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Flying Triangle Investigation

JANUARY 5, 2000, ILLINOIS UFO CASE UPDATE

AUGUST 24, 2002

NEW PHOTO RECONSTRUCTIONS

12/23/2008 NOTE: PHOTOS ON THIS PAGE/REPORT ARE >RECONSTRUCTIONS<, THEY ARE PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN BY DARRYL BARKER PRODUCTIONS AFTER THE EVENT AND DURING THE INVESTIGATION. WORKING IN CONJUNCTION WITH DETECTIVE LOPINOT, THE EXACT LOCATIONS WERE VISITED AND DARRYL BARKER PRODUCTIONS LATER SHOT 35mm IMAGES AT THE LOCATION OF UFO OBSERVATION BY THE WITNESS, DETECTIVE LOPINOT. SUPERIMPOSED ONTO THESE ACTUAL LOCATION PHOTOS, ARE RECONSTRUCTIONS OF THE FIVE LIGHTS OBSERVED BY DETECTIVE LOPINOT.

REGARDING THE ST. LOUIS EXAMINER's ARTICLE, WHILE WE APPRECIATE THEIR ACKNOWLEDGMENT, THE EXAMINER STATES THAT THESE PHOTOS ARE "PURPORTED WITNESS PHOTOS". THE IMAGES ON THIS PAGE WERE NOT TAKEN BY DETECTIVE LOPINOT. THE IMAGES IN THIS REPORT ARE HOWEVER, VERIFIED BY DETECTIVE LOPINOT AS ACCURATE RECONSTRUCTIONS OF WHAT HE OBSERVED OVER O'FALLON, ILLINOIS ON JANUARY 5, 2000.

ANOTHER LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL WHO WITNESSED UFO ON JANUARY 5, 2000, COMES FORWARD 

READ NOW FOR THIS EXCLUSIVE REPORT

THIS FIRST HAND REPORT WAS ADDRESSED BY PETER JENNINGS' "DOCUMENTARY, UFOS: SEEING IS BELIEVING".

 THE JENNINGS' TEAM UNFORTUNATELY, DID NOT ACCURATELY REPRODUCE THE UFO IN THEIR CGI MODEL, BUT WE GIVE THEM CREDIT FOR TAKING ON THIS POSSIBLY IMPORTANT COMPONENT OF THE JANUARY 5, 2000 TRIANGLE CASE.

BY DARRYL BARKER*

The following video clips are protected by U.S. Copyright Law. They are made available to the public in the pursuit of freedom of information. These video clips shall not recorded or copied for commercial purposes. Should any party wish to link to these clips or acquire original footage from this July 22, 2002 interview with Detective Lopinot, contact Darryl Barker Productions.

CLICK LINKS FOR JULY 22, 2002, VIDEO INTERVIEW EXCERPTS

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5th Officer with Map 56k.wmv     

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Officer at Turn Point 56k.wmv       

Officer at Turn Point DSL.wmv

Lights Never Change 56k.wmv      

Lights Never Change DSL.wmv

A FIFTH ILLINOIS POLICE OFFICER REPORTS SIGHTING OF UFO ON JANUARY 5, 2000

 On July 22, 2002, I interviewed Detective Mark Lopinot of the O’Fallon, Illinois police department. I had heard from one of the other officers that a policeman in O’Fallon had also seen the UFO of January 5, 2000.

Detective Lopinot was in his squad car driving east on Highway 50 going into O’Fallon and as he passed over Interstate 64, he saw an arrangement of bright, occasionally “twinkling”, amber lights (much brighter than street lights) at an approximate altitude of 200-300 feet, and covered an area larger than the wingspan of a C-5 military cargo plane (222 ft.) or a 747 jetliner (211 ft.). The lights consisted of two rows, three evenly spaced lights in the top row and two evenly spaced lights in the bottom row

 IMAGE 1: Click picture for larger image. Back button to return. (East of Position 1 on map below) UFO first sighted by witness after reaching crest of Illinois Highway 50/64 overpass in O'Fallon, looking eastbound. Length of roadway during entire sighting - from IMAGE 1 through IMAGE 5 is exactly one half mile. (Photo Reconstruction of witness perspective, 50mm focal length on Nikon 35mm camera. Scale and position of UFO verified by witness, August 16, 2002.) 

