Here is issue 121, part 2. Very Short Poems. Recall that we had so much fantastic work, we took twice the number of poems we planned and released the issue in 2 parts. Enjoy!

 

A friend of mine had a close encounter with a UFO many years ago, in a hot granite quarry in Indiana. He doesn't like to talk about it.  That's an understatement. Several years ago, I got him to tell me the story which, to that point, he had only told his wife. Getting the story out of him was difficult. One thing is clear: Bill is not after attention. When he told it to me, he behaved like someone being tortured.

 

Years ago, I read a book by Keith Thompson titled Angels and Aliens. Thompson argues that we've gone wrong in thinking that UFO sightings are either real objects from outer space ("true belief") OR that people are either making up the stories, or have just misinterpreted visual experiences of natural phenomena ("debunking"). Heavily influenced by Carl Jung, who himself wrote a book about UFOs, Thompson writes that it's best to think of experiences of seeing strange things in the sky—which have gone on throughout human history—as examples of the richness of the human spirit, and its quest to encounter the unknown. After reading that book, I disaffiliated from the ranks of believers and skeptics. 

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So, Bill climbed down off his giant dump truck in the quarry and walked up on an object floating about 20 feet off the floor of the quarry. He thought the object was about 12 feet wide, 3 feet deep at its center, and, to Bill's dismay, roughly saucer-shaped. It stood stock-still in empty air. Let me resort to bullet points on some of the most compelling aspects of Bill's narrative. Almost all of these points were Bill's reluctant replies to my questions.

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• The object made no sound. Later he realized that that the ambient sounds he would normally be hearing in the quarry were dampened.

• Although roughly saucer-shaped, the circular, outer edge "didn't make sense," said Bill. To paraphrase, Bill was saying the top and bottom sides of the object joined together at the edge in a way that doesn't exist in geometry. 

• Similarly, the surface was not smooth, not metallic, not rough, not matte, not shiny or reflective. Not opaque, not transparent, not translucent. All Bill could add, with great frustration, was that it was "nothing like any of those. I can see it in my head, but I don't have words to explain it."

• Bill thinks he watched the object for 2 or 3 minutes. The ambient sound returned to normal and the object "sort of disassembled and folded up on itself and then was gone."

• As uncomfortable as Bill is now with the experience, he said that he was completely calm while viewing the object. Not just calm, but unnaturally calm. A calm he had never felt and hasn't felt since.
   

One of the reasons Bill won't tell the story, he said, was that it was hot sunny day in a rock quarry. He knows what people would think. Too hot. Too sunny. Too much sun on Bill's head. What makes me sad about Bill's experience is his shame. I have no idea what happened to Bill that day, but I wish he could find that otherworldly peace again.

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Thanks for reading! And, as always, thanks to our editorial team.

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Dale