� � �� Prior to that March night, the previous summer,one afternoon, a friend and I had been discussing UFOs.� In our ignorant, unsophisticated minds, we thought it would be neat if a UFO were to land right then, right there, in my front yard. We discussed how neat it would be, how famous we would be, wondered if we would be able to communicate with them, decided we WOULD be able to communicate with them since they would be, obviously, creatures of great intelligence and would be able to bridge the communication gap even if we couldn't. � We thought it would be the greatest thing we had ever seen. � We thought it would be the greatest thing we had ever experienced. �We thought it would be the greatest thing ANYONE had ever ever experienced. � As it turns out ignorance was not bliss. As it turned out it was not the GREATEST thing anyone could experience.�. It was, instead the most HORRIBLE thing anyone could experience. The aliens, to coin a phrase, were more "ALIEN" then I could ever imagine.

�� I can't say that the aliens landed in my front yard. � I don't know where they landed.� All I know is that they DID land. � But before I knew that, the whole thing started innocently enough . . .

We lived in Houston Texas when I was 14. � I had received a telescope for Christmas and not wanting to take any chance of somehow "ruining" it, I had waited until March when the weather was usually decidely warm.� I was afraid that taking the telescope outside, in December, into cold air and bringing it back into a warm house might somehow crack or distort the lenses.� That showed what I knew about the "fragility" of telescopes!� Nevertheless, it was a prized possession and I was taking no chances, determined to wait until March when I was sure that I had reached the earliest possible safe time. � Outside, in the backyard, I set up the telescope and prepared to look at the moon.� I hadn't been engrossed in the craters and plains of the moon for too long before a strange sound in the sky, coming out of the south, caught and held my attention.� At first I thought it might be a heliocopter because it was making a thrumming, whoshing noise.� But then a another element entered the sound cacophony. � It suddenly sounded like thunder had also joined the aerial phenomenon.� But that couldn't be, of course! The sky was perfectly clear from horizon to horizon.� The full moon made that perfectly clear! Understandably intrigued, I turned to see what might be approaching our house.

���It didn't take me long to get both excited and puzzled. � A light had come on, illuminating the entire section of our neighborhood where I stood.� I was excited because I had never seen such a golden white light coming out of the sky before. And I was puzzled because I couldn't figure out why all the neighbors weren't out in their yards checking out this strange light! � Afterall, the light was bright enough to light up several backyards almost as light as day!� And if the neighbors somehow were failing to see the strange light through their open windows (and several houses around me DID have partly open shades, open enough to see the light surely!)then how were they missing the sound?� It was loud enough to be heard over the TV sets I could see going through the open windows in the houses around me!� Why was I the only one witnessing this phenomenon? For a moment I wondered if I I was in some kind of time warp!� I thought that maybe I was captured in some kind of time flux where I and the strange light existed alone.� But then I dismissed that as too improbable,� Surely there was a more mundane reason?� I just couldn't figure out what it might be.� But then I didn't have any more time to wonder about that.� The light was suddenly exstinguished.

� � �� I could still see the object dimly since it was illuminated by soft blue and green lights which were positioned at it's bottom edge.� The object swerved in the air, crossed the intervening space and came to a stop above a tree in the back yard of the house across the street from ours.� This house was perpendicular to ours so I had a good vantage point from which to observe it from our back yard.� Quickly, lest it leave, I turned the telescope around away from the moon and pointed it at the object. �

� � �� I located the object fairly easily with the telescope since the object was fairly huge and not easy to miss.� Through the lens of the telescope I saw a very puzzling, yet awesome sight.�. The object was triangular shaped resting on a base that was probably only a couple of feet thick. � The base was where the blue and green lights were positioned.� Moving the telescope upwards, I saw that there were two rectangular shaped windows on the side of the craft.� I looked through the telescope into the rear window.� In that window I saw what was clearly a corridor or hallway, curving away out of sight.� I say that it was clearly a hallway since it had walls and a door or two that I could see before it curved out of sight.� Suddenly, a figure, in silhouette, came towards me down that hallway. I could only see the figure from about the waist up, but it was clearly manlike.� The figure went out of sight between the two windows.� I quickly moved the telescope over to the front window. � Before the figure came into sight I saw that the front window showed me a view that looked like the inside of the cockpit of a 747.� Im the midst of all those lights, dials, gauges and other equipment banks was a contour shaped couch like you would see in the space shuttle.�. The figure came into sight, slipped into the couch, touched a few controls and the craft began slowly moving away.� The golden white light came back on.� Then the craft began to ascend into the sky.� Like a bottle rocket on the fourth of July it zoomed into the sky until it was just a pinprick of light, then it was gone.

