 Hi, everyone. This might be a long shot, but I'm trying to figure out if there's anyone out there who remembers a major blackout in the middle of November 2014. It was a pretty big event at the time, but I've never met anyone who remembers it, or is willing to talk about it if they do. I still have no idea if the blackout was only in my city, or if it was nationwide. If I'm being honest with you, I suspect it was global. If you remember it, then this will all make sense to you. If you don't, then you're probably gonna think I'm crazy. Maybe I am. I'm hoping somebody out there can tell me I'm not. When a major event occurs that shatters our collective view of normalcy, we process it by sharing our unique account of it with others. We ask each other questions like where we were on 9-11. I've never had the opportunity to do that with this situation. So I'm gonna try to do it now, if only because I'm worried about what might still be to come. And because I have nobody to talk with about that fear. The blackout happened on the evening of Thursday, November 13th, 2014. Back then, my ex and I lived close to her parents, and we'd visit them pretty often to have dinner and watch TV. It was typically a pretty uneventful affair, and we were usually too burnt out from the workday to socialize much. We just watched our shows in silence, occasionally sharing amusement at the joke in a sitcom, or debating a theory about a show's plot mystery. That's pretty much how this night was going, too, until the lights went out. It must have happened sometime between 7.30 and 8 o'clock, because we were watching Jeopardy when we lost power. It was weird, because there was no inclement weather, and it was actually perfectly clear outside. As our eyes adjusted, we could see the stars out the living room window, brighter than any of us had ever seen them before. We could also see some lights flashing in the distance. It was an eerie green light flashing near the horizon, like lightning in a distant storm. I figured it was probably transformers blowing, and when my ex asked what the flashes were, her dad, Neil, said the same thing. As far as we could tell, whatever was producing the flashes wasn't making any sound, but it's entirely possible that it was happening too far away for the sound to reach us. My ex's parents lived in a suburb not exactly close to our city on the US west coast, but close enough that there was always light pollution. There was no light pollution now, only the flashing green lights in the distance, and the bright stars in the night sky. We assumed this meant the blackout was pretty widespread. My ex's parents both grew up in small towns, and they both agreed that they'd never seen a night sky as bright and full of stars as it was then. It wouldn't have been possible, with a major city full of lights just 20 miles away, so the power must have been out there too. I remember Neil pulling out three flashlights from one of the drawers in the kitchen, and Laurie, my ex's mom, lit a couple candles in the living room, one in the kitchen and one in the downstairs bathroom. Neil went out to the garage and came back with a battery powered radio. He turned it on and fiddled with the dials looking for something to fill the silence. There was only static. He turned it to a local news station and left it on low volume so we could hear if anyone started to broadcast. It was kind of exciting in a way. You know that feeling of being in the dark when the power goes out? Unsure of why and unsure of when things will return to normal. Both my ex and I were supposed to work the next day, and we were giddy with the hope that we wouldn't have to go, like kids watching the falling snow on a school night and hoping for a snow day. Plus, there was the added feeling of safety from knowing that there wasn't a storm outside causing the outage and threatening to blow a tree onto the house. We brought out some board games and we sat on the floor in the living room and played scrabble. After a while, we heard the static on the radio clear up and a voice began speaking softly. My ex was closest to it so she went and turned up the volume. I checked my phone if it was still charged at that point and saw it was a little after 9.30pm. The voice on the radio was a woman's voice. This is a public service announcement. We are currently experiencing widespread power outages and public services are limited. Please remain indoors and we will update you when we have more information. The message played on repeat so we turned it back down. It was a little disconcerting and we joked about how this was a horrible way to keep people feeling calm. We talked about how none of us had ever heard a public service message like that before during a power outage. The message continued to play in the background on low volume until Neil got up and turned the radio off. We don't need to listen to it over and over again. We'll check it before bed and see if anything's changed. He said, and so we kept playing scrabble. At about 11.30pm, we decided we should probably go to bed. My ex and I weren't sure if we'd have to work in the morning and we thought it best to be well rested just in case. Her parents had a guest room that we'd occasionally stay in when we were