If the triangle-shaped, high-tech craft are "ours" -- and not out-of-this-world wizardry -- then what are they?

William Scott, a reporter for the aerospace magazine Aviation Week & Space Technology, has cast his investigative eye on reports of odd craft for many years.

Scott has written about sightings of large triangular craft in the early 1990s around Edwards Air Force Base in California. Also, airline pilots saw a similar vehicle scooting along at high altitude over the southwestern United States.

Scott and others think that people are witnessing a large, hard-shell, near-neutral buoyancy carrier aircraft. The Pentagon would not confirm the existence of such an aircraft, he said.

While not a true airship-like blimp, it is gas-filled. This lightweight and enormous craft also sports a sizeable internal capacity. That makes it ideal for hauling troops and lots of equipment from point-to-point.

The recent NIDS study and its "apparent correlation" of black triangle objects with types of military bases are a nice fit with this speculation.

That firm is no stranger to strange, novel, and exotic aircraft.

Lockheed Martin is the mega-firm that encompasses the work of the legendary Skunk Works team. Those are the folks that put into the air the U-2, the super-speedy Blackbird, and the F-117A stealth fighter, and always rumored to have pioneered a host of highly classified concepts, including Aurora -- a supposed hypersonic spyplane.

The diversified military and civilian aerospace company is into lighter-than-air platforms too.

Amongst the organization's many divisions, Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems in Akron, Ohio, is a supplier of aerostats, large controllable balloons, as well as larger airships.

Bill Sweetman, who specializes in writing about mystery aircraft, looks back to the days of President Ronald Reagan's White House as the source of the momentum that led to a series of high-tech aircraft. The black side of military technology got a big boost. Monies started to flow into classified projects in the early 1980s.

"Everything takes some time to design and build, so it is some years later, after 1985, that the Area 51 complex starts to expand as seen in all the satellite photos," Sweetman told SPACE.com.

One outcome from budget increases, Sweetman suspects, were very large, slow-flying vehicles that could be likened to aerostats or semi-aerostat vehicles.

The advantage of an aerostat is an ability to haul a huge antenna -- a great tool for bugging or detecting targets. The antenna size would be far larger than anything feasible for installation on an ocean-going ship, or even toted by a heavier-than-air aircraft, Sweetman said.

Sweetman adds a cautionary note. The majority of the public has trouble discerning types of planes, one from another.

"Inexperienced observers, if they do see something unusual, will generally remember major features wrongly and utterly misjudge the object's size. This is of great help if you are trying to conceal developments in technology and a huge hindrance if you are trying to ferret them out," Sweetman said.

Even if Sweetman is right, the skies are going to be littered with wildly shaped flying vehicles for years to come.

A best guess is that eye-catching craft are sure to keep UFO study groups on their toes.

There are all sizes and shapes of openly discussed remotely piloted vehicles (RPVs), robot drones, and other strange looking aerial craft being readied for flight or on the drawing boards. Numerous aerospace firms see a big business boom for these types of aircraft.

Also being commercially offered are wedge-shaped hybrid air vehicles that are akin to huge dirigible airships of the past. They are marketed as being capable of carrying large cargo and zipping along at high speed.

Take all this non-secretive work … then add the truly classified, hush-hush stuff.

One wonders if there will be any air space left for our UFO buddies.