� � �� I said in the paragraph above that the craft was both puzzling and yet awesome.� It was puzzling because it hung in the sky, apparently seventy five feet up, as if it was somehow hooked to the sky.� In other words it made no sound! It just hung there without any motor sound at all!� Also it was puzzling because of it's apparent interior dimensions.� From the outside it appeared to be only twenty feet around and yet that hallway went for quite a ways!� It was awesome because of all the equipment I saw in that cockpit.��My father had been in the air force and I was pretty sure that the equipment I saw in that cockpit was beyond the current state of the art in 1960.� Years later I realized that the equipment I saw in that cockpit was computer monitors, computers much smaller than then available!� It was also awesome because of the speed it attained as it zoomed up into the sky!�. I had no sure way of knowing how fast it went, but I was sure that it was no heliocopter and that it went faster than any plane we currently had in the sky.� HAD I really seen a genuine alien ship? � I had no way of knowing for absolutely sure -- THEN!� So I simply went into the house, putting the telescope away.� I wanted to tell someone what I had seen, but I didn't want to be laughed at.� Also, I was still disturbed by the fact that no one else had seemed to notice the strange phenomena.� So I just kept quiet, not having any ready, hard proof. The proof came later that evening -- in the terrible, horrible events that happened then.

� � �� Somewhere in the middle of the night (subsequently, I determined that the hour was midnight) I awoke to the unnerving sight of my bedroom being filled with that same golden white light I had seen earlier in the sky.� I don't mean that the golden white light was coming in my window! � No.� The golden white light was IN my bedroom.� In that confined space, the light was shattering, overpowering, blinding!� I employ no hyperbole here.�. I was actually temporarily blinded after staring into that uncanny light for several nonplussed moments. Worse yet, I could hear my father screaming in his bedroom like he was being murdered! �. In an understandable panic, I decided I needed to get out of the house!� I knew there was nothing I could do for him or myself as long as I could no longer see.� And in any case I was not going to try to play the hero.� I was going to let someone else deal with this.� Like the police. But first I had to get out of the house!

� � �� It was easier said than done.� Because I could not see where I was or where I was going the familiar became the unfamiliar.� In my increasing panic -- because I KNEW I had to get out of there! -- I decided that perhaps I wasn't blind afterall!� Perhaps it was just a matter of getting more light?� Looking back I see the irony of this thought and situation.� Here the house was literally flooded with light and I thought I needed more light? So I ran searching frantically for every and any light fixture I could fumble my way to.� Miraculously I found several!� Having found a light fixture, I frantically tried to make it come on!�. But it was just no use! � In my panic crazed mind I then thought that the house must be filled with some kind of black smoke that was obscuring the light coming from the light fixtures.� So I pressed my eyes right up against the light bulbs. � But it was still no good! � And the sounds from my father's bedroom had now ominously quieted down.� I thought it was the quiet before the real storm. � I had to get out of the house!� I HAD to!� Somehow I made it to the kitchen, out into the screened in patio and thus out into the yard!�����

� � �� At that time we didn't have a phone. If I was going to call the police I would have to use the neighbor's phone.���I glanced at my watch hoping that it wasn't terribly late so I could disturb them without unduly alarming them or aggravating them.� It was five after midnight.� I stood there a few moments in a quandry. Perhaps I didn't need to call the cops afterall?� Perhaps I had imagined the whole thing?� Perhaps it had even been a nightmare? � I looked towards the house trying to see if I could see the light that I had seen in my bedroom and I listened to see if I could hear any sounds of distress. � The house was quiet at that moment and I could see no light.� But then I realized that I wouldn't be able to see any light coming from my bedroom from where I stood.� I was at the opposite side of the house.��And it was equally true for lack of sound.� My father's bedroom was also on the other side of the house and unless he was yelling so loud that he was in danger of bursting his vocal cords I wouldn't be able to hear him from where I stood.� The answer was obvious.� I would have to circle the house and play it by "ear" -- no pun intended.

