Page 8
Wednesday, October 14th, 2015
With Jim White
The UFO Mystery One had to admit that Darthin Vaderi was a science fiction geek. He said so himself. He was hooked, ever since he was six years old when he first saw the movie 'The Day The Earth Stood Still' at the movie theatre back in 1951 when it was first released. The thought of aliens landing on Earth with powers beyond ours, but seeking peace between them and us, made quite an impression on him. That evolved into the idea of man going to them, with the same idea of peace and harmony. Anything to do with outer space became his passion. Influences included such things as the Roswell incident in New Mexico that the U.S. government was claimed to have covered up; reports of UFO sightings by so many people; all movies & TV shows, with his favourites being 'Star Trek', 'X-Files', 'Star Wars', 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind', and 2001 – A Space Odyssey; & anything to do with NASA, from the landing on the moon, to Mars exploration and other far away planets, with the images of Pluto coming just recently. Chris Hatfield became a hero of his, after his stint at the International Space Station not long ago. He went to university to become a physicist, but flunked out after the first semester. He realized with great disappointment that his science and math skills were not his strong forte. So he reluctantly dropped out, and then pursued a career in photography at the Scully School of Arts in Kirkfield, Nova Scotia. It was not a well known school and was not even recognized as 'legitimate' school, but he learned a lot about composition, taking, and developing photographs. He began to specialize in the area of astronomical phenomenon, including Northern Lights, sun and moon eclipses, meteor showers, and comets. The career started slowly, selling his photos to any newspaper that would buy them for a nominal fee. Eventually he progressed to being able to move up to the national magazines. Finally he ended up being hired full time by the prestigious magazine 'The Canadian Journal of Scientific Research' in the early nineties. He has since retired, and returned to Kirkfield to pursue his second love of astronomical research. His latest cause for excitement came recently. It was the discovery of the possibility of there being water on Mars. His imagination ran wild, knowing that soon they would discover a real 'green' Martian hiding in the craters or hills. His excitement was increased exponentially with the recent release of the movie 'The Martian', starring Matt Damon. On this Saturday night about ten p.m. of October 10, 2015, he packed his high-powered telescope in his van, and headed out to Mount Spockter Park, about ten miles out of town. The highest hill was designated as a mountain. That always broke him up. But for these purposes,
he didn't care. It provided him a perfect spot at the peak that had a small flat plateau. That was ideal for setting up his telescope. And tonight was a perfectly clear night. There was no city lights to impede his view either, which was why he always came out here whenever he could, to watch the skies. It also gave him a 360 degree panorama range to see all the stars and planets he wanted to check out. He was still a bit awestruck over seeing the Super Moon and the lunar eclipse a couple of weeks earlier, standing on this same spot. He had captured some fantastic photos, too, if he did say so himself. His purpose on this night was to zoom in on the planet Mars, which was to be at its' brightest and closest orbit in over 20 years. This was to occur around one a.m. He wanted that awe of looking up at it, and letting his imagination run wild with speculation. He got it out of the van, leaving the headlights on until he had the telescope installed on the tripod. Then he turned off the van headlights, and grabbed his flashlight as he moved back to his telescope He turned it off as he bent over the viewfinder, making the necessary adjustments to get Mars into view. This took a few minutes. Indeed, he got quite absorbed in finding the planet, weeding out the other stars nearby in the sky. Just as he got things aligned to his satisfaction, he straightened up. Out of the corner of his left eye, he noticed a bright white round ball shape enter his line of sight. At first he thought it was the ISS. He continued to watch it as it streaked past him at eye level. The object seemed to pulse as it got right in front of him. Then as it whizzed by towards his right, it seemed to fade away, and quickly disappeared from view. He realized that it was too low in the sky to be the ISS. As he turned slightly to continue his viewing of Mars, he heard a whirring sound behind him. That was when he noticed the small machine about eight feet away from him. He totally forgot about what he had just seen in the sky. His focus was now on this object. His first thought was that it looked like a