At the Risk of Sounding Crazy #2

Today I am sharing my second encounter with something odd and mysterious that I saw in the sky, something that I still cannot explain.

Interestingly enough, just after I posted about seeing the StarlinkX satellites and before I posted any of these stories, a blog reader shared her own sighting with me. It was eerily similar to the one I am sharing today. Talk about things that give you the shivers!

Teachinmama Blog, August 18, 2013

My second experience with something abnormal in the sky included my children, although they never knew what was playing out in the sky above them.

#2, Urbana, Illinois, mid to late 1980s.

The Urbana Park District used to offer free movies in the park during the summer. (VCRs were still new, and so most people did not have the luxury of watching a movie any time they wished in the comfort of their own home.) Since we had a large family and no money, movies in the park were a perfect activity for us.

CrestviewPark on Florida Avenue was the location. Craig had an evening class to teach or a meeting to attend (I don't remember which), so I loaded up the car with blankets, bug spray, and bambinos, and we headed over to stake a claim on a choice grassy spot. Gradually the sky darkened and the movie began.

Now, I am a horse lover, but I am NOT a unicorn lover, so the film, The Last Unicorn, didn't hold my interest. I had lain back on the blanket and was finding constellations in the sky while the kids focused on the giant screen, their attention completely captured by the movie. As I lay there, suddenly an irregular black shape, very flat and huge, abruptly came in from the south and stopped right over us. 

I cannot guess how big it was, but I could see it because it was blocking out the stars. I knew it was not a cloud; it was black and flat, plus it was moving against the direction of the prevailing wind. And clouds don't just stop, holding in place motionless. 

The black shape did not change in size or scope, and like a blanket, hung over the park. I got the sense that it was massively large and, just as clouds can be, could be seen from several areas in town should anyone look up. (And maybe they did; I don't know. I never heard any reports on the phenomenon. But then, I didn't make a report, either.)

I also got a sense of... foreboding? Oppression? Brooding? It's difficult to describe although I still remember the feeling all these years later.

No other adults noticed the shape as it loomed over us. I remember feeling a need to press myself down against the ground in the hopes that whatever it was could not "see" me. And I was frightened for my children. Should I gather them up and run? Shout out to the other adults in the park and point to the sky? What should I do?

Before I could decide, the flat, black shape began moving, reversing its direction and going back in the direction from which it had come. I remained pressed flat in the grass, shaken by what I had seen. When I finally sat up, I did ask another parent or two if they had noticed anything unusual in the sky, but the people to whom I spoke had not. (And I did not tell them what I had observed over the park.)

I remember that, when the movie was over at last, I hustled my children into the car and home, glancing up at the sky in case whatever I had seen returned. I even ducked down a bit as we walked across the grassy park and back to our car, instinctually trying to make myself smaller and less visible.

So, what had I seen? I have no idea. It could not have been a cloud; they do not look like that or act that way, in daylight or at night. Clouds simply do not swoop in, hover motionlessly, then suddenly whisk themselves off in the direction from which they just came.

The sense of vulnerability coupled with helplessness at knowing I could not protect my children from whatever it was I saw returns whenever I think back to the incident and has remained with me ever since. And sometimes I look up at the night sky, wondering if perhaps I shall see it again.

I hope I never do.

----

Just reading that old journal entry has made my heart beat faster. I can still feel that sense of fear as I laid there on that blanket, wondering if my kids were safe and what I could do to protect them.

Unlike the white disk I'd seen in the sky as a child, I had no doubt that what I was seeing was really there. I didn't turn away or close my eyes, hoping it would be gone when I looked again. In fact, I felt so threatened by it that I didn't dare look away.

Nearly forty years later, I still feel shaky whenever I remember that night.

Tomorrow I will share my third encounter, the most terrifying of the three.

Stay 'tooned.

Look! Up in the Sky!

 Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's...

Nope! Not him! But it sure was a crazy experience, and one that gave me more than a little pause as it unfolded. (Screenshot of the cover of the very first Superman comic book taken from Wikipedia.)

I've written before that I am an early riser and that I enjoy looking at the night sky when I take Pepper out to do her business. Just recently I've posted pictures of the moon in a bank of clouds and of a shooting star I happened to catch. But this morning I saw something that I wasn't sure I was seeing.

Where normally I would see the Big Dipper, I saw a straight line of stars.

I grabbed my phone and began snapping, still not sure of what I was seeing.

All in all, I counted at least fifteen of them, all in a very straight line. And then they started fading until I could no longer see them. Puzzled, I came back into the house, got Pepper her breakfast, and then came upstairs to do a little research and thinking.

I'll be honest. I have had three experiences with unexplained phenomena in the sky, two of which were absolutely terrifying and none of which I have ever been able to explain. Was this something similar?

The downloaded pictures gave me a clue to the solution. As I enlarged and then compared the pictures of fifteen lights to the other stars sharing the night sky with them, I noticed that the fifteen lights were elongated - that meant they were closer to earth and moving. A Google search gave me the answer.

Lucky me, I'd been outside and looking up just at the right time! I'd seen a string of SpaceX Starlink Satellites! 

Today is March 3 and there was only a two minute window to see them. I'd just happened to be in the right place at the right time. It looks as though I can do the same again for the next few days, too. (As I write this an hour and a half later, the tracker shows that that string is already visible over the Pacific Ocean.)

I mentioned earlier that I have seen some unexplained phenomena. Years after they happened, I finally wrote them down in my journal. I just looked them up and reread them and, not gonna lie, that fear and panic I felt way back when came over me again. I may share them here, I may not.

Something I will share, though, is the March give away. It will be posted tomorrow so stay 'tooned!