{"id":1971,"date":"2009-07-01T01:10:48","date_gmt":"2009-07-01T06:10:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paganpages.org\/content\/?p=1979"},"modified":"2009-07-01T06:41:25","modified_gmt":"2009-07-01T11:41:25","slug":"greetings-from-afar-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/2009\/07\/01\/greetings-from-afar-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Greetings from Afar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chariots of Fire <\/strong><\/p>\n

The UFO wave of 1972-73 was the last \u201cclassical\u201d UFO wave to sweep North America\u2026 at least the United States. It began in the fall of 1972, as a group of isolated, but seemingly consistent sightings in the Southwestern and Southeastern parts of the country, and eventually turned into a nationwide phenomenon. Now, many people will attribute these sightings to \u201cnatural\u201d occurrences, and the U.S. Government certainly has ample \u201cexplanations\u201d for each and every sighting, from \u201catmospherics\u201d to \u201cweather balloons\u201d to \u201cplanetary alignments\u201d\u2026 still\u2026 I know what I saw, and it wasn\u2019t a weather balloon.<\/p>\n

It was the second Friday in November, 1972, and the Center (Texas) Roughriders had just taken a 48 to 0 drubbing at the hands of the Carthage Bulldogs\u2026 at their homecoming\u2026 Now this kind of humiliation at one\u2019s homecoming might sound just ghastly to any football fan, but it was not, in point of fact, the worst defeat suffered by the Roughriders that season\u2026 they had a perfect season, that year\u2026 didn\u2019t win a single game. But, they did manage to get into the record books, two weeks later, when the (Longview, Texas) Pine Tree Pirates defeated them 72 to 0\u2026with Pine Tree set up to score again when time ran out. It was the worst single defeat ever suffered by a Texas High School Football Team\u2026 a record that stands to this day\u2026<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fairly easy for me to remember the date, because, even if the football game, that night, was less than memorable\u2026 what followed it was not. LaMoine, Charlie Harmon, Pedro and I, and another friend of ours named Rick Bauer, were all loaded into my old \u201956 Pontiac (Old Matilda) and were headed home after the game. I usually got the driving detail in those days\u2026 with the rest of the guys buying the (35 cent a gallon) gas, since Old Matilda was one of the biggest cars in Center, she could accommodate something like ten of us if we packed her right. This was an especially useful characteristic on Wednesday nights, when you could get into the Apache Drive-in, and see a fairly good \u201cB\u201d movie for \u201cOne Dollar A Car\u201d\u2026 no matter how many people were in it\u2026 and we could easily get ten or twelve in the car and another four (five, if one of them was short) in the trunk.<\/p>\n

In any case, we were on our way home after the latest insult to our school pride on the football field, and were, in spite of this, in a generally good mood. I had a route I followed, which sort of went in a big circle, starting at the football field, and dropping people off until I eventually wound up home, myself. We had just gotten to Rick\u2019s house and were all standing out in his front yard talking, when Pedro looked up at the sky and said \u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n

Naturally, we all looked up\u2026<\/p>\n

Above us, in a perfectly clear Autumn sky, against a backdrop of stars, were three fairly large silver lights. They seemed to be moving, in a triangular, or diamond shaped formation, from roughly West to East\u2026 They looked to be, from where we were standing, about the size of a dime, and were circular. Each one, had a smaller, blinking greenish-blue light in the center, and a red light, that didn\u2019t blink, in \u201cfront\u201d\u2026 that is to say the part that was facing the direction that they were going\u2026 and they were going fast.<\/p>\n

Now, anyone who has watched an airplane, especially at night, realizes that speed is not always reflected in what you can see. The sky is big, and even if a plane is moving relatively fast, it appears to move fairly slowly, because it is high up, and is seen against such a vast background. As I said, these objects appeared to be about the size of a dime, but they also appeared to be fairly high up\u2026 which means that they were huge\u2026 They were also moving fast enough that we had to physically turn to track them with our eyes\u2026 pretty fast.<\/p>\n

Abruptly, they just stopped\u2026 They didn\u2019t slow down. They stopped. They were completely dead in the air for a period of several seconds\u2026 still in their triangular formation, and still \u201cpointing\u201d the same direction\u2026 but absolutely motionless.<\/p>\n

As we watched, a thin line of reddish light began to dart between the three shapes. It would go from one to the other, almost as if they were \u201cshooting\u201d it at each other\u2026 but\u2026 it didn\u2019t seem to be a hostile act… Then, they began to move again, just as suddenly as they had stopped\u2026 in exactly the opposite direction. They headed back in the direction from which they had originally come.<\/p>\n

