Once we’d decided absolutely to live in Florida, we fell for the seductive charms of the American Southwest.
We were lured by arid landscapes on high plateaus with layers of rugged purple mountain ranges as a backdrop; warm dry air; sunlight so bright I can almost see to read without my glasses; desert sunsets; a pleasing mix of Spanish and Native American architecture; acres of white sand with no sea in sight; the unfamiliar flora of Joshua trees (the funny little people of the tree world on which it is said Dr. Seuss modeled his trees), saguaros, mesquite trees, tumbleweeds, incredible cactus flowers; the unfamiliar and thrilling fauna of scorpions, rattlesnakes, coyotes and road runners.
And flying saucers.
The guidebook we were using recommended a visit to the UFO Museum in Roswell, New Mexico. In its words the museum “inadvertently exposes the whole tawdry business as transparent nonsense” referring to the 1947 crash landing of a flying saucer manned by little aliens.
The feeling I had as we entered the museum was not disbelief so much as not really caring one way or the other, the same as if I was going to see a science fiction movie. I expected to be entertained by a lighthearted couple of hours looking at mocked up spaceships.
As I began to read through witness statements, taken at the time and in later years, as well as the government and military’s vehement denials (to this day) that anything otherworldly had happened, I became intrigued. As I looked at grainy photographs and amateur drawings, my interest waned.
Then I saw it – a drawing of a spaceship I had seen when I was a little girl. Jimmy drifted further away in the museum as I stared at the simple drawing. It all came back to me as clearly as if it were yesterday.
I was no more than five years old and sitting in the back seat of my father’s Buick as he drove along Taylor Avenue close to where we lived at the time in the suburbs north of Baltimore. What appeared to be a commercial airliner without wings – although I wouldn’t even have thought of it in those terms at that age – was hovering right above the houses facing the road. It was so low I could see the rectangles of light of the “passenger” windows. My little girl mind imagined it was landing on the rooftops. The image seared on my mind was the row of rectangles of dazzling bright light. And as I stared it zoomed off.
The sight was vivid in my little mind for many years, then faded with the decades.
Until now.
And I had never spoken of it.
Rushing to find Jimmy, I blurted out, “I’ve seen a flying saucer.”
“Well of course you have.”
“No! Not here. When I was a little girl. But I never told anyone.”
“Why?” he asked, grinning at me.
“Maybe I thought they wouldn’t believe me.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t one of your crazy dreams?”
See?
It wasn’t a dream, was it?
I went back and stared at the drawing some more. No. It wasn’t a dream. It had been early evening and dark. The rectangles of light had been intense in the large dark shape hovering over the rooftops. A stationary aircraft, but not a helicopter and it didn’t make a sound. I had known that wasn’t quite right, but a five-year-old’s head is full of wonderment and anything is possible. My mind hadn’t developed the ability to analyze using logic.
I hadn’t said anything to anyone because . . . why hadn’t I said anything? More than feeling silly, I was scared. This was at the height of the Cold War with the U.S.S.R. It frightened me. I never told a soul.
At my elementary school, as well as fire drills, we had air raid drills. Every classroom in the school trooped into the corridors and closed the classroom doors to protect ourselves from flying glass. Shoulder to shoulder we faced the wall, crouched down, and face to the floor clasped our hands behind our necks and waited for the all clear. The posture would have been useless with post-war bombs but we continued to practice the drill at various schools for years.
It was all very alarming in a strangely exhilarating way. The Russians were coming. The spaceship I saw I was convinced was full of Russians and they were going to bomb us. If I never told anyone what I saw it might never happen.
That’s how it worked in my tiny mind and Jimmy confirmed a similar way of juvenile thinking a few days later by telling me of a headline he’d seen as a young lad delivering newspapers. “Khrushchev Says 8 Bombs Will Obliterate England.” He was fearful too, and for years, but never confided in his family or friends. Perhaps we’d have made good spy material. Strong silent types.
Although no physical evidence remains, the documents on display at the UFO Museum were very compelling. Those, with my own sighting and a photo of a flying saucer over the Chesapeake Bay were enough.
Over the years, numerous and diverse witnesses have given similar accounts of flying discs, scorched earth at the crash landing site, descriptions of pieces of the craft that had no earthly properties and alien bodies, one of which (of whom?) was alive for a short time.
Interestingly, the witnesses of the Roswell incident who blabbed to the press and flying saucer investigators were the ones not in government employment.
The rancher who discovered the crash site was asked “What about the little green men?” and in an unguarded moment he replied, “I never said they were green.”
Government officials and career military personnel (who were later in life in receipt of a government pension) don’t even remember the “incident” and denied being involved when documentary evidence proves the contrary. Now you have to ask yourself why?
I don’t care if you don’t believe I saw a UFO. Decades later the remembered image is still intoxicating. In the words of one of the many witnesses who weren’t dependent on a government pension,
“I know what I saw.”
If you think you saw one, I won’t contradict you. You wrestle alligators.
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I’m sensing some doubt. You wouldn’t believe a five-year-old?
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Oh, sorry. Didn’t realise that you’re still five. Of COURSE you saw a UFO, sweetie-)
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Thanks Auntie MM. You know I always tell the truth.
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Your slideshow is wonderful as my heart has always been in the southwest. As for the UFO, although I have never seen one, I believe you. We cannot be the only species in this vast universe.
