Probe

Probe

“In 1973, a survey found that 95 percent of the public reported having heard of UFOs, whereas only 92 percent had heard of US President Gerald Ford in a 1977 poll taken just nine months after he left the White House.”
~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO

In the summer of 1973, I was 13 years old and looking for something to do.

Back then, although I was generally considered a good kid, I was known to be influenced by a fairly rough and daring group of peers. We would stay out into the early dark of evening and mess around in the fields and streets near my house. That particular summer, my friends Mark, Jimmy, and Donnie were spending our evenings hanging out in the field between Mark’s house and Donnie’s house. That field was an excellent place to play all sorts of sports, especially football. Our games would go on most evenings. Then as the sun gave way to dark, we’d stop playing and just sit there gazing at the stars as they winked into view one by one.

With all of the hoopla in the news concerning UFO’s, we were determined to spot one. So we’d sit and look. Sometimes, I’d bring my binoculars and scan the sky. Not surprisingly, we would spot several “UFO’s” each evening. These strange craft always seemed to follow the same flight path and always seemed to have the same three lights. Most would either travel from south to north or from north to south. We were convinced in our fantasy minds that our Earth was being visited by aliens, and while that thought excited us, we were also secretly very scared by it, too.

One evening Mark, Jimmy, Donnie, and I had just finished our evening games, and we were just sitting around when we noticed that the bathroom light came on in Beverly Dalton’s house. Beverly’s back yard backed up to the west goal line side of our football field. On the boundary between her house and our field was a huge old apple tree whose limbs were so laden they grew to the ground, forming a hollow shelter inside.

When we saw Beverly, a lovely girl our age, inside her bathroom, some inner sense kicked in. I believe it was Jimmy (it usually was) who suggested we head under the tree and spy on her. So we did just that. We took turns sharing my binoculars as Beverly worked on her hair. Lying under that tree among the half rotted apples didn’t matter to us. Our peep show was too captivating.

I’m not sure who saw it first, but when everyone’s attention was drawn to it, we immediately cowered in fear. Slowly over another neighbor’s house beside Beverly’s, a glowing light began to build. It was a cool bluish color and generally round. It was absolutely silent and seemed to be traveling very slowly, getting closer and closer to us. After our initial shock and fear, we were frozen there among our rotted apples. All thoughts of spying on Beverly had fled our minds to be replaced by stone fear. We were in survival mode. Every now and then I would glance up and peek at the light as it grew in intensity and size. It continued to slowly grow and approach our hiding spot.

With eerie stealth, the icy cold light floated to a position right above our apple tree and stopped; its glowing light radiating in intensity from icy blue to sterile white. It seemed to be looking right in to my soul. It saw everything inside of me. It knew everything I cherished. It understood everything for which I lusted. My friends and I had played at watching for UFO’s, and now we were experiencing more than we bargained.

The light hovered above us silently for all time. Frozen in youth we lay under that apple tree like eternal Rip van Winkles; unable and afraid to move, too petrified to awaken from our nightmare. The light, so brilliant in its iciness, probed every inch of our rigid bodies. No thoughts passed within me. No utterance escaped me. Unblinking, I helplessly met it as it painlessly plundered my mind and body.

Without warning its grip on us weakened. As I began to move again, I noticed that Jimmy, Mark and Donnie were moving, too. Well…shaking really. We watched silently as the light moved away from us and then unexpectedly, it just zapped away instantly.

It took some minutes before any of us dared speak aloud, but none of us really knew what to say.

“Damn.”

“What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Some blue light thing or something.”

“Did it…you know…look in you, too?”

Heads nodded around.

“Damn.”

“What the hell?”

We spent many more minutes that evening trying to figure out what that thing was that touched us all so deeply. The closest we could get to explaining the icy blue was that it seemed like some helicopter searchlight; a probing light born of silence yet with some indefinable intelligence.

After all ideas were exhausted and without so much as a farewell or even a secret pact, we edged away from our unsuccessful hiding spot and staggered back to the safety of our homes. It seems somehow strange to me that from that night on, we never gathered together anymore to play or get into mischief. While we still saw each other at the bus stop, we all seemed to grow apart and go off in separate directions in life. To my knowledge none of us has ever mentioned that night again.

I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy; we fought ourselves. The enemy was in us. The war is over for me now, but it will always be there, the rest of my days. As I'm sure Elias will be, fighting with Barnes for what Rhah called “possession of my soul." There are times since, I've felt like a child, born of those two fathers. But be that as it may, those of us who did make it have an obligation to build again. To teach to others what we know, and to try with what's left of our lives to find a goodness and a meaning to this life.

~Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) Platoon

UFO Sighting in Charlotte