Once again, they stopped suddenly, then seemed to shoot straight up, until they were almost out of sight. They then stopped again, seemed to change position slightly within their \u201cformation\u201d and started off, at what was literally a blinding speed, this time to the North, zig-zagging as they sped away\u2026<\/p>\n

A few seconds later, we heard a rumble from the East, and sonic booms, as what were obviously three very fast moving Air Force jets came into view from toward the Louisanna border. We were, in fact, so busy watching the show, that we hadn\u2019t noticed several other cars that had stopped along the street, and their occupants were also watching the objects as they danced across the sky. One of these cars contained Ed Roberts and \u201cUncle\u201d Charlie Johnson, two of our local police officers. Ed, a former Military Policeman, was observing the objects through a pair of binoculars, while Uncle Charlie was on the car radio, describing the scene to Mr. Buck Carriker, who was, at that time, Chief of Police. About every third word he uttered the phrase \u201cHell no, Buck, we ain\u2019t drunk\u201d.<\/p>\n

Pedro (Charles Emanis) and I both worked for the \u201cChampion\u201d, a local newspaper. I had my camera in the car, as usual, but, this was years before the invention of \u201cpassive night optics\u201d, and taking photos of the event was hopeless, event though we both tried. It didn\u2019t matter. The story was all over the news the following day. Someone at Barksdale Air Force Base \u201cleaked\u201d the story to the press about how they had scrambled fighters to intercept three Unidentified Flying Objects, after reports of them had absolutely flooded all of the base\u2019s incoming telephone lines. Barksdale was, and is to this day, headquarters for the 8th Air Force, one of a handful of bases in the U.S. which had, and still has, nuclear armed B-52 bombers airborne at all times as part of what was once called the \u201cfailsafe\u201d system. They were naturally a bit concerned at the thought of \u201cforeign\u201d, unidentified aircraft invading their air space.<\/p>\n

We \u201clearned\u201d two days later, from an \u201cofficial\u201d U.S. Air Force spokesman\u2026 who was intervied on every television and radio station in a three state area\u2026 that the incident had all been a \u201cbig misunderstanding\u201d\u2026 that no fighters had been dispatched, since the Air Force \u201cknew all along\u201d that the \u201cUFOs\u201d in question were actually a \u201cweather observation balloon, launched from a facility near Longview, Texas, which exploded due to unfavorable atmospherics, producing the \u201cabnormal\u201d lighting effects that had been wittinesed\u201d.<\/p>\n

