Incident · 1990 · South Base road, Edwards Air Force Base, California
Edwards AFB black triangle (Dan Isbell)
Also known as Edwards 1990, Edwards black triangle
In 1990 Dan Isbell was an instructor at the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California. He says that on clear nights he liked to ride his motorcycle down the long road toward the classified South Base gate, beyond the glare of the main base, to look at the stars. One night the stars behind him began to wink out in the shape of a huge triangle: a perfectly triangular black shape with a sharp front corner, no lights and no sound, passing slowly and directly over him. He guessed it was perhaps 300 feet across.
Unlike the craft he had seen in England in 1980, it had no glowing edge. Having already been warned by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations for idly theorising about visual stealth, he assumed it might be a classified U.S. program, rode home and told no one. He told the story publicly in 2026 in his second interview with Ryan Graves.
The account is Isbell's alone; he does not claim to know what the object was, and he and Graves both raise the possibility of a secret U.S. test article.
Sources: Safe Aerospace Podcast, Dan Isbell Part 2 (2026)
Facts and claims
- claimed Isbell, then an instructor at the Air Force Test Pilot School, says that one clear night in 1990, stargazing on the road toward the classified South Base at Edwards, he watched stars wink out in the shape of a huge, perfectly triangular black object with sharp corners, no lights and no sound, passing directly over him. — Dan Isbell Source: Test Pilot Watched a 300-Foot Black Triangle Blot Out the Stars Over Edwards | Dan Isbell Part 2 at 3:00
- claimed He estimated it at perhaps 300 feet across, filling his view from side to side, moving so slowly that it unnerved him; he felt a tingling he could not tell apart from an electrostatic effect, and told no one. — Dan Isbell Source: Test Pilot Watched a 300-Foot Black Triangle Blot Out the Stars Over Edwards | Dan Isbell Part 2 at 3:30
- claimed Isbell allows that it could have been a U.S. test article; Ryan Graves notes that anything that size would not fit in a hangar unless it was inflatable or used some form of light-absorbing or optical stealth. — Ryan Graves Source: Test Pilot Watched a 300-Foot Black Triangle Blot Out the Stars Over Edwards | Dan Isbell Part 2 at 9:00
Connected files
Incidents
- Upper Heyford triangle (Dan Isbell) (same witness as) — The same witness saw both; unlike the 1980 craft in England, the 1990 triangle had no glowing edge
People
- Ryan Graves (statements by)
- Dan Isbell (witnesses)
Videos
- Test Pilot Watched a 300-Foot Black Triangle Blot Out the Stars Over Edwards | Dan Isbell Part 2 (subject of)