I've rumbled on about that elusive "UFO" of mine so often, I thought I should tell you all about it. What are we all here for on this Earth but to entertain our neighbours ? But ... I'm sure I'll regret writing about it ... sooner or later. So, there I was, busy birding around Rough Island in N. Ireland, as I sometimes did. Nothing " of note" had been seen, and I had just got back to the car, when I looked up over the (large) extent of water and up there ... a long way up there ... higher than it looks in my drawing up there, about 200 m up maybe.. .... yes, up there, was that thing. It was Up There all right. Rather insolently, absolutely silent as the grave, black as night, it stayed there, completely static. Those edges were sharp as a knife. It was big ... hefty-looking. Beefy. Featureless. Other-Worldly. Like a huge, dark, silent PE teacher in the sky. But not as frightening. " I know what you're all thinking The silly fool's been drinking " ( no, no time for daft poems)(and I don't drink) No ...you're thinking, that's a mirage you old fool. Old, yes. Fool, yes. Mirage, no. I watched it for a good, if odd, 15 minutes or so. With binoculars. Yes. It's hard to keep track of time when you're watching something like that. I've seen loads and loads of mirages, all over the place. And all sorts of optical effects, from common as muck to ultra-rare, including the elusive but beautiful Upper Tangent Arc. Have any of you seen one of those. No ! So there. Not only that, my photograph of it , the UTA that is, got published on the back cover of "Weather", the top UK meteorology mag. Hah !! They're rare, that's the thing. That thing was no mirage .... far too high up, no trace of shimmering or wobbling, like wot mirages do, and conditions were totally wrong for mirage formation. Anyhow, a mirage of what exactly ? Unfortunately, there was nobody else around to see it. Nobody who could tell me it was an experimental aircraft from some secret Air force base , and locals saw it quite often. Nobody to tell me it was a before-its-time drone which some local flew around the area totally silently and the size of several houses. I was on my own with this one. Plus .... Nobody to photograph it. But ...what was even odder about it, was this... why didn't I take a picture ? I always kept an instamatic camera in the car, this was way before mobiles and the like. It was there so I could take pictures of anything interesting, which was exactly what that thing was, whatever it might be. But ... I didn't take a picture of it. I'll say that again. I didn't take a picture of it. I wasn't afraid of it. I was absolutely fascinated. Totally. Wouldn't you be ? Now, please tell me, why the hell didn't I take a bloody picture of the stupid thing. Especially as I had a camera in the car for that very purpose. Or more simply ... why didn't I watch it for longer? Why didn't I get my telescope out of the boot ? As I said, I felt no fear of it. So why did I go ? I don't know. I got in the car, and drove back to where we were staying. Calm as you like. Another odd thing ... for several days I had trouble remembering where I'd seen it. Not the "seeing" of it ... just where I was at the time. That is odd indeed. I did that drawing up there about a week later. I expect I'll come to regret writing about all that.
Almost certainly. I don't even believe in bloody UFOs anyway. I believe people think they see them. But that's a different thing entirely. However, let's not forget. In a Universe infinite in space and time ... Everything that can happen will happen. And it will happen an infinite number of times. Think about it. On the plus side ... ... it might get me lots of new readers. But they'd be Temporary ... like Achilles.
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AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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