Maybe they were right\u2026 On the other hand, it was 1972\u2026 maybe some long-haired hippie freak put LSD into the Center Water Supply, and we were all hallucinating\u2026 maybe\u2026 but I don\u2019t think so\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chariots of Fire The UFO wave of 1972-73 was the last \u201cclassical\u201d UFO wave to sweep North America\u2026 at least the United States. It began in the fall of 1972, as a group of isolated, but seemingly consistent sightings in the Southwestern and Southeastern parts of the country, and eventually turned into a nationwide phenomenon. Now, many people will attribute these sightings to \u201cnatural\u201d occurrences, and the U.S. Government certainly has ample \u201cexplanations\u201d for each and every sighting, from \u201catmospherics\u201d to \u201cweather balloons\u201d to \u201cplanetary alignments\u201d\u2026 still\u2026 I know what I saw, and it wasn\u2019t a weather balloon. It was the second Friday in November, 1972, and the Center (Texas) Roughriders had just taken a 48 to 0 drubbing at the hands of the Carthage Bulldogs\u2026 at their homecoming\u2026 Now this kind of humiliation at one\u2019s homecoming might sound just ghastly to any football fan, but it was not, in point of fact, the worst defeat suffered by the Roughriders that season\u2026 they had a perfect season, that year\u2026 didn\u2019t win a single game. But, they did manage to get into the record books, two weeks later, when the (Longview, Texas) Pine Tree Pirates defeated them 72 to 0\u2026with Pine Tree set up to score again when time ran out. It was the worst single defeat ever suffered by a Texas High School Football Team\u2026 a record that stands to this day\u2026 It\u2019s fairly easy for me to remember the date, because, even if the football game, that night, was less than memorable\u2026 what followed it was not. LaMoine, Charlie Harmon, Pedro and I, and another friend of ours named Rick Bauer, were all loaded into my old \u201956 Pontiac (Old Matilda) and were headed home after the game. I usually got the driving detail in those days\u2026 with the rest of the guys buying the (35 cent a gallon) gas, since Old Matilda was one of the biggest cars in Center, she could accommodate something like ten of us if we packed her right. This was an especially useful characteristic on Wednesday nights, when you could get into the Apache Drive-in, and see a fairly good \u201cB\u201d movie for \u201cOne Dollar A Car\u201d\u2026 no matter how many people were in it\u2026 and we could easily get ten or twelve in the car and another four (five, if one of them was short) in the trunk. In any case, we were on our way home after the latest insult to our school pride on the football field, and were, in spite of this, in a generally good mood. I had a route I followed, which sort of went in a big circle, starting at the football field, and dropping people off until I eventually wound up home, myself. We had just gotten to Rick\u2019s house and were all standing out in his front yard talking, when Pedro looked up at the sky and said \u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d Naturally, we all looked up\u2026 Above us, in a perfectly clear Autumn sky, against a backdrop of stars, were three fairly large silver lights. They seemed to be moving, in a triangular, or diamond shaped formation, from roughly West to East\u2026 They looked to be, from where we were standing, about the size of a dime, and were circular. Each one, had a smaller, blinking greenish-blue light in the center, and a red light, that didn\u2019t blink, in \u201cfront\u201d\u2026 that is to say the part that was facing the direction that they were going\u2026 and they were going fast. Now, anyone who has watched an airplane, especially at night, realizes that speed is not always reflected in what you can see. The sky is big, and even if a plane is moving relatively fast, it appears to move fairly slowly, because it is high up, and is seen against such a vast background. As I said, these objects appeared to be about the size of a dime, but they also appeared to be fairly high up\u2026 which means that they were huge\u2026 They were also moving fast enough that we had to physically turn to track them with our eyes\u2026 pretty fast. Abruptly, they just stopped\u2026 They didn\u2019t slow down. They stopped. They were completely dead in the air for a period of several seconds\u2026 still in their triangular formation, and still \u201cpointing\u201d the same direction\u2026 but absolutely motionless. As we watched, a thin line of reddish light began to dart between the three shapes. It would go from one to the other, almost as if they were \u201cshooting\u201d it at each other\u2026 but\u2026 it didn\u2019t seem to be a hostile act… Then, they began to move again, just as suddenly as they had stopped\u2026 in exactly the opposite direction. They headed back in the direction from which they had originally come. Once again, they stopped suddenly, then seemed to shoot straight up, until they were almost out of sight. They then stopped again, seemed to change position slightly within their \u201cformation\u201d and started off, at what was literally a blinding speed, this time to the North, zig-zagging as they sped away\u2026 A few seconds later, we heard a rumble from the East, and sonic booms, as what were obviously three very fast moving Air Force jets came into view from toward the Louisanna border. We were, in fact, so busy watching the show, that we hadn\u2019t noticed several other cars that had stopped along the street, and their occupants were also watching the objects as they danced across the sky. One of these cars contained Ed Roberts and \u201cUncle\u201d Charlie Johnson, two of our local police officers. Ed, a former Military Policeman, was observing the objects through a pair of binoculars, while Uncle Charlie was on the car radio, describing the scene to Mr. Buck Carriker, who was, at that time, Chief of Police. About every third word he uttered the phrase \u201cHell no, Buck, we ain\u2019t drunk\u201d. Pedro (Charles Emanis) and I both worked for the \u201cChampion\u201d, a local newspaper. I had my camera in the car, as usual, but, this was years before the invention of \u201cpassive night optics\u201d, and taking photos of the event was hopeless, event though we both tried. It didn\u2019t matter. The story was all over the news the following day. Someone at Barksdale Air Force Base \u201cleaked\u201d the story to the press about how they had scrambled fighters to intercept three Unidentified Flying Objects, after reports of them had absolutely flooded all of the base\u2019s incoming telephone lines. Barksdale was, and is to this day, headquarters for the 8th Air Force, one of a handful of bases in the U.S. which had, and still has, nuclear armed B-52 bombers airborne at all times as part of what was once called the \u201cfailsafe\u201d system. They were naturally a bit concerned at the thought of \u201cforeign\u201d, unidentified aircraft invading their air space. We \u201clearned\u201d two days later, from an \u201cofficial\u201d U.S. Air Force spokesman\u2026 who was intervied on every television and radio station in a three state area\u2026 that the incident had all been a \u201cbig misunderstanding\u201d\u2026 that no fighters had been dispatched, since the Air Force \u201cknew all along\u201d that the \u201cUFOs\u201d in question were actually a \u201cweather observation balloon, launched from a facility near Longview, Texas, which exploded due to unfavorable atmospherics, producing the \u201cabnormal\u201d lighting effects that had been wittinesed\u201d. Maybe they were right\u2026 On the other hand, it was 1972\u2026 maybe some long-haired hippie freak put LSD into the Center Water Supply, and we were all hallucinating\u2026 maybe\u2026 but I don\u2019t think so\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1971"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2112,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1971\/revisions\/2112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}