Last Saturday night, Val and I went to spend a few hours at Ft. DeSoto campground barbecuing some burgers and dogs and looking for UFOs, once it got dark for National UFO Night Out (NUNO). It rained to postpone the cook out which calmed the nasty bite-y bugs for a little while so we could cook out with a nice breeze. We saw a clan of trash pandas that were hanging out in the trees above. They came down and Val got a pic of this one while it was trying to do it's bidness. It turned and gave her this look as it was finishing up as if to say "Human, how dare you? We don't bother you when you're out in the wild taking a crap!" No, and to be fair they didn't bother us while we were cooking out. But this will forever be my go-to image when I want to give somebody shit on social media. It's already my Twitter cover. Facebook will be next if they don't ban me for it, since they ban everything these days.
Oh, the UFO night. After we ate, the stars came out and we did see a UFO! Val spotted it. It didn't fly very fast but fast enough. It was kind of flying straight-ish, but there were several off-things about it that made me know it was a UFO instead of a plane.
There are other things that kind of lead me to believe this was no plane. It was just a gut thing. Kind of like I kind of knew I would see the orb. Kind of like the ones I thought weren't UFOs maybe weren't really. No matter how much I longed for that triangle thing I saw wayyyyy up in the sky in the 90s in St. Pete to be a UFO, the fact remains that it was most likely a Stealth bomber...since we're so close to MacDill Air Force Base. It didn't give me the same gut feeling or the same excitement or sense of awe and wonder. Nothing but a gen-u-wine UFO does that for me. I get chills. The hairs on my body stand up. I tingle. I have not filed the case to MUFON or NUFORC (Are they still around? Website has not been updated since May FFS!) yet, along with my summer of 1981 encounter. I'm still getting my stories sorted on paper. But I will definitely make the recent report soon. There's no video as I couldn't get my night scope's video turned on in time and the video that Val took on her phone is kind of short and not focused really well. But we'll have better luck next time. National UFO Night Out has decided to make their events monthly, but we think we're going to wait until it gets to be non-mosquito season...or at least until our bites heal up! We do have a trip planned to go see Bok Tower and Spook Hill, two sites of purported high magnetic energy and in the area of a supposed energy vortex: Lake Wales. We're going in October so we hope it will be cool enough outside to sit and partake of the night skies a bit. Lake Wales is an area that sees a bit of action, so who knows what will happen!
0 Comments
Nostalgia can sometimes hit you like a hurricane; a rush of emotions overwhelming the senses akin to a tidal wave overtaking a seawall. Searching for "1970s swing set" on Google and then searching Google Earth for the old homestead. That did it for me. In 1981, a teenager living on a farm in rural USA was babysitting a 9-year-old cousin. They decided to do something fun and different that weekend: they were going to camp out under the stars by throwing a blanket over the slide of the swing-set and the teeter-totter in the big front yard and sleep under that, with some bug repellent slathered on to combat the summer mosquitoes.
She ordinarily would not have suggested the camping out, except her father, whom she both despised and feared, had moved out of his parents' farmhouse a few months ago. The teen had been living there since she was three, her immediate family being a troubled one. Her dad was a drunk and a womanizer and abusive. He was also heavily into UFOs and Bigfoot and was obsessed with both to the point of annoyance. Even recently he had regaled the family: grandmother, uncle, and her, of tales of alien abductions and experiments the extraterrestrials performed on people. The teen was always terrified, and had trouble sleeping. And it had gotten worse in the year since her grandmother had seen a actual UFO coasting over the farm. She originally didn't believe her grandmother when she told the story, running in screaming from taking in laundry off the line. She made fun of her and told her grandmother she had to be seeing things. She didn't think her good Baptist, non-drinking grandmother would ever lie, but she was getting on in years. Maybe she was getting senile. The girl was of a rebellious nature. She didn't believe many of the things she was told through the years, even the stories of other family members having encounters with strange things, fireballs chasing their cars and lights in the sky that followed people home. People in the family who were sensitive to seeing or feeling when ghosts were present. Stories they told of the strange wanderer who somehow entered their locked houses and slept in a spare room, leaving money and a "Thank You" note on the kitchen table without being seen. Even though she had a great imagination, fancied herself a young writer, and she enjoyed a good tall tale, this had been a bit unreal and hard to accept. Still, the girl was the only one who didn't