miniature version of the Hummer vehicle – boxy and rectangular. It was about the size of a child's wagon, he guessed, as his brain whirled to absorb what he was seeing. There was a row of small lights all around the object, making a small glow that seemed to flicker in the dark. Then it began a highpitched whirring sound. It kept up, and began to pierce through his head. He held his hands up to his ears, to try to muffle the sound. He began to back away. He was getting a headache. Then came the most astonishing thing he had ever seen. Two figures came out of the dark and began to approach him. Each one walked to either side of the 'Hummer' and stopped. One of them bent over it, and shut off the noise. The other spoke to him in some kind of jibberish that he
did not understand. From where they were standing, it was still a bit too dark to get a clear view of them. But it appeared to him that they had dark green scaly skin all over their body, with two antennae perched on either side of their head. At the top were two round balls that appeared to him to be a combination of khaki green and pale yellow colour. It reminded him of a flies' eye pattern. They bobbed around, as if scanning their surroundings. There did not seem to be a nose or any other kind of breathing instrument, at least on their head, he noted. The mouth was just a round shape, like a Lifesaver candy. He took a quick look down at their feet. They seemed to be webbed, reminding him of diving flippers. They were a dark colour too, like the rest of their skin. The thought flashed through his mind – 'I am seeing aliens from outer space. Wow!' Then alarm set in. The one creature suddenly pulled out a gun of some kind – like a pistol, from what looked like a pocket in the side of his leg. He pointed it right at his head. He immediately began to back away, in that 'fight or flight' reaction we creatures have. But in doing so, he tripped over one leg of the tripod. He fell onto his back, as the tripod and the telescope toppled on top of him. To his relief he was able to buffer the smashing of his beloved telescope by having it fall on his upper chest and throat. In the commotion, those two 'creatures' surrounded him. The last thing he remembered was the gun being pressed against his neck, and it felt like a giant jolt of electricity going through his body. Their jibberish talk echoed in his ears. He went rigid, and then unconscious. Eventually, he began to come around. His eyes slowly came into focus. He realized that he was sitting in his lawn chair. His head was tilted skyward, kinked over the upper edge of the chair. He was staring up at the sky. He forced his head upright, as the pain in the back of his neck was intense and most uncomfortable. He began to look around, and saw that he was in line with his telescope. It was set up and ready to be used. It came back to him that it had fallen over on him as he lay on the ground. Then with what was like a kick in the gut, he realized he had seen aliens, and they had stunned him, likely to do some weird extraterrestrial experiments on him. Maybe they had even taken him to their space ship. That must have been that bright ball across the sky he had witnessed earlier, he surmised, I am sure. It must have circled around and landed here, took him in, did their experiments, and then returned him here afterwards, he must have rationalized. He stiffly got up, and went over to his telescope, and looked through it. It was still aligned with Mars, he noted. Then he commented out loud, “I bet they have been looking through my telescope at their own planet.” He began to intently focus and adjust it, wondering if they found what they were looking for. He jumped and nearly knocked his telescope over again, when behind him someone called out, “Hello there. Seeing anything interesting out there? Any UFO's
tonight?” He quickly turned around, causing a wave of dizziness to hit him. He grabbed onto the tripod to steady himself. At least he didn't knock it over this time. “Oh, my, you startled me. After what I have just been through, I don't think you can blame me.” Out of the darkness came four people. As they got closer, he realized it was two couples. They all seemed to be in their late teens or early twenties, he guessed. Obviously they had come here for 'romantic' reasons, if you know what I mean. Darthin looked at his watch, and saw it was nearly two in the morning. He had lost nearly four hours. He went on to explain about his possible alien abduction. The foursome sounded skeptical. One of the guys said, “Yeah, right. And what have you been smoking? Can we get a joint too? ” Hal shook his head. “No, you don't understand. Really. I was approached by two aliens with dark green scaly skin. They carried stun guns. I lost consciousness after tripping over my tripod. I woke up here four hours later, sitting in this chair. I am sure they must have taken me to their spaceship. I saw