Large triangle. Bright light

II lived in Idyllwild.  Grew-up there as a kid and had two unexplainable experiences.  
One was about 8:00pm.  I was looking at the stars when I though I saw three planes flying in a triangle formation very high.  As I watched them slowly pass overhead I notived all the stars inside the triangle were gone.  My gut feeling was telling me this was all wrong.  It would have been a massive ship.  
The other sighting was when I was camping with my Boy Scout troop at Skunk Cabbage on an overnight hike.  We liked to go night hiking only using our flashlights when we had to. 
On one of these hikes, we whitnessed a ball of white light descend into a canyon.  We walked to where we saw the light decend, standing on the edge of the canyon wall.  The light was there, shining down to the ground, the trees were lit up around were the light was shining and were swaying a bit like it was really windy where the light was.  
What was weird was that there was no sound or wind where we were standing.  
We all ran back to camp scared.  Our scout leader said it was probably a helicopter.  I never believed it was.
Witness elects to remain totally anonymous; provides no contact information.  PD