Monday, October 12, 2015

Coming Out of the "I Saw A UFO" Closet... So You've Had Your First UFO Sighting. What Now?

 

Several polls, surveys and evidence indicate that despite the "ridicule", most of the public feels we are not the only intelligent lifeforms occupying space.  Perhaps you haven't thought about this much in the past, and then WHAM...it happened...you've "experienced" your own sighting.  You might have even been lucky enough to capture it on video. 
The weirdness is only just beginning...
Be forewarned.  You'll learn much more about "humans" than you ever thought possible talking about sky anamolies, UFOs or ET.  Ill explain how this is so in the next few posts...

 


Okay, I know... It's been quite awhile since I've blogged. 

It was never my intention to wait so long, but life brings people to unexpected places and I guess I'm not immune. 

My intention behind this blog in the first place was to share some life experiences (however strange), and laugh a bit...mostly at myself.

I like to write from an honest personal point of view...but where does that honesty get you if people aren't ready for it yet?  Yet, another unexpected place.

I'll explain.


I led a pretty normal life as a kid.  I went to school, got good grades, participated in extra-curricular activities, stayed out of trouble...and never really focused on the weird or supernatural too much.

I say all that to let people know that I'm not delusional, okay?  Not more than any other comedic and musical artist would be in these nutty times.

Well...I'm beginning to think that at one point during childhood, someone needs to come along and tell us, "ignore a good deal of what you've been told".  Because something is definitely missing. 

Study hard, get good grades, and write your ticket for life.
Money can't buy happiness, yet happiness can't pay the rent.
Anything that you can't see is not real...and sometimes that includes calling "customer service".
There are no such thing as UFOs.

...I think I got the wrong "owners manual".




Coming Out of the "I Saw A UFO" Closet

No one prepares you for an experience like spotting a UFO, nor how it might effect you afterwards.

It's really not something I ever thought I'd be talking or writing about.  It's not something people talk about very easily...

Mostly because they're afraid of being made fun of for doing so.  I mean, no one really believes in that stuff...right?  It's not something most will bring up during most conversations on the Kardashians or that amazing touchdown.
 
No one wants to be considered a "kook", yet if you look at the data, we seem to have more of a fascination with UFOs than we like to let on...at least in public within earshot of "each other".



There is a disconnect here.

Something's getting way lost in translation...

I put that in the back of my mind...waaaay back...when I had my first few "sightings". This included watching a bright red and white light move in a perfectly straight line towards the west one day at Red Rock Canyon, and seeing a cylinder shaped object bursting through the night atmosphere of Joshua Tree, moving in the direction of 29 Palms.   


I had stories to tell, but no physical proof, no videos and no photos.  People would believe the story of my experience, or not.

Then, quite
the "unexpected" happened.  I witnessed this very bright light hovering in the sky on a very windy Los Angeles Saturday afternoon in March. 

To recap, I watched it for about a minute or so before running in my apartment to get my camera.  Once I got it, I had a hell of a time keeping the image from shaking because I was zooming in so closely, and I was a little nerved.  What was this?  It was very bright, was hovering, but also dynamically changing shape.  

All I could think of at the time was a clip from a documentary on UFOs I saw awhile back where a woman claimed she had never seen a "plane HOE-VER like that".  I thought her pronunciation of hover was hilarious, so in my moments of filming this thing, feeling slightly out of my body, in my nervousness, it was the only thing I could think of to say... 



"Balloons don't HOE-VER like that..."

I filmed it on and off for a little less than 7 minutes or so, before I got this distinct impression that I was invading someones space...I don't know why.  All of a sudden I felt really strange.  

"This is beginning to freak me out," I whispered to myself, before abruptly shutting off the camera and going inside.     

If it was a balloon, it would have blown away from view in very short time...but this thing hung in the sky, changing shapes and colours the whole time.

I was really busy with work and school at the time, so I didn't get a chance to even review what I filmed until a few days later.  I was blown away.