believe her grandmother, even a year later. But truth be told, she was afraid to believe it was the truth. Life proceeded as usual toward dusk. Dinner was made with both girls helping their grandmother, and after they ate, they gathered the blanket, some snacks and some water to enjoy as they lay in the makeshift tent, looking at the stars. Towards 9 o'clock, the younger girl was sleeping and the teen closed her eyes and was beginning to drift off when she heard a low humming noise in the distance. Thinking it was a plane at first, she tried to pat it no mind. But the humming kept growing. Finding it odd, because there was not another sound to be heard...even the crickets were quiet, finally, she peeked out from underneath the blanket. Her whole world changed in that second. Coming over the top of the cornfield was a slowly moving, very large, something. It was flattish and round, but kind of thick, like a real good pancake. There might have been a thicker part on the top, but many long years have past and she doesn't remember what the top of it looked it. It had colorful blue and red lights that blinked in turns all around the edge of it. And it was from this large flying craft that the humming sound was coming. She watched, mesmerized for a few seconds. Then, she shook her little cousin awake. "What.??" Alissa (name changed to protect living relatives) said. "What is it? What time is it?" The teenager said something like: "'Bout 10. Doesn't matter! You gotta get out here and look! Come on. It's grandma's UFO!" The smaller child gave her a look like she was being pranked. They did tease each other a lot, as cousins who are close will sometimes do. But the older girl, very serious, said: "I'm not kidding." Alissa crawled out from under the the slide and looked in the direction her cousin was pointing. By now the large UFO was even closer, getting ready to close in on the road separating the field and the yard where the girls stood. Alissa's mouth hung open. The teen's mouth hung open as they backed away toward the house. Then...Alissa screamed and took off running for the farmhouse. The teenage girl, as afraid as she was of many things, did not scream...did not run. She sensed a slight directional change, as if the motherwhateverthehellship floated right a bit (well...left in the perspective of whoever was flying it) and she moved over to stand at the edge of the driveway, but closer to the front door to the house...in case she had to book it (thats's what they said in the 80's... or haul ass...basically run). But she didn't want to go in , even though somebody was at the door calling her to come in (her grandmother...frightened...probably recognizing the same thing she saw). She didn't even hear them. Her focus was elsewhere. Because by now the UFO was across the road and nearing her. It was SO BIG. Her home life (aside from hanging with the cousin and her grandmother's loving care and inspiration and her Uncle who was funny) was crap. Her father was abusive. She was bullied at school for being poor. Her mother had left her father a few summers ago and she was miserable. Her first boyfriend was a jerk and cheated and broke up. She was past the point of caring. She felt like..."God, I just wish they'd beam me the hell up and get me off this rock!" a la Luke Skywalker...or something like that. Honestly, she just didn't give a fuck. As the huge pretty lighted disk flew over her, she looked up, eyes wide. Sort of defiantly. But it passed on over. After it had passed the small well-house behind her, and into the next cornfield behind that, she continued to watch it, amazed. Until it suddenly shot into the sky with a flash and was gone. She stood there, in awe, and somewhat sad and disappointed and not a little scared. But in the end, the awe won out over the fear. At the moment. After that, her father bullied her for details and wanted her to write it down. He bullied Alissa too. Her uncle told him to leave the girls alone. The teen tried talking to young cousin about it, but she just wanted to forget it. As for the teen, she refused to share the experience with her father. She kept it inside. And everything that happened later too. And whether she tells anyone but her girlfriend and a few other people about the other experiences she has had, both with the UFO phenomenon or with the paranormal, she isn't yet sure. Her younger cousin passed away in December 2020 of breast cancer, so the once-teen (now older woman ) can share the story publicly. But everything changed for her that night. Not necessarily bad...not all of it. But some if it was not necessarily good, either. But thinking back, remembering. She is glad it happened. She might like to see something like that again. She keeps on looking for people's renditions from that period and for other people's experiences...searching for someone who may have seen the same thing...she may have found one. Maybe another. A year to two apart. Someday, she might see how she can find out. Soon, she may post her own account on NUFORC or MUFON. And she keeps on looking up. Always. |
nerdy weirdviewShows, media, news, geek, paranormal, uap, weird shitsville stuff, etc. archives
February 2022
categories
All
|