It Came From Above

Annie and I have had some amazing experiences at Sweetwater in the short time we’ve owned it.  We’ve often watched the resident deer, some from the time they were born all the way up through adulthood.  We’ve had dozens and dozens of turkeys gathered in the yard at the base of the steps leading up to the front door of the cabin.  We’ve spent hours playing with our grandkids who, each and every one, love our little slice of heaven.  We’ve watched beautiful sunrises and sunsets, sitting in awe at the incredible beauty.

But we have had at least one experience that is more than a little frightening, hard to believe for what it appeared to be, and even harder to figure out what it was if it wasn’t as it seemed.

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One day when I was at the cabin alone I ran into town to buy some groceries at the surprisingly comprehensive little grocery store in Summit, Arkansas.

As I pulled out of the long driveway from the cabin, I noticed one of the neighbors on the road.  Now, I don’t think we could ask for better neighbors.  Of the four families that live on the road the driveway empties off of, three are older, like us, and keep to themselves.  The only time we ever see them is if they are outside working around their own places or they are taking a walk along the road.

That’s what Joe was doing when I saw him that day, and he had his little dog with him.  I guess one of them was taking the other out for a walk.

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Joe and his wife are retirees who live directly uphill west of our cabin.  There is a clearing that extends from their house to ours.  In that half-mile it takes a turn in the woods and goes over a hill so none of us has to worry about the others being able to see them at an inopportune moment.

I eased my truck out into the middle of the road to give Joe plenty of room and prepared to give a little “fingers-extended-off-the-steering-wheel” wave as I passed. 

Joe had a different idea and took a half-step out into the road.  He picked up Honey, his long-haired mutt, held her in the crook of his left arm, and held out his right hand and arm in the universal sign for, “Stop, I want to talk to you.”

I slowed to a stop and I rolled down the passenger-side window.

Joe didn’t wait for me to say hi.  He put his hand on the window opening and said, “I’m glad you stopped.  I’ve been wantin’ to talk to you.”

Yeah. Like I said.

I greeted him and asked how the family was doing.

He ignored the question and launched right into the point.  “Have y’all seen anything weird down at your place?”

I squinted my eyes at the question and asked one of my own, “You mean, lately?”

I have no idea why I asked that but Joe didn’t take me to task for my stupidity.  “Yes, like last week.”

“Well, we haven’t been out here in a few weeks.  Busy, you know.”  I guess that was my way of saying, “No.”

He nodded and I followed with a couple more questions, “Why?  Have y’all seen something weird down our way?”

Joe stopped talking then.

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Just as the silence was starting to get really awkward, he cleared his throat and said, “I don’t know.  I mean, it seemed…kind of…I mean…well.”  He cleared his throat again, took a deep breath, and tried again, “Me ‘n’ Jenn were sittin’ outside one night last week, drinking some warm tea to help us relax so we could sleep.  We were sittin’ out back so we could watch the woods.  A couple ‘coons have been comin’ out to eat Honey’s dog food and we wanted to catch ‘em at it.”

I nodded in understanding.  I’d caught several raccoons on my game cams coming in to eat all the sunflower seeds we left in the bird feeders when we went home.  I guess maybe they ran out of birdseed and moved up to Joe and Jenn’s house for some dry dogfood.

He went on, “We were out back, on the screened-in porch, so we were facin’ your place.”  He arched an eyebrow quizzically.

I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to say.  “Yeah,” I answered astutely.

 “We started talkin’ about different stuff, grandkids and stuff, so we weren’t paying attention to how late it was getting.  We were just about to go inside when a ‘coon came out of the woods.  Then another and…before long there were six eatin’ at Honey’s feeder…two grown ones and four babies.  I couldn’t shoot the babies and couldn’t tell which of the adults was their mama, so we just sat there watchin’ ‘em.

“All of the sudden we heard somethin’ sounded kind of like an airplane getting’ closer, but different…just different.  Then a real bright light flashed and it sounded kind of like an explosion.  And the ‘coons were GONE!  Just DISAPPEARED!”

I wasn’t sure what he meant was weird.  “So lightning flashed and thunder crashed, and your raccoon friends hauled-tail back to the woods?”

Joe frowned and shook his head.  “I don’t know.  I mean, it’s about 20 yards from the dog feeder to the woods.  Those ‘coons were GONE.  We didn’t see ‘em runnin’.  We didn’t hear ‘em runnin’ through the woods.  NOTHIN’!”

I asked, “So, have you seen or heard that before, or since?”

