Don’t expect anyone to be able to give accurate reasons if you’re being so vague on the details, there…
Phoenix, I am not, repeat, not making an argument. I saw what I saw. Believe what you will.
elucidator, we believe you, Dude; there’s no argument. We’d just like to speculate on what it might have been that you saw, and therefore any specifics you could give us would be helpful. This stuff is interesting. If you just don’t want to talk about it, fine.
Oh, and I haven’t been probed by aliens, but there was this chick in Alabama once…
With considerable reluctance…
I was sitting outside, at a friends trailer/house out in the sticks of MN. It was about 11 pm or so, my friends had gone to bed. I was enjoying the darkness of the country. It was more or less moonless, as I recall. I wasn’t actually watching the sky so much as glancing every once in a while and marveling, as we all do, how many stars could be seen.
At one point, I glanced up and saw…something. Imagine, perhaps, three long florescent tubes, crossed equally, making equal sections of “pie”. These tubes are flashing off and on, say about every second or so. The circumfrence of the circle described by the lights had no definition, as such. That is, I didn’t see the lights as stuck onto a round surace, but as if the lights were embedded into something that I could not see independently of the light. It was if when the light flashed “on” something was there, “off”, not. Yet when “off” background stars were obscured, or perhaps “occulted” is the best word, by the passing of whatever-the-hell-it-was.
It passed more or less overhead, about ten degrees out of perpendicular, and rather slowly. I had about a minute of observation. I very nearly ran to get my friends, but thought it would be gone when I got back, as it probably would have been. (Besides, I was there to help them after they gave birth that day, and they would have been in no mood to be disturbed, short of Armaggedon.)
It was, as I have noted, entirely soundless. It occupied an area of the sky approximately that of a softball held at arms length. It was entirely soundless. Nothing, not even a hum.
Either it was something about the size of a house, approximately 300-500 feet up, or something bigger, higher. I have no way to approximate scale, I just knew it wasn’t any closer than that.
I told no one about this, and heard no other reports of strange doings in the area, but this was deep boondocks, there were few neighbors to speak of.
I did a sort of mental checklist, using what few wits I retained. Stiff breeze flowing, no effect on path. Therefore, not a baloon.
If an aircraft, jet or propeller, it must have been quite high (soundless) and very very big. To my knowledge, no such aircraft exists. It went straight, hence, was not a weather phenomenon, which, due to air currents, move in arcs and circles, rather what you would expect from a balloon.
I was not probed, and no one asked to be taken to my Leader (who, God help us, would have been Reagan!)
I wasn’t drunk, or on drugs. Having been both, I know the difference. I wasn’t crazy the day before, or the day after. I told no one, nor did I make any inquiries of anyone else. Looking back, I can’t recall exactly why, I just didn’t. I think because I didn’t want to be lumped into “contactee”, which I had previously regarded with considerable disdain. And, frankly, still do.
And that’s all I know.
Thanks, elucidator, that’s a good clear description. I don’t have a clue what you saw. The closest thing I can think of historically is a freak display of aurora about a hundred years ago.
The flying saucer fanatics have tainted the whole idea of investigating UFO’s to see if there’s really something previously unknown going on. And of course (referring to the OP), a lot of people don’t understand the difference between the rigorously logical speculation of good science fiction, and just believing anything.
Incidentally – and this is a bit of a hijack, but I’ve been curious for a while – does your signature refer to Cecily, the fictional town in the tv show Northern Exposure, combined with the “Sicilian” line from The Princess Bride? I get “whooshed” a lot by people’s signature lines, because they’re often some kind of in-joke.
Never even thought about Northern. Just a pun on “Sicilian” and “Cecil”. They arent necessarily “in-jokles”. The might just be plain dumb. It happens.
I was “whooshed” indeed; I never thought of Cecil, and also forgot that the town in Northern Exposure was spelled “Cicely”, not “Cecily”. That’s actually a funny pun on your part; thanks for explaining. I was confused, and wandering in the woods, but now I see clearly.