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INTO THE WILD BLUE YONDER
(an encounter with a UFO)
In the fall of 1988 or ’89, in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, I became one of hundreds or maybe even thousands of people who can claim with all sincerity that they have witnessed the appearance of a UFO. Many who read these words and the account that follows will not believe in UFO’s any more afterwards than they did beforehand and some may even believe that I have been deluded or lost my senses. That’s okay, I often think I’ve lost my senses too. I only relay this story because (1) it is an intriguing one and, (2) I occasionally need to repeat it in order to believe it myself.
The peculiar thing about my UFO sighting that makes it either more or less believable, depending upon your perspective, it that I knew or rather that I had a premonition about it beforehand. I was walking along the streets of New York City with a friend shortly before my trip when suddenly I knew that while I was out there, in Jackson Hole, they would be too – the UFO’s – and I would be able to witness their presence. I told my friend half jokingly that the UFO’s would be there and if they let me I would climb on board and fly off with them into the wild blue yonder. Responding in a similar manner, my friend replied that if I did, I should ring him up on the telephone and he’d go too. Then we both laughed at the absurdity of it all, but somewhere in the deepest recesses of my mind I did believe I’d see those well-known "flying saucers."
I arrived at the hotel in Jackson Hole late in the afternoon. The hotel was nestled between small hills and because of this my room, which was on the first floor, was strangely situated half above and half below ground level. "No scenic panorama here to fill my eyes, calm my nerves, and let me know I’m not still crunched up in the City," I thought. Since I did not expect to spend too much time there, however, I did not mind and left my bags unpacked upon the bed while I scurried out to survey the surroundings.
Around dusk, when I had returned to my room to unpack, something inside me seemed to tell me to go to the window and look outside. I resisted the feeling at first since I knew the view was limited, but the urge persisted and so I determined that the only way to end this urging was to do as it demanded. I walked over to the window, lifted up the sash, and stuck my head out. Facing a hill straight ahead, I turned and looked to my left, the only unobstructed view. There I could see clearly a rocky mountain peak that jutted sharply upward into a twilight sky. Stationed on either side of the peak in mid air were two golden orbs of light. I felt a pulling sensation within me as if I was being drawn toward them. It seemed almost as if someone were communicating to me, "This is it. This is what we want you to see." "Okay," I thought, "you have my full attention. Now what?" I watched and waited as if some sort of spectacle was about to happen, but it didn’t. Suddenly, it occurred to me how foolishly I was behaving; after all, I had never been in the mountains before, had no knowledge of how things are done in a rural mountain community. "Perhaps, those are just lights affixed to the sides of the mountain to keep airplanes from smashing into them," I thought, "yes, that must be it." I knew that I could find out for sure the following evening by simply checking for the lights again. If the lights were still there, then I would know that the are warning lights for airplanes; if they were not – well then, I’d file this incident away with other unexplained curiosities that clutter up the mind.
In reality, I did not give those lights another thought until two days later. On the second morning of my stay, while having breakfast in the hotel restaurant, I noticed that the room was abuzz with rumor. It seemed that several participants in the conference I was attending had claimed to have seen UFO’s in the sky the night before. A wave of astonishment ran through me. Could I have seen them too? I had forgotten to check the lights the night before, but I would not forget again. That evening, when I did check, there were none – no lights at all upon or around that mountaintop. Was their absence proof of the existence of UFO’s? I did not know. But surely, there were unusual phenomena occurring in this place called Jackson Hole.
Is this experience enough to claim to have seen a UFO? Certainly not, but my tale is not yet over.
It was the third night that was the fateful one – that made me believe in the improbable. At about 10 o’clock in the evening, I and my friends who had convinced me to come to this "New Age" conference, were just leaving a concert given under a large tent perched atop one of the hills surrounding the hotel. As we exited the tent, we stopped with several others in the group to enjoy the night air and survey the many stars suspended in the heavens. It seemed a glorious night, one made for dreaming and entertaining lofty thoughts. As we gazed skyward, we noticed two formations above and to our right. One seemed larger and closer to us, the other smaller and farther away. They were blinking off and on with various colors of light – first red, then green, then yellow, then white. As we watched them intensely, it seemed as if the blinking lights on these two aircraft were performing some form of communication ritual. Whether this ritual was for our benefit or whether we were the unsuspected voyeurs of it, I could not tell. But the whole group stood there, mouths agape in total awe. We "oohed" and "aahed" in one communal voice as the lights changed from color to color acting as if we believed that this event was designed purely for our entertainment. We were like children watching a fireworks display on the Fourth of July.
Then that strange feeling came over me again urging me to turn and look behind me. Accustomed to following orders by now, I did turn. There, hovering above another hill, even closer than the first tow, was another flying saucer. Yes, they were saucer-shaped – just like the accounts on "In Search Of" and on "Sightings!" If you had told me two weeks before my trip that I would be associating myself with such phenomena I would have laughed, but here I am, one of many telling you an unbelievable tale of outlandish unconventionality.
I can convey, however, the assurity that they were saucer-shaped for two reasons. One, because I saw them with my own two naked eyes and two, because by some remarkable stroke of luck one of the members of our group was carrying binoculars. Since these objects of incredulity hovered above us for quite some time, we each had the opportunity to observe them more closely. When viewed through the binoculars’ magnification, I could not doubt even for an instant what I saw. Their appearance was just like in the previous accounts – saucer-shaped objects with a domed top and on the underside around its circumference, individual lights pulsating off and on, first in unison and then in sequence. More than this I cannot say.
Since that time in Jackson Hole, Wyoming in the fall of ’88 or 89, I have never looked upon a night sky in the usual way. Now when I gaze upon that dark expanse of delirium and wonder, no matter where I am, I look upon each twinkling star with suspicion. "You cannot fool me," I say to them collectively, "you may be just a twinkling star to someone else and will never be anything other, but I know that somewhere out there disguised as just a twinkle are universes yet to discover."