house sitting and Laurie invited us to sleep there for the night. It didn't sound like we were supposed to go out anyway. We checked the radio one more time. The message remained the same and we all made our way to our bedrooms to get some rest. I could still see the green flashes on the horizon outside the bedroom window. I set an alarm on my phone for 7.15am. I probably should have conserved the battery but I didn't want to sleep through work if the power came back on. We woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of a booming voice coming from outside. Please remain indoors. We will update you when we have more information. It played on repeat and grew louder for a bit before gradually getting softer and further away. I assume it was one of those trucks with a loudspeaker or something probably driving through the neighborhood and broadcasting the message but I didn't see anything outside. Only green flashes. The clock on my phone said it was 3.22am. At 7.15 my alarm went off. I got up and flipped the light switch in the guest room but nothing happened. I looked out the window but it was starting to get light so I couldn't tell if any buildings outside of the neighborhood had power yet. It was comforting that we couldn't see any green flashes on the horizon in the morning light. My ex went to use the bathroom and I went downstairs to turn on the radio. The message was the same. We are currently experiencing widespread power outages and public services are limited. Please remain indoors and we will update you when we have more information. I went back upstairs and I was walking into the guest room right as my ex came out of the bathroom. No work today, I said and threw myself out of the bed. I turned my phone off. She joined me and we were both fast asleep again pretty quickly. We kept the shades open. The daylight felt like safety and it was comforting. We woke up later to someone knocking on the bedroom door. Honey, are you awake in there? We heard in Lori's voice. My ex responded. Yeah mom, we're in here. Okay, well can you tell me if the curtains are open in there? My ex and I looked at each other. Yeah mom, the curtains are open. Can you close them and come down and help your dad and I? I got up and opened the door. I was still waking up so my brain wasn't processing things quickly enough. What? I asked. Lori walked past me into the room with a roll of duct tape in her hand. She closed the blackout curtains and began taping the edges of the curtains to the wall. This was a very confusing sight to see 30 seconds after waking up. Please go downstairs and help Neil, he'll explain it, she said. We made our way downstairs. In the middle of the living room was a pile of blankets, sheets and clothes. Neil was taping a thick comforter to the window in the kitchen. When he saw us, he said, Oh great, you're awake. I need you to take the clothes in that pile and shove them under the front door and the garage door. The radio was on. I could hear a new message playing. This is a public service announcement. There is no need for alarm. Please remain calm, stay indoors and close your windows and curtains. Try to limit how much outside air and light can enter your home. Lock out as many windows, skylights and gaps underneath doors as you can. Fill your bathtub and as many containers as possible with tap water. We will update you when we have more information. We helped Neil and Laurie block as many openings to the world as we could while the message continued playing on the radio. My ex and Laurie worked on the upstairs and I helped Neil downstairs. We filled both bathtubs with water and filled every glass in the cupboard with tap water and left them on the counter. Once again, we were in darkness with only flashlights and candles. I turned on my phone to check for service, but I didn't have any. My phone said it was a little past 11am. We took stock of all the food in the house. We figured we probably had enough food to eat comfortably for about 10 days, maybe 20 if we really rationed carefully. Neil didn't think it made sense to start rationing yet and we decided we would start doing so after three days if things didn't change. So we guessed we were probably set for about two weeks. We all found it much harder to stay calm than we did the night before. The anxious energy in the house was palpable. The situation seemed a lot more harrowing now and we didn't want to turn the radio off so the PSA played throughout the day in the background. We tried our best to play games or talk about work and act like everything was normal. Once or twice, we heard the booming voice again outside, probably from a truck with loud speakers warning us to stay inside and cover the windows. Aside from that morning surprise though, nothing changed much throughout that day until we went to bed. For the loud speakers, it had become very quiet outside since the power went out. Late on Friday night or Saturday morning, I'm not sure exactly what time it was, we all woke up to an unsettling sound from outside. It sounded like it was way off in the distance and right outside the house all at once. It was this deep vibrating sound somewhere between a loud hum and the steady monotone sound of a brass horn. It didn't fade