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Thanks LuAnn. And yes the aliens are out there somewhere, or maybe they are living right next door!
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Sometimes I think they have inhabited the body of a certain someone who lives in my RV! 😉
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Hahaha. Very funny. My certain someone truly is an alien. At least in my country!
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Good one, I had forgotten that! 🙂
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😀
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It’s how it is down there in the Land of Enchantment. 🙂
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Warm! Sunny! Mmmmm. 🙂
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enjoy yourself… we got three inches of white frozen stuff here. 😀
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😦
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Hi Carol, this was a great story! Your UFO flashback fits in perfectly with the feeling of possibility and mystery that the southwest inspires. We drove through it for the first time 7 years ago, and I can’t wait to get back there once we finish our trailer!
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Thank you and good luck with the Burro. It’s so handy to pull your bed and kitchen along behind you!
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Great slide show. We’ve really fallen for the desert too. I liked the museum. So interesting that your mind blocked your sighting until you saw the drawing!
Brenda
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Thanks, and yes it was amazing that a memory that had been lost for many years was suddenly so clear. I wish I could access all my memories like that, like the time I . . um . . . give me a minute . . . um . . . Oh, never mind.
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Being first cousins just a year apart, us country bumpkin cousins spent weeks together in the summer at each other’s homes. But leave it to you to see the UFO – I was the one who lived in the country and could actually see the moon and stars! I believe you did see something and yes, there was always that cold war creepy, scary feeling when we were kids. Hmm, maybe we’ll meet up soon and go the Little Aleinn in Nevada.
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So there you were as a child with an unobstructed view of the night sky and there I was in a busy suburban area and the UFO chose to sit itself down on some row houses where I could see it. Maybe it was town life that fascinated the aliens.
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Great slide show. I have also been to the UFO Museum in Roswell and it is sure difficult to deny the evidence they show. So I have no doubt in what you saw.
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Well thank you for that vote of confidence!
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Every now and then, people share your experience. There is a reason why Georgia O’Keeffe came here and never left. There is also a reason why parts of it are called, The Land of Enchantment. 🙂
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I’ve seen a green comet as well recently. Thought I was seeing things until I Googled it. Maybe we all just need to look up.
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I believe you did see a UFO. I thought I saw one in a night sky in South Dakota in the 1940’s. There could have been other explanations,I’m sure, but it didn’t behave or look like other planes I had seen before.
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Maybe you saw the one that crashed in Roswell in 1947!
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First, your photo slide show is beautiful. A wonderful desert collection. Second, I can image a little girl being afraid. Al’s convinced it was the stealth bomber in the trial phase. Great story!
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Thanks Ingrid. And thank Al for thinking that I am that young. I don’t think stealth bombers were even a twinkling in somebody’s eye when I saw my UFO. And I’ve just checked of photo of the stealth bomber. The windows are all wrong! lol
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That would feel very odd and unsettling to remember a suppressed memory – or flashback – or whatever it might have been. I expect it would be a little ‘haunting’ … for lack of a better word. Great story!
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It certainly transformed my visit to the museum. I hadn’t thought about it in years but I can now see myself sitting by the window in the back seat of my Dad’s car watching something frightening that had no explanation.
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I see no reason not to believe. Who believes what the government says anyway? We did visit Roswell (and blogged about it). It was on my bucket list, the story intrigued me from when I was a little girl. I too went in with no preconceived notion of what the truth was. I thought the displays were amateurish, but I do believe something happened out there in the desert that government doesn’t want us to know about. Sure wish I had seen a spaceship.
Ruth from At Home on the Road
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The mocked up displays did look a little hokey. It was the personal recollections that intrigued me. That with my own recollection had me hooked!
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No… NO…. NO… I cannot believe it… only in America… BUT, if you say you saw one I believe you……………., or would I?
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They’ve been spotted in England as well, not far from where I lived. Do you think there is some connection?
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I’m not sure… but if it makes you feel better I have a UFO on the side of my car right next to the fuel cap, it means Unleaded Fuel Only….
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Now you’re just being silly. I know what I saw, even if it was eleventy-seven years ago!
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I’m not disputing the fact that you saw one… I’m just not convinced there are any… a friend swears he saw a ghost in an old hotel… well I won’t argue he didn’t see one I just won’t believe it till I see one… I’ve had some sightings where we though they were UFOs but it turned out to be a weather balloon… I’m afraid I’d be hard to convince unless there was irrefutable evidence… and a photo is not good enough… today I can put my head on someone else’s body… so it would have to be hard evidence for me to believe it… I’m so glad you saw a UFO both in the USA and England, maybe you will be abducted and can bring back the evidence… lol
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Himself thinks I have been abducted and left an alien brain in my head.
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Himself would know…
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Thanks mate.
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We took a drive to the “Extraterrestrial Hwy” here in Nevada. It was an odd mix of UFO memorabilia and sites with a brothel thrown in for good measure. At least the aliens will have a place to blow off some steam after their long journey to the middle-of-nowhere Nevada.
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We saw a few of those. Maybe the extraterrestrials set up the brothels.
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Good story, I enjoyed reading it. I have never seen a spaceship but I did see a flying saucer during the plate smashing at a Greek dancing party night once!
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If you’d had enough ouzo you could have claimed it was a UFO!
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