In October 2009, rifleman Michael Herrera and five fellow Marines on disaster-relief duty near Padang, West Sumatra reported encountering a hovering octagonal craft guarded by armed men in unmarked black uniforms. The soldiers allegedly disarmed the squad, loaded large containers onto a platform beneath the vehicle, then watched as the craft accelerated seaward at extraordinary speed.
Herrera's account is supported primarily by his sworn testimony, contemporaneous text messages with another witness, and a briefing he later provided to the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office. Photographs he claims to have taken were confiscated, and no independent records have surfaced, leaving investigators reliant on personal recollection and secondary reporting.
Personnel
Timeline
Evidence
No photographs, video, radar data, or flight logs have been released. All physical evidence remains alleged or classified, limiting external verification.
Assessment
The narrative hinges on a single eyewitness and lacks physical corroboration, a pattern familiar in military UFO claims.
Skeptics highlight the logistical difficulty of staging a football-field-sized platform covertly near a city of nearly one million residents, the absence of flight-tracking anomalies, and the trope-like features of black-triangle lore.
Until imagery, sensor captures, or additional eyewitnesses emerge, the incident remains an unverified testimony rather than an established historical event. 456