UAP Case Archive

Shapes / Rectangles

Rectangles

Rectangles, squares, bars and boxes. The flying rectangle is a minor shape in popular culture but a steady one in the Air Force's own files. Most were small, a few feet across, and seen up close.

    Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia, 1967: a lit rectangle trailing smaller lights. Drawing for reference only.
    Each rectangle is one case, colored by status. Select one to open it below.

    Start with the Air Force files.

    Most rectangle cases are short Project Blue Book summaries of sightings the Air Force could not explain. One at a time they are thin. Side by side, they show a pattern.

    Between 1948 and 1958, the Air Force filed a quiet run of rectangles as unknowns. The witnesses were not casual observers: an Army master sergeant, an Atomic Energy Commission guard, three research engineers, a bomber crew, two airmen and an Air Force major flying a transport plane.

    What they described was usually small and close. Four amber rectangles about three by four feet at Fort Monmouth. A six-by-four-foot aluminum rectangle passing 250 feet below a B-25. A bar about three and a half feet long over Long Island.

    Several were turning. On April 14, 1958, Major D. G. Tilley, flying a C-47 near Lynchburg, Virginia, saw a gray-black rectangle rotating very slowly on its horizontal axis. He had it in view for four seconds.

    Small and close

    • 1950Fort Monmouth: four amber rectangles, about 3 by 4 feet, for 3 to 4 minutes.
    • 1951Oak Ridge: a white-gray square about 20 feet on a side, rising twice into cloud.
    • 1952Over Albuquerque: a 6-by-4-foot aluminum rectangle passing below a B-25.
    • 1957Merrick, Long Island: a bar about 3.5 feet long, with blue flashes.
    • 1958Near Lynchburg: a gray-black rectangle, slowly turning, seen for 4 seconds.

    What the record shows.

    Twelve cases from 1948 to 2000. These patterns run through them.

    The Air Force files hold a quiet run of rectangles.

    Nine of the twelve are Project Blue Book unknowns from 1948 to 1958, reported by soldiers, engineers, aircrew and a nuclear-site guard.

    Small and close is the pattern.

    Most were a few feet across and seen at short range. Only Oak Ridge, about 20 feet square, and Shag Harbour approach the size of an aircraft.

    Many were turning or wobbling.

    The Lynchburg rectangle rotated slowly. The Milton squares wobbled as they flew. A flat panel turning in sunlight flashes and changes its apparent shape.

    Lights in a rectangle are a different claim.

    Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto, saw rectangles of light in 1949, not a rectangular object. At Shag Harbour, a ship's captain described four lights in a rough rectangle.

    The most famous cube is on the Orbs page.

    The 2014 Navy encounter off Virginia Beach was a dark cube inside a clear sphere, and it is filed with the spheres.

    Often told wrong.

    A few rectangle stories have been reshaped in the retelling.

    The story you may have heardWhat the record shows
    Clyde Tombaugh saw a rectangular UFO.
    He described rectangles of light moving in a fixed arrangement, like lit windows, not a rectangular object.
    A trucker saw a rectangle, and so did the police, at St. Clair County.
    Melvern Noll described a rectangle with lit windows. The police officers who followed described a triangle, and the event is on the Triangles page.
    The Navy cube was a single, craft-sized encounter.
    Lt. Ryan Graves describes a run of encounters over months, with one near miss. He estimated the cube at 5 to 15 feet across.

    All rectangle cases.

    Listed oldest first. Each card notes what kind of evidence the case rests on.

      A turning panel.

      A flat panel never looks the same twice when it turns. Face-on it is a square or rectangle. Tilted it becomes a narrow bar. Edge-on it almost disappears, and when the sun catches it, it flashes.

      That is worth keeping in mind for the Lynchburg rectangle, which rotated slowly, and the Milton squares, which wobbled. It also matters for the illustrations: the same object can be drawn four ways.

      face-ontiltednearly edge-onedge-on, flashing

      Left off this page.

      These are sometimes called rectangles, but are filed elsewhere.

      • The Navy cube, 2014A dark cube inside a clear sphere, on the Orbs page.
      • Calvine and Cash-LandrumDiamonds, on that page.
      • USS Russell, 2019Flashing "pyramids," on the Triangles page.