I knew whatever I caught on video was not conventional, but that wasn't enough.  I had this need to share, compare, and listen to other's experiences...especially to determine if they had seen anything similar.  This is when I thought I'd try posting on one of the many internet forums talking about stuff like this.




Finding the Forums
 

I remembered visiting a very popular forum on the "paranormal" a few months earlier where a guy posted a UFO video sent to him from a friend who was boating near where he lived.  

The nighttime video showed these very odd lights revolving and flashing on and off above the boat in the distance.
 
It was hard to define what exactly it was.


I read just about every post and reply, expecting for people to constructively add their input into what this video might be.   Or maybe even share their similar experiences.

I was a little disappointed.  The few who would sincerely comment on the video were eventually drowned out by a bunch of posts claiming his friend had merely photographed a bunch of balloons.

  
The more he provided the thread with more pertinent information...like how far the boat was away from the lights, the time of night, the weather...what was going on that night...etc...the more those people piled on..."it's a balloon"!  It was like we had unwittingly stumbled into the last half of a very sad and inadequate birthday party.


Finally, the poster just gave up...obviously frustrated, stating more than once that he found it very ODD members of a "paranormal" forum would work SO HARD to debunk this little video.  What's the point?


Well, I tried not to focus on this while writing my first forum thread and posting two versions of the March 2013 sighting.  My video is different in that it was captured in broad daylight.

I shouldn't have been surprised by the reactions. 
While there were several who showed gratitude for the post and shared some of their experiences, about half went all....


...well...they went all "balloon" on me!

One guy even got a still shot from THIS blog...the same one below...and posted it on the forum, comparing it to my videos, using it as a standard for what a daytime "balloon sighting" looks like. 




You got that, right?  Someone uses my own picture to disprove the same picture?  What the heck is that?

Another said that it had to be a balloon, because in the video I said, "balloons don't hover like that."  Hmmmmm... If you're going to use reverse psychology on me, at least try not to do it backwards!

I explained the sighting further, stating that it was far too windy for a "balloon" to stay in the sky that long...(I observed it for over ten minutes)...

 
A few balloons tied together, about three feet wide at the most, could not be seen from at least 6 miles away.

 
LED balloons would not show up like this... "during the day!!!"


I looked and looked and looked, and saw no videos of LED balloons flying around in the sky during the day.

Not a one...

Balloon, balloon, balloon...the replies went...  


Human nature implies that we won't always see the same thing in the same way, one person said...reminding us of the "dress" that so famously made some noise this past winter.  Was it blue or yellow?

That is a good point, I thought, but it might not be the best comparison in this case.  At least everyone agreed it was a "dress"...  (Of course, I'm sure SOMEONE managed to insist it was a balloon, someplace, somewhere.)

Then I thought of the guy with the video of the boat. For just a few minutes, his suspicions about who was visiting that forum and "why" began to resonate with me...

But in the long run, I had to ignore all that and just enjoy the experience.  I never posted the video insisting that it was "ET"...it could well be some kind of military drone we don't know about yet.  (Why they would put flashing coloured lights on a drone in broad daylight on a Saturday over a major city is beyond me, but I wasn't the only one to take notice.) 






And when it came down to it, I really wasn't looking for approval, nor did I need any more "confirmation" of what I saw.  (If you find yourself posting similar sincere (not hoaxed) material in a forum, I find it helps to go in with that attitude.)

After adjusting the gamma in a few more of the edits, it was even more obvious that what I filmed wasn't at all conventional.  I was pretty much ready to leave it at that. 

I didn't need anyone to convince me that I didn't videotape a balloon...I already knew that.

I had to keep things in perspective.  Up until that point, I had only experienced a few sightings that I could "talk" about.  It was kinda cool having something to show on video...  I expected that I'd be talking about the event on and off for awhile to come.  


Until the unexpected happened. 

I "accidentally" filmed another one...

 
That story will be told in the next section...part 2.