Detective Lopinot first thought the lights were five helicopters flying in formation, because they covered such a large expanse of night sky; but he soon realized after he rolled down his window, that the lights were totally silent and appeared to be connected, attached to a single object, as all 5 lights moved in perfect unison. Lopinot also noticed that the lights were moving very slowly, so slow as to constitute a stall for a normal prop or jet aircraft. He wondered if the object might be a blimp, but again, no sound could be heard from any kind of engine typically used on lighter than air vehicles. When Lopinot first saw the lights, he observed that they were to the east, beyond the Convenient Food Mart located near the junction of Highway 50 and State Street. 

 IMAGE 2: Click picture for larger image. Back button to return. View of UFO as witness approaches Shell gasoline station on Hwy 50 eastbound, O'Fallon. UFO makes a 90 degree turn and heads to the right (southwest) of witness. UFO is estimated by witness to be in airspace beyond the car dealership which is east of Shell station at an altitude of 200-500 feet. (Photo Reconstruction of witness perspective, 50mm focal length on Nikon 35mm camera. Scale and position of UFO verified by witness, August 16, 2002.) 

IMAGE 3: Enlargement from Image 2 above. Lights were described as amber, with a purplish tinge as if seen through glass, wet with rainwater. (Photo Reconstruction of witness perspective, 50mm focal length on Nikon 35mm camera. Scale and position of UFO verified by witness, August 16, 2002.)

 As Detective Lopinot continued to slowly drive (10-20mph) east on Highway 50, he observed the lights, still in unison, approaching him, moving in a northwesterly direction. As he approached a Shell gasoline station on Highway 50 in O’Fallon, the massive lighting arrangement had now passed over the Convenient Food Mart, approaching Lopinot and maintaining the fixed pattern. The only sense of perspective Detective Lopinot observed on the UFO was when the two lower lights would fade out at times and then fade back in, as if they were being intermittently blocked from view. The two lower lights appeared to be at a greater distance than the top row, both by slightly less intensity, and also by their fading from view, which elicited some sense of depth to the unseen structure behind the lights, which was possibly at an angle.

 As Detective Lopinot’s police car approached the Jack Schmitt Oldsmobile Dealer (still on Highway 50 eastbound), he saw perhaps the strangest detail of the sighting: the 5 lights, now about 500 feet off the ground and just to the right and south of Highway 50 stopped moving toward him and proceeded to make what Lopinot described as a 90 degree turn or change in direction; that is, the 5 lights, still in a perfectly locked formation, moved to Lopinot’s right, which is Southwest on a map of the area.

IMAGE 4: Click picture for larger image. Back button to return. View of UFO as witness approaches Jack Schmidt car dealership on Hwy 50 eastbound, O'Fallon. The object is beyond and to the east of car dealership and moving to the southwest toward Shiloh, Ill. (Photo Reconstruction of witness perspective, 50mm focal length on Nikon 35mm camera. Scale and position of UFO verified by witness, August 16, 2002.) 

 As Lopinot reached the location at which the lights made the 90 degree turn, Lopinot watched the lights moving away from him over a field and then over the tree tops, where they went out of view. One strange detail observed by Lopinot was that as the lights moved south and away from him, they never changed their relationship to him as an observer. Whatever angle Lopinot viewed the lights from, they remained fixed in two rows, three on top and two on bottom. Detective Lopinot’s sighting took place approximately 2 hours before the end of his shift, which places the sighting between 4:00 and 4:30am on January 5, 2000. Lopinot did not note the exact time, nor did he think the object was anything other than “something from Scott” Air Force Base. Hence, he said nothing of the incident until he heard the news the next day about the sighting by other officers in St. Clair County. Detective Lopinot could not discern any shape of an object. The night sky was very dark; however, the area covered by the fixed lights was unmistakably large: estimated to be larger than the wingspan of a 747 (211 ft.).

