UFO
by Tim Karwoski

In 1961 John F. Kennedy was President, not much was happening in Vietnam...yet, and I was about to have the daylights scared out of me!

My family lived in a Los Angeles suburb. We moved there from Michigan in 1960 and lived in a stuccoed, cookie-cutter tract house typical of the thousands that sprung up there like weeds shortly after World War II. Living in California was quite different from the suburbs of Detroit.

My brothers and I used to play in the woods-exploring, inventing games and getting into innocent mischief. Our school playground was grass and dirt, like it should be. Now we found ourselves playing on an asphalt playground in Southern California. What fun was that? What we supposed to do for excitement? Fall down and grind our knees off on the blacktop? Whoopee! Where's the woods? They were replaced with thousands of cracker- box houses where orange orchards once thrived.

Like I said, to me, California and Michigan were two different worlds. California tract houses have backyard fences separating everyone from their neighbors. Were those fences meant to keep us in our yard or keep us out of the neighbors yard? Six of one- half dozen of the other- I suppose. I’m fairly certain backyard fences are the very reason why some Californians don’t socialize with their neighbors. How can you be friendly with someone when you feel like you’re being a Peeping-Tom just by looking at them through the cracks in a damn fence? Aside from an occasional, “Good morning!”, or some other mundane greeting, we don’t talk to our neighbors.

I was in our backyard one evening around dusk when I looked up in the sky and caught sight of a star-like object. It was motionless and very bright. It was at one end of the 30 mile wide valley where we lived. This object drew my attention because it was much brighter than the other stars and it was significantly lower in the sky. It just seemed out of place for a star. All of a sudden, it was gone! Vanished! Disappeared! But the funny thing was, I didn’t see it move-at all.

As I searched the sky for the bright star, I looked towards the opposite end of the valley. There! There it was! Just sitting there motionless. Only now it was about 30 miles away from where I first saw it. Weird! I didn’t even see it move to get there! I starred at it for a while then all of a sudden...gone! Again, it just vanished! I looked over to the opposite end of the valley where I first spotted it and sure enough, there it was! This thing, whatever it was, was really moving fast. In my young mind, I reasoned it was going at least a gazillion miles per hour. Had to be! I couldn’t see it move.

I decided to get the rest of the family so they could see it too. They would never believe a 10 year old kid. They had to see it for themselves. I know mom and dad came out and I’m sure my older brother did too. I’m not sure if the younger kids, my two little brothers and sister, did though. They were quite young and wouldn’t know what was going on anyway.

We all watched this thing, which by now we had convinced ourselves must be a UFO, bounce back and forth across the valley like a Ping-Pong ball. We couldn’t see it move though. It must have been going a gazillion miles per hour! It continued to move back and forth like out-of-sync automobile flashers, which, by the way, were not to be found on cars yet-certainly not on dad’s ‘58 Buick Estate Wagon.

I don’t remember who decided to get our neighbors and let them in on this spectacle, but I guess it was done so we would have someone to collaborate our story. After all, how many people actually see flying saucers? How many people would actually believe us? We needed witnesses. I wonder if this was the only time we ever talked to our neighbors? We did have those imprisoning fences, you know.

Just the possibility of aliens being aboard our newly discovered spacecraft was enough to give me the hee-bee-gee-bees. Since most of my television watching consisted of cartoons and science-fiction programs, I already had a pretty good idea what those little green men inside the UFO must look like. I just knew they had to be tall and skinny with blank eyes and no mouth’s or noses. I didn’t even want to think about it.

I don’t remember exactly how many times it traveled back and forth across the valley, but it finally stopped near the point where I first spotted it. It just sat there. I remember thinking that I wish it would come closer to us, then we could see if it was a saucer like object or not. Who knows, maybe it was just a super fast plane that could fly a gazillion miles per hour. But then again, if it were an airplane or a supersonic jet of some type, how could it remain motionless and not fall out of the sky? How could it just sit there? It seemed like we watched it for a very long time. Time seemed to stand still. It was like I wasn’t aware of my surroundings and all I could do was stare at this very bright light.

Just a few minutes after I wished we could get a closer look, it started moving towards us. They must have read my mind, I deducted! They knew I wanted to get a better look at them so they decided to come closer. As it got closer to us we were finally able to distinguish it’s size and shape. It was coming at us very slowly. It was getting bigger. It was a Flying Saucer! That's exactly what it was! That's exactly what it looked like- a Flying Saucer! It looked just like the ones I had seen on TV and in comic books. It was definetly saucer-like with lights rotating around it’s perimeter. It made a strange sound too. It wasn’t like any sound I’d ever heard. It didn’t even sound like a machine. It made sort of an oscillating whirring sound- a constant variable pitched drone that didn’t change rhythm. Now here it was, hovering about 300 feet above my backyard! I don’t think any of us made a sound. I don’t remember talking or hearing anyone talk. I imagine we just stood there starring up at it with our chins on the ground!

I wonder if there were any aliens inside? Someone had to be flying it, I surmised. I’ll bet they were watching us just as intently as we watched them. What were they doing? Studying us? Making a report to their superiors? Or were they merely granting my wish to have a closer look at them? Or perhaps they just wanted to scare the living shit out of us-worked for me!

I don’t remember how long it hovered above us, but at any second I expected a ramp to be lowered down and little green men to come out. Or maybe a beam of light would shine on us and take us aboard-no such luck! It just hovered above us for a while. No ramp was extended down- no beam of light either. All of a sudden-whoosh! It was gone. I mean GONE! It went straight up and out of sight- a gazillion miles per hour!

I wish I could recall conversations that evening in our backyard. I don’t know what the adults were talking about. But I do know we were all mesmerized by what we had seen. What an experience! I had seen what would be my first (and so far) last UFO. I’ll never forget that evening in 1961 that forever changed my life. I wouldn’t say it changed my life dramatically. But it was changed in a sense that it made me more open-minded and more aware of my surroundings. I believe things like UFO’s are possible. If there is other life forms in the universe besides human-beings and they happened to see the vehicles we’ve put into space, guess what they saw... UFO's. I wonder if their neighbors saw it too?

Epilogue

Here’s my theory on UFO’s. Of course I believe they exist. I saw one. However, I’m not convinced they come from outter-space or another planet. I think they may be a product of our own technology. Maybe they’re “Unidentified” because the general public has not been made aware of their existence.

Space travel has come a long way since President Kennedy first entered the United Stated in the race for space. We’ve put men on the Moon and have flown back and forth into space numerous times with great success. Isn’t it possible we’ve invented a machine of some sort capable of traveling a gazillion miles per hour without barely making a sound? Do you think it’s possible?

I DO!

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