing 707 and then later the B52 back then. And I can't imagine that the engine are really all that powered up on landings since the U-2 acted a lot like a glider when landing.

Well, every U2 that lands needs to take off again, so maybe it was related to takeoff more than landing...

Sure but B52s have 8 of those engines and they don't need baffles and/or aren't destroying them on a weekly basis. That story could be true but it seems unlikely that it would be U2 planes that are causing enough turbulence to destroy piled up mounds of dirt by the runways.

I dunno if the individual was correct; he may have guessed or been told; or may have made the entire story up for all i know. But i doubt that last.

I figured it was landing turbulence; them things come in hot.

Not really, the F117 became public knowledge during desert storm in '91.

Most of what the public calls triangle UFOs is air-air-refueling practice

Exactly, the shock and awe strategy used during the first gulf war involved a lot of video footage of high precision weaponry being used to hit all sorts of targets and long briefings by generals talking about how awesome they were. The F117 deployment to Iraq was big news and widely reported and the US Airforce basically couldn't shut up talking about just how awesome these things were.

> The F117 deployment to Iraq was big news and widely reported and the US Airforce basically couldn't shut up talking about just how awesome these things were.

Desert Storm, sure.

12 years later for Iraqi Freedom? Nope. We were in the sandbox low key to kickstart Saddam's farewell/get-rekt party and back at Holloman much quicker than most other air expeditionary squadrons.

I seem to remember (could be wrong) that it was first publicised after getting used in Panama a couple of years earlier.

I dunno, most of the Black Triangle sightings were in the US Northeast, were MUCH larger and super slow. This is my anecdotal memory from Art Bell, local news and the such.

I saw one in the Pittsburgh area ca 2014-15. Slow, quiet, but too big to be a glider or Hindenburg style gas balloon.

It was freaky.

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