IMAGE 5:  Click picture for larger image. Back button to return. (Position 3 on map below) The UFO moves away from the witness in a southwesterly direction. Estimated here to be beyond the tree line. Witness found that the silent object must have moved away fairly rapidly, as it appeared to have traveled a good distance once witness pulled car over into left hand turn lane to observe. (Photo Reconstruction of Natural perspective, 50mm focal length on Nikon 35mm camera. Scale and position of UFO verified by witness, August 16, 2002.) 

After further conversation with Detective Lopinot and a look at the surrounding area, we discovered that the lights seen by Lopinot headed in the direction of Shiloh, and toward the open field bordering Lebanon Avenue, where Officer Martin saw the object at 4:23am. Roughly 3 miles separate Lopinot’s sighting location from Officer Martin’s sighting location. It is not possible to make an absolute statement that the lights seen by Detective Lopinot were also the UFO seen by Officer Martin, but the times of the two sightings are reasonably close enough to draw a possible connection.

A flight path can be proposed which incorporates Detective Lopinot’s sighting.  

 

 

The object shoots away from the Lebanon Officer at 4:23:06am; actually arrives over O’Fallon, Highway 50 and is observed by Detective Lopinot for the 45 seconds between Lebanon Officer Barton stating the object is near Scott AFB at 4:23:12am and Officer Martin actually making visual contact with the UFO in Shiloh at 4:23:57am. Again, this cannot be proven, but this new piece of the puzzle gives us something to ponder. Of course, there is the possibility that the “object” seen by Detective Lopinot was actually a second aircraft of unknown origin, but this leads to an entirely separate set of questions which will be discussed later. There is also the possibility that the object was seen by Detective Lopinot in a time frame outside this very tight temporal window.  

IMAGE 6: Reconstruction of lights aboard UFO as described by witness. Three amber lights in top row, two in bottom. Purplish tinge seen at times. Lights could be likened to seeing a point light source through rain water covered glass, resulting in a kind of :movement" of the light. The five lights never changed their positions relative to one another. 

If this was the same triangular UFO as seen by Officer Barton, and it had just arrived in the O’Fallon area, perhaps what Lopinot observed was an angular view of the object. Based on other reports of flying triangle maneuvers (particularly those reported in the United Kingdom), witnesses have seen these flying triangles flip on the side, or move with their broad, flat end forward. How the two rows of lights on this object always remained facing Detective Lopinot as they moved away, is another mystery.

READ MORE ABOUT THE ILLINOIS TRIANGLE CASE 

CLICK FOR PREVIEW -  "THE EDGE OF REALITY: ILLINOIS UFO, JANUARY 5, 2000" - DSL & Faster Connections 

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THE DEBATE: ALIEN OR HUMAN TECHNOLOGY?

MEDIA NOTES: 

On July 23, 2002, the National Institute for Discovery Science, NIDS, proposed a hypothesis that the UFO seen over Illinois on January 5, 2000, was a U.S. Department of Defense, "Black Program" aircraft. The public must be reminded that although the media may portray NIDS' report as a solution to this case, it is not a solution; it is a hypothesis.

9/4/04 UPDATE: We are pleased to see the latest August, 2004 reassessment of the flying triangle enigma by the people at NIDS at: http://www.nidsci.org/articles/8_25trireport.php  NIDS' cumulative mapping of triangle sightings across the United States is cause for some serious concern by the United States government and the U.S. military.

- D. Barker

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* Darryl Barker is an independent film and video producer. His documentary program "The Edge of Reality: Illinois UFO, January 5, 2000"  investigates, in-depth, the January 5, 2000, sighting of the massive triangular UFO seen over Illinois.

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