it streaking through the sky shortly before my encounter.” The two guys started to laugh really hard. Finally one of them said, “Sorry, Mr. Vaderi. That was us. We were pranking you. We live down the street from you, and followed you up here. My name is Carl Mulderen, and my buddy here is Lucas Skywalkerton. We put on our camouflage jeans and jackets to look like Martians. Ski masks covered our faces. The ball bobbers were from my sister's bumblebee Halloween costume from last year. We used our scuba gear flippers for our feet. That truck we used was a remote controlled Hummer that my younger brother has. The socalled stun gun was just a plastic toy one that Lucas here borrowed from his kid brother. You should have seen the look on your face. The girls could hardly contain their laughter as they huddled behind the bushes over there. ” He paused before getting serious, as he continued, “But I guess we scared you too much. You fainted as we approached you. Your knees just buckled and down you fell beside your telescope and tripod. You nearly knocked it over. We thought you would wake up momentarily, like most people do when they faint. So we left you there, and we got back in our car, which was in the parking lot at the bottom of the hill. We don't know what you are talking about when you mention a stun gun. That wasn't us. Honest.” Darthin was confused. Had he dreamed all this about martians – or some kind of alien- or did it really happen? It certainly seemed real enough. He questioned them a bit further. “And you didn't get my lawn chair out of my van and place me in it? Because that is where I woke up a few minutes ago.” They all echoed the same response. “No sir. You were just on the ground. I guess we should have stayed around until you had come to. That was a mistake on our part. And we realized it as we drove away. We talked about it on our way back to town. Leah
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here finally talked us into coming back here to check on you, even though we were sure...” Their voices faded away, now feeling ashamed and guilty at what they had done. Then one of the girls remembered something, and spoke up. “You know, guys, we did pass another vehicle heading up this road as we drove down. I remember seeing bright lights at the top here just after it passed us. I just assumed it was the headlights of that truck. But now that I think about it, the truck couldn't have been reached the top of the hill here at the time I saw them. Maybe it was a spaceship.” “Or more than likely just that truck of folks going up there for a party. I think it had those search lights mounted on the top of the cab. That is what you saw, I'm sure. You are letting your imagination run away with you now, Leah.” Carl said to her. She laughed. “Well, okay, maybe that's true. But we did see that truck heading up here. They must have been the ones to put you in that chair. They obviously didn't stay to have their party, as there is no sign of the truck at the parking lot. It's just us here. Anyway, you seem okay now. C'mon, let's go. The mood is ruined for tonight. And it is late. I am going to be in big trouble with my parents when I get home. Sorry abut the prank. It was pretty dumb of us. Hope you'll forgive us.” Darthin muttered “Sure.” But he wasn't really sure... They headed for the parking lot, disappearing into the dark, just like they had arrived. Darthin gathered up his stuff and drove home too. He immediately went to bed, and was asleep practically as soon as his head hit the pillow. The next morning, he awoke about ten with a splitting headache. His mouth felt like it was full of cotton balls. He was sure he could smell ether in his nostrils. That brought back horrible memories of getting his tonsils out when he was five years old. He headed to the bathroom, and looked in the mirror as he did every morning before shaving. That was when he noticed the red welt on the right side of his neck. He touched it with his index finger. It was hot and red, and sore. “What the....?”, he muttered to himself. Then the next thought was, “Is this the mark of that gun from last night? Maybe I didn't dream it. Maybe it was real. Maybe they really were aliens that did this to me.” Then he turned on the TV to watch the news on CBC. Wouldn't you know it – the first news item was about several UFO sightings in western Nova Scotia and Northern New Brunswick last night. That settled it for him. He had encountered aliens. No one could convince him otherwise after that. Aliens – Pranksters. Which was it? But the mystery remained unsolved, as nothing was proven, one way or the other. He was now more determined than ever to keep going back to the 'mountain' every chance he could get, hoping for another encounter, and being able to remember it. Next time he would be better prepared, he assured himself. But will it ever happen again, or is he wasting his time? Do you believe?