in and out and it was just there, unavoidable and filling the space around us. All four of us came out of our bedrooms. We were all visibly shaken, but nobody dared look outside to try to find the source of the sound. Neil tried to comfort us and said it probably wasn't anything to worry about, but he was obviously pretty spooked too. We decided to all go downstairs and sleep in the living room together and when we got there we found that the radio was no longer broadcasting any message. Neil replaced the batteries and turned it back on, but still nothing. The only reminder we had of the outside world was the unwelcome monotone horn somewhere in the distance. One by one, we fell back asleep. I was the last one I think. I have pretty bad anxiety and this whole thing was getting weirder and weirder and harder to manage. Plus, I honestly don't know how anyone could sleep through Neil's snoring, but at least the snoring was something to listen to, aside from the humming of the horn or the static from the radio. Eventually, I drifted away, but it was a restless sleep and I definitely didn't get enough of it. I was the first one awake on Saturday. The clock on the wall said it was a little past 5am. The humming sound continued. I normally have coffee in the mornings and this was my second morning in a row without it. So I had a headache, but I definitely wasn't tired. I quietly looked through the cupboards, hoping maybe Neil and Laurie would have some canned cold brew coffee or something else with caffeine that wouldn't require electricity to make. But there was nothing. I found some Tylenol in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and took it before scrolling through the radio frequencies, hoping to find some other station that was broadcasting. Nothing. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a green flash. I looked around and saw that the tape on one of the living room curtains had come loose, so I went to stick it back to the wall. I don't know why, but I felt the urge to peek outside through the gap. And I did. What could it hurt? Nothing nearby looked out of the ordinary. Off in the distance, the green flashes continued on the horizon. I fastened the tape back to the wall and sat in silence reading the Scrabble Rulebook until the others woke up. I don't know what that Saturday was like for you guys, if you remember it at all, but it was fairly uneventful for us. And it was kind of nice, honestly. We made ourselves a breakfast platter of sliced fruit and some cheese that was in the fridge, which we assessed to be unspoiled. We played some games, Scrabble for a while, and then we switched to Uno, and Lori let me look through the books in her room for something I could read aside from the Scrabble Rulebook. The horn never stopped, and nothing new came on the radio. I also don't recall hearing any loudspeakers all day. I think it kind of helped my anxiety that I peeked out the window that morning. The green flashes were still eerie, but it was kind of nice to know that the outside world still looked mostly normal. Aside from the unrelenting sound of the horn, it highlighted that not much had changed about our situation, so it felt less urgent and dangerous. Even the humming of the horn was getting easier to ignore. I slept better that night. When we woke up Sunday and realized that the power was still out, we had to start thinking seriously about rationing our food. We agreed that we would try to stick to one meal a day. I decided it'd be better to try to last as long as I could without eating, so I didn't eat anything that morning. Neil replaced the batteries in the radio and made sure it was still dialed to the new station, and we again did our best to stay calm and strong. We played games, Lori tried to teach me how to meditate. We debated whether or not we would get rescued and whether or not we were in a situation that required rescuing. I think we all had this sense that something was happening that was more now than a power outage, but none of us knew what it could be. In the evening, the clock on the wall was the only way we could keep track of the time now. We convinced Neil and Lori to play cards against humanity. My ex and I had given it to them for Christmas a couple years prior, but they never touched it. We found it in their hallway closet and begged them to play it with us. If there's one thing that's great for curing boredom, we promised them it's cards against humanity. It had been a long time since we had that much fun. We were dying of laughter, especially listening to Neil and Lori read out inappropriate card combinations. We opened a bottle of wine, then a second bottle, and then a third. We were probably on our fourth or fifth game when we heard a loud rumbling outside and the whole house started shaking. I don't know if you remember the earthquake, but if you do, then you understand the terror we were about to experience. The ground below us felt like it was rolling. Things were falling off the shelves. The sheets and blankets started falling off the windows, and we all scrambled to put them back up. Somehow that felt like the most important thing. I know they say to stand in a doorway or hide under a table during an earthquake, but instead we all