� �� When I had made it all the way around the house, I got all the confirmation that I didn't want! � My terror had not been the product of my imagination nor had it been the product of a nightmare!� It was still a "nightmare", but in this case it was a real nightmare.� And yet I was puzzled. � I saw no light coming from my bedroom window, I heard no sound coming from my father's bedroom, but there WAS a light coming from his bedroom window.� It was an unnatural light, though.� It was a deep dark blue light.� I knew that he had no such light in that room and I knew then that whatever was going on was still going on. � It must have just changed character. All thoughts of calling the cops fleeing from my mind, I crept forward to investigate this new phase of the phenomena.� Why had the LIGHT changed color?

� �� The windows in my father's bedroom stretched from nearly the floor to nearly the ceiling.� Because the windows were so tall and because the venetian blinds were pulled up a ways, I could see in through the window I was facing if I got down on my knees and peered upwards.� Afraid of what I would see if I looked in through that terrible blue light and yet afraid not to look, I got down on my knees in the dew coated grass and peered cautiously in.

� �� Curiously enough, once I had my face pressed against the screen I could not see the deep blue light at all.� It was as if the light was outside the window -- not coming from the room itself.� And yet away from the window a few inches the light DID appear to be coming from inside the room.� This was an anomaly I could not resolve and since nothing or no seemed to have noticed my presence I peered more intently into the room.

�� Looking more intently into the room, forgetting the curious phenomena of the presentation of the light for a moment, at first I saw nothing more than the interior of my folk's bedroom.� Then a figure came into the range of my vision.� WAS I seeing what I thought I was seeing?� Yes. � It was a manlike figure, but I didn't think it was a man because it was chalky white all over:body and clothes.� But I couldn't be sure that it wasn't a man since the figure had it's back turned towards me.� Perhaps it was a man dressed very strangely for whatever odd reason he might have?� That theory was quickly quashed when the figure walked right through the wall beside the dresser where it had been standing as if the wall was not even there.� At that moment, despite how wide awake I was, I was sure I was dreaming.� "NO ONE can walk through walls," I told myself.� But I didn't have time to dwell on that arguement with myself, nor my awe, nor my feeling that it was all a dream in any case. The venetian blinds in front of me were suddenly pulled upwards towards the top of the window!

� �� In 1960 I had never seen a picture of what an alien looked like.� Nevertheless, I was sure that I was NOT seeing an angel!� My father later claimed that an angel had came into his room and talked to him.� NO!� This was NOT an angel!� Standing before me, looking at me dispassionately, as if I were a bug or less than a bug was a figure that was about five feet tall, who had a hairless head, who had almost no mouth, just slits for nostrils, no apparent ears and who had the biggest, blackest, deepest almond shaped, uptilted eyes that I had ever seen.� Those eyes had no pupils.� They reminded me more of insect eyes than of human or human like eyes.� I thought I could be captured by those eyes and fall forever!

� �� That "thing" was staring at me so dispassionately that one on level�(that was shock I was sure)� I felt that it wasn't even looking at me.� And yet I kne w, down in the marrow of my bones that it knew I was there.� Terrified, I cowered, tr ying to mak e myself as small as possible.� Then it did the worst possible thing it could do! � It spoke in my mind!� At first I thought it's mouth had surely moved -- "no one can really speak in anyone's mind!" I thought, in dazed terror.� But then I realized that, indeed it mouth was not moving nor had it moved.� It said to me the words that would haunt me for years and years to come.� "We WILL be back for you!"� I didn't need to hear anymore!� I got up. bolted away and ran for blocks!

� �� When I got to the end of Parker Street, which was the street our house was located on, I stopped and stood there desperately telling myself it had all been a nightmare.� After what seemed like twenty minutes or so, I had myself calmed down enough and convinced enough to go back home and check things out.� When I got to the house, all WAS calm.� I looked at my watch, thinking that I hoped it wasn't too late so that the folks wouldn't be too mad at me for being out real late.� It was now 2:15!� I couldn't believe it! According to my calculations it should only be 12:30 or so. � I had left the house at midnight, the confrontation outside my dad's window had only taken a few moments � (no matter how "LONG" it had seemed)� and I had only been away from the house for fifteen or twenty minutes! � What had happened to those nearly two hours of time?� That was a question whose answer was going to give me nightmares for years!