He shook his head in frustration.  “I thought I heard the sound again later that night but could be wrong ‘cause we were asleep by that time.  I coulda been just imagining it.  I mean, we were both a little shook from what we’d witnessed.  That and the stories we’d been hearing.”

This piqued my interest.  “Stories?”

“Oh, you haven’t heard, have you?  Well, some of the people around here have reported pets or livestock that have just disappeared.  You know, they saw them one day and couldn’t find them the next.  Some of them reported hearing a single clap of thunder the night before.  A couple also saw a single flash of lightning.  You know, a single clap of thunder or flash of lightning, all by itself on a clear night?  It would kinda catch your attention.”

We talked a while longer and I assured him we would keep our eyes and ears open for anything weird and left.

As I drove in to town I wondered more than once what kind of moonshine was making the rounds up at Joe’s place.

Just sayin’.

I did my shopping and went back to the cabin.  It was getting late in the day so I built a little fire in the grill and cooked up some burgers…one for that evening and a few for meals that week.

I took a quick shower and watched a movie I’d brought for the DVD player.  Those two things relaxed me enough that I felt I could get a little good rest before my typical restless sleep took over.

The cabin was dark and the wood stove made the cabin just warm enough to be cozy so I was drifting off when I half-heard something that drew my attention and my eyes opened.  For just a moment there was a sound like a, well, the best I can describe it is like a foreign car with a small exhaust leak coming at me…FAST.  But the sound lasted for less than a second and ended with a loud boom, like an explosion.  The shades to the bedroom window were closed but I clearly saw a flash of light through the slats of the shade. 

I sat up in the bed just in time to hear another boom, more like the soft tone of a tympani drum being played to imitate thunder.  This one was more muffled, like it was coming from farther away and there was no foreign car sound before, but there was a flash of light with the boom.  The light coming through the shades looked a little dimmer and was a slightly different color than the first time.

Then everything went quiet.

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Now, I wasn’t scared.  Marines don’t get scared, but I was on full alert.  I got up and, without turning any of the lights on in the cabin, I made my way around the interior, looking out all the windows.

Snow was just starting to fall, gently and without a sound.  No wind, nothing.  I quietly opened the cabin door and stepped out onto the porch.  It was as dark as the inside of a tomb and the quiet was almost palpable.

I moved to the top of the steps and peered around the side of the cabin.

Nothing. Dark, y’know.

I told myself there was a good explanation and figured the next day I’d ferret out what it was, then laugh at myself and go tell Joe what his “weird” experience actually was.

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The next day dawned with the sun shining bright and just a skiff of snow on the ground.  I felt silly for what I’d imagined the night before.  After breakfast I dressed and wandered around outside, trying to find some clue as to what I’d heard the previous night.

Nothing.  I couldn’t find ANY signs.

Since I was going to be outside anyway I had taken my memory card wallet along, so I changed the cards in all my game cams as I searched.

Back at the cabin I put the cards, one at a time, in my computer and copied all the images to the hard drive It was almost time for lunch by this time and I wanted to see what I’d captured on my game cams since I’d last checked them several weeks before. As I looked through the images I was pleased to see the pair of gray foxes that I think have a den in the cliff that runs north and south behind the cabin.  There were raccoons, coyotes, turkeys, and deer…lots of deer.

Then I saw something I will never forget.

There were numerous videos of deer on the hillside at night so I was absent-mindedly watching them when I got to one that showed three deer directly in front of the game cam.  There were a couple more in the woods but they were very hard to see.

No big deal.  Suddenly I heard a sound…THE sound…the same one that had awakened me the night before.  But there was more.  Just as the foreign car sound started, two of the deer jerked their heads and tuned their ears to look at something to the north.  There was a sudden flash and the explosion sound…and the deer disappeared!

My jaw dropped.  What had I just seen?

There was a different sound, a swooshing sound, then the tympani-boom along with another flash. 

HO-LY COW!  What were those sounds?  Watching the video I was struck by the idea that the noises evoked the thought, the mental image, of a space craft.  Had I just caught an alien abduction on my game cam?

How could I find out?  Thoughts rushed through my brain.

One of the first ideas I came up with was that maybe my well-above-average-intelligence readers can help me figure out what I had just watched.

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So, with you all in mind I worked up a video that includes my ersatz alien abduction video.  I will post it to my YouTube account and attach a link down below.

So, until next time, please watch the video.  Study it with an open mind, then give me your ideas.  Is it just some deer that were eating at my bait pile when lightning flashed and thunder roared and they ran away so fast that they just SEEMED to disappear?  Or, were they really and truly abducted by aliens who had travelled across the universe to swoop down and snatch-up animal life from the planet earth?

You decide!

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