had this instinct to protect the windows. The only thing any of us knew about our situation was that we were supposed to keep the windows covered. As the earthquake subsided, we heard a siren blaring in the distance. Like an ambulance, it sounded like an air raid siren or some other kind of warning. I'd never heard anything like it. The loud rumble of the earthquake was replaced again with the sound of the horn. But the horn was much louder than before, seemingly closer to us and more brassy. And it really was less like a hum and more like a horn now. As loud as the air raid sirens were, they couldn't drown out the horn. The static on the radio cleared up once again, and we heard the voice. This time, it wasn't the woman's voice. It spoke in English, but I couldn't pin a gender to it. The voice had an odd metallic echo to it, but it didn't sound like that from radio interference or from any problems with a transmission. It was just the way the voice sounded. This is an emergency announcement. Please remain in your homes. Do not go outside. Do not look outside. Find a central area in your home and do not leave. Move away from all windows and doors and cover your eyes. It is very important that you do not stop listening to this broadcast. It repeated itself. This is an emergency announcement. We all rushed frantically towards the middle of the house near the staircase as the horn sound got louder still. The earthquake was over, but the house was still vibrating, maybe even rumbling, perhaps from the blaring sirens and the horn sound that was now roaring all around us. Do not go outside. Do not look outside. That voice was so unsettling. It is very important that you do not stop listening to this broadcast. And that's when I had a panic attack. My therapist said I catastrophize and assume the worst possible outcomes. I was overwhelmed by the reality of everything we were instructed to do. Fill the bathtubs with water, cover the windows, shove clothes in any gaps, move to the center of the house and cover our eyes. At that moment, it seemed obvious to me what was about to happen. We were all going to die. This is what a full scale nuclear attack would look like. All of it was too much. Too much noise, too much pressure, too many things happening at once. I had to get out of there. I couldn't breathe. I was going to die on the floor in the middle of the suburbs, having seen only a glimpse of the outside world in three days. I was hardly thinking rationally. I decided screw it. And I lunged for the door. I couldn't stay there. My ex screamed at me in horror and tried to chase me. But Neil pulled her back. No, stay in the house. If we go outside, we die. I reached the door and I heard Neil scream, don't look outside. I glanced back and saw all three of them turn their heads away from me and cover their eyes. I turned the handle, pulled it open and threw myself outside. Their screaming disappeared behind me as I pulled the door shut. Assuming you're better at following instructions than I am. This is where my experience probably differs from yours. If you have any memory of this at all. The horn was much louder outside, probably a lot more intense than you remember it being. And so was the sound of the siren. But it was still more comforting than it was in that house with all that commotion. And the crisp cold air was a relief. The sky was clear and the stars were shining brightly. I'd never seen so many of them before with the light pollution we usually get from the city. The green flashes also seemed brighter than before and much closer now. But somehow they didn't interfere with the starlight at all. Even in the throes of a panic attack, it was a stunning sight and I stared in awe. I scanned the skies for any sign of nuclear armageddon, but what I found instead will stick with me until I die. In the heavens above us was the most surreal, impossibly large, solid black, triangle shaped object darker than anything I'd ever seen, slowly drifting across the night sky. I might not even have known it was there, except for the fact that it blocked out the stars as it moved. It was the biggest object I'd ever seen in my life, except for the earth itself. Harder than any mountain I'd ever seen and more sprawling than any city I'd ever known. It looked to be far up in the upper atmosphere and it still occupied a good 30% of the night sky, so I know it was many miles across. There was nothing about it that told me it should have been able to hang in the air the way that it did. No visible propulsion or rotors, aside from the fact that it was flying. As I watched the object slowly carve its path through the sea of stars, the horn sound faded to a hum again and then drifted away to silence. The sirens also faded until there was just serene calmness and I realized that this enormous vessel was not making any noise whatsoever. It just silently glided through the night sky, moving east to west towards the Pacific Ocean. It eventually reached the western horizon and began to gradually fade behind the hills. As it moved, it revealed the stars that were hidden behind its immeasurable frame. Mile by mile it disappeared behind the earth until I watched the last of it vanish in an intense burst of green light at the