Newly released federal UFO files detail uncanny encounters with silent, dark triangular objects operating in open skies.
For Gary Medicine Cloud, a hunter from the Wind River Reservation, those official records mirror an old memory.
Back in 2003, Medicine Cloud was hunting in the St. Lawrence area of the Wind River Range when a friend shot a bull elk, he told Cowboy State Daily.
Worried the smell of fresh blood would attract grizzlies, Medicine Cloud kept his eyes on the surrounding trees. Then, as dusk set in, he glanced up.
“As I looked up to scan around, I seen this big black thing coming, and it looked like a triangle,” Medicine Cloud said. “As low as it was flying between the mountain tops, I thought for sure it was going to run into the mountain or crash.”
The mysterious triangle didn’t crash. It weaved between the two mountain tops, Medicine Cloud said, and then drifted above the pair for a second time.
“We continued cutting the elk, trying to get it ready to transport to the truck,” Medicine Cloud said. “Just about 15 minutes later, I looked back, and it flew right back by us.”
‘All Black, No Lights’
Medicine Cloud described the craft as "huge," estimating it was 20 to 40 yards long, or about the size of two semi-trucks parked end-to-end. It glided overhead slowly and in complete silence, he said.
"It was so close,” Medicine Cloud said. “I could easily shot it with the gun, and easily hit it if I wanted to.”
Had he not looked up, Medicine Cloud said he might not have known it was there. The craft, he said, moved without any visible means of propulsion, leaving nothing but a dark shape against the evening sky.
“It made no noise,” Medicine Cloud said. “All black, no lights.”
When the object passed the second time, Medicine Cloud said it changed course. He and his friend watched the triangle make a 90-degree turn and then begin to move upward in a straight line.
“It went straight up to the moon,” Medicine Cloud said. “We watched it until it turned into a little speck of light.”
‘It Gets A Little Weird’
Dr. Michael P. Masters, a professor of biological anthropology at Montana Technological University in Butte who researches UAP accounts, told Cowboy State Daily that while the classic "flying saucer" shape dominates most historical case files and sightings, black triangles appear regularly too.
“Black triangles are described extremely often,” Masters said. “In a lot of cases they’re described as so black that they absorb light.”
Beyond teaching at Montana Tech, Masters applies his background in human evolutionary anthropology to UAP accounts and has written three books on the subject.
Appearances on shows like The Joe Rogan Experience have made him a magnet for first-hand witness reports, which he checks against historical archives.
From those accumulated cases, Masters said he believes he’s developed a strong theory on what black triangles are actually doing.
“It gets a little weird,” Masters said. “But something that I’ve noticed in researching my second book is that they seem to be associated with a lot of these reports of people being stripped naked and taken into these rooms, having sperm extracted from males (and) eggs extracted from females.”
For that reason, Masters describes the black triangle as a "floating fertility clinic" in his second book.
He pointed to the case of Terry Lovelace, a former Air Force medic and attorney who described being taken inside a massive triangular craft during a 1977 camping trip in Arkansas. Inside the craft, Lovelace reported seeing biological sampling stations along with rows of incubation chambers, a detail Masters said he’s heard repeatedly from other witnesses.
“So it seems like it’s not just about extracting but possibly hybridizing with these beings,” Masters said.
‘Connect The Dots’
Masters acknowledged that saying such a thing out loud will likely get him plenty of hate mail and skepticism. He’s become used to it, as he said he gets a couple unhinged voicemails per week since he appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience in December.
Still, as a researcher, Masters said his role isn't to judge the data, only to analyze what witnesses report. What sets black triangles apart, Masters said, is that these clinical biological encounters attach almost exclusively to them and rarely to other unidentified craft, such as saucers or Tic Tacs.
“As scientists, we’re supposed to be observing patterns and looking for ways to connect the dots,” Masters said. “That’s just one of the dots I connected.”
The unsettling reality of what these craft are reported to do isn't lost on the people who encounter them. For Medicine Cloud, the thought hit him as he and his friend were driving off the mountain.
“I was like, ‘Man, we could have got abducted and not even known about it,’” Medicine Cloud said.
But unlike the clinical abductions studied by researchers, Medicine Cloud and his friend suffered no missing time or physical anomalies.
‘That’s No Air Force Ship’
When the silent triangle first drifted overhead, Medicine Cloud said he remembers thinking that it could be a fancy new military aircraft heading to Riverton to refuel. But within seconds, he said he realized that it didn’t fit the profile.
His curiosity turned to fear when they watched the triangle begin its straight ascent into the sky, Medicine Cloud said.
“We got scared,” Medicine Cloud said. “I was like, ‘That's not no Air Force ship. That's a UFO.’”
As it turns out, even when these black triangles are seen over sensitive military sites, officials are left just as puzzled as Medicine Cloud.
In federal UAP incident reports released Friday, law enforcement and defense agents documented a matte-black triangular craft executing the exact same trajectory that Medicine Cloud described, only in reverse.
“We both observed the object ascend vertically over a ridge line,” the document states. “The object climbed to approximately 200 feet above the ridge line, then transitioned from vertical to horizontal flight at a very significant velocity, approaching our position, then descending southeast.”
The second declassified incident report details a nearly identical encounter, where federal agents logged a soundless, matte-black triangular object maneuvering near an observation post.
In both reports, the craft moved at fighter-jet speeds while emitting absolute acoustic silence and a uniform thermal signature with zero exhaust or engine heat. Agents reported no physiological effects, and subsequent ground sweeps turned up zero wreckage or scarring, leaving investigators with two identical mysteries.
While the exact dates, names, and specific locations are redacted in the heavily censored files, the documents confirm the sighting occurred earlier this year in the western region of the U.S.
Friday’s release marks the seventh installment of declassified federal UAP files made public this year, continuing a steady trickle of administrative records documenting unidentified craft near restricted airspace.
Wyoming’s Unsolved Skies
Wyoming is no stranger to the phenomenon.
For decades, the state's wide-open skies and critical defense corridors have played host to episodes that defy easy explanation, from separate, unexplainable claims of alien abductions in the backcountry to motorists and officials watching silent, super-bright objects hover and instantly relocate over rural highways.
Those reports have only accelerated in recent years. Citizens and officials alike have captured high-lens footage of steady, oscillating lights releasing smaller orbs, while mysterious swarms over Sweetwater County critical infrastructure became so frequent that local sheriffs dubbed them "the new normal" — prompting state lawmakers to grill military leadership during public hearings.
The federal paper trail has grown right alongside the civilian sightings, with declassified files logging everything from opalescent, "potato-shaped" craft with moving fish-scale panels near Cheyenne Mountain to glowing orbs returning to the skies over Cedar Mountain near Cody.
For Medicine Cloud, his night in the woods watching the black triangle float above his head remains just as vivid as it was then. The only difference now is that federal agents are filing the exact same reports.
Emma Jane Jackson can be reached at emma@cowboystatedaily.com.