horizon. All at once, in the dead quiet of night, the world lit up again. Every house and streetlight around me shined brightly and most of the stars seemed to pop out of existence, snuffed away by the light pollution of the city. I heard a neighbor open their window and some laughter emerged from their house. There was music somewhere in the distance. I stared at the western horizon for what felt like days, wondering if I had really seen what I thought I'd seen. It seemed impossible, but the memory is burned into my brain. Eventually I took a deep breath and turned around to walk back inside. My senses were flooded with the sound of the TV, some sitcom with a laugh track and I made my way into the living room to see Laurie Neal and my ex all sitting on the couches watching a show. I sat with them, none of us said a word. When we left for home that night, my ex and I sat in silence for the entire car ride and we went to bed without speaking a word to each other. The next day at work, everything seemed bizarrely normal and nobody was in a rush to talk about the events of the past three days. I sat at my desk, did some menial tasks and watched the clock take away towards five o'clock. I was dying to talk about what we all experienced, but nobody in the office brought it up or even hinted at anything out of the ordinary. It wasn't until the day was almost over that I finally found myself in a conversation with a co-worker. She asked me how my weekend was and I laughed and told her it was definitely memorable. Then I asked her how she was holding up after everything that happened and she was genuinely confused in a way that couldn't be possible for someone who had experienced even a fraction of what I experienced. It was only then that I realized that nobody else had any memory of what happened. I've yet to meet anyone who remembers the 2014 blackout or the steady horn in the distance or even the earthquake, let alone the strange object blocking out the sky. If anyone out there knows what I'm talking about, I'm begging you to let me know. This event has changed my entire life and shattered my understanding of the universe around me and I have nobody to share that with. Even if you didn't see the triangle craft stretching miles across the night sky and the darkest black you could ever imagine, it would still be nice to know that somebody out there at least remembers the power outage. It's very isolating, feeling like this has been lost from our collective memory and wondering if my own recollection is the only remaining evidence of what happened over those three days. I've kept my mouth shut for a long time, fearing what my friends and family will think of me if I mention what happened that weekend. But it's very important now that I find out if anyone else remembers any of this. For seven years, I've kept an eye on that night sky and for most of that time I never saw anything else out of the ordinary since that day. That is, until about six months ago, when I saw a black triangle blocking out the stars. It was much smaller than what I saw in 2014, probably only a few hundred feet across, but its shape was unmistakably the same. I've been seeing them more and more lately. Now every night when I look up at the sky, usually long after everyone else has gone to bed, I swear I can make out one or two smaller pitched black triangles slowly and silently moving through the sky. If you go outside tonight and look up, you might be able to find one. They're hard to see, but look for stars that fade in and out of existence and then you'll be able to make out the outline of a perfect triangle. Last night when I was looking for them, I think I began seeing green flashes again on the horizon. They're much dimmer than they were back then, but they are there. I think I haven't been getting much sleep lately and they seem to be getting brighter as the night went on. Maybe my eyes were just adjusting to them better since I was up all night watching the sky. I also swear I heard the faint sound of a steady horn in the distance, but nobody's talking about it today. Maybe everyone was just asleep, or maybe I'm losing it. I can't say that my mental health has been great since 2014, so who knows. But I don't think I'm losing it. I can't help but wonder if these things were also happening in the weeks, months, or years leading up to November 13th, 2014, and none of us noticed it. But I notice it now, and I'm trying to be prepared for the worst. If you have any recollection of that weekend, and even if you don't, you should probably prepare yourself too. I have no idea what these things are in the sky now, or what that enormous triangular object was on that day, but I'm sure it was there. And I don't mean to alarm anyone, but whatever it is, I think it's coming back. When it does, please try to remember it this time. Hey everyone, remember to like and subscribe if you enjoyed the video, and I wanted to give a special thank you to the author Willow's Closet. This was a really good story, and remember to check out more of the author's work, there'll be a link in the description. If you'd like to support me further, there's a link to my Patreon in the description, and let us all know if you see anything tonight in the night sky.