Have you encountered ETs?

[Hypoxia]

I have been touched by a Martian.

Time : early 1990s. We'd been software engineers at the insurance HQ long enough for one-month vacations. We drove our battered old RV from our SF Bay Area home to the USA SouthWest for a month of fresh air. We stopped at a motel for a night of longer showers and bigger beds. I jacked the Toshiba laptop into the provided Ethernet port (this was before WiFi) to check on email and news -- and saw an interesting item.

NASA-JPL were celebrating some anniversary with an unprecedented open-house at the Goldstone deep-space tracling facility on a military base in the middle of the Mohave Desert. Timing and direction were right; we went.

90-meter (300-foot) diameter dishes were scattered around the extended desert site, tracking and communicating with various deep-space probes to the outer planets. We saw techies at control screens, yada yada. We saw NASA-JPL project demos.

One of those was the first Mars rover (it had not yet been launched). The JPL team had set up inside a conference room. I volunteered. I lay down on the carpet. The six-wheel Rover climbed and rolled right over me. Yes, it could navigate bumpy surfaces!

I was run over by a soon-to-be Martian. Ha!

Have YOU had contact with extraterrestrials?

Later I'll report on a flashing light filling the sky at Anza-Borrego, and events at Area 51, and whatever.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I was in the Air Force in the '70s. 'nough said.

 

[Hypoxia]

I was in the Air Force in the '70s. 'nough said.

Details, details. Pixpls. Preferably of Nellis.

 

[49greg]

My wife and I were driving along a rural two lane blacktop a dozen or more years ago, it was at night, and there was a low fog/mist. We seemed to be alone on the prairie that nigh and saw some lights ahead. We were between towns, at least twenty miles from the town ahead of us.

Knowing there was a large ethanol plant up ahead on that side of the road, we assumed that all the lights were from that.

As we got closer we saw two large and bright white lights. They were high up, higher than what I though any of the plant superstructure was, or at least as high. The odd thing about them was they were hard to focus on, and they didn't move as we moved toward the plant, and held position the same distance high up and to the side of the road.

It was really weird, usually as you approach a fixed light their position relative to you appears to change. These didn't. Finally as we got even with the plant they just weren't there. Neither of us saw them go out.

We had been wondering about them for the miles as we approached. The swirling steam coming from the plant, and the coal fired power plant on the other side of the road added to the fog and those lights just didn't compute. It was as if an ultra light with huge bright lights was flying parallel to the road as we drove along.

Another person said there might have been ball lighting rolling along the power lines, except the power lines were on the other side of the road.

So I just don't know what we saw. We drove the same way the next day to see what could have held a light and saw no tower that could have held the lights.

I was years later that I decided it was one of two things. A. we were looking at our headlights reflected in the fog. B. some weird alien thing.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Details, details. Pixpls. Preferably of Nellis.

There was this one night when a big black object cruised down the main street of one of the bases I was stationed at. As it passed, I could see inside and there was this horrible creature inside. It was talking on a communication device of some kind.

Hold on...

Never mind...it was just President Nixon before he quit being Commander in Chief.

My mind plays tricks on me, much like tricky Dicky did to us.

 

[TxRad]

In the early 70's after i got out of the Marines, I ran a crew at Snow Summit ski resort, above Big Bear City and lake. We were building a new ski run, a new intermediate ski lift, and re-configuring the main ski run. About 8 months worth of work in less than five months of good weather. We worked more or less from daylight to dark.

Most evenings after we knocked off there would be a couple of ice chests of cold beer waiting at the top of the ridge. There was a snack bar that ran during the winter and concrete tables and benches. It also had a great view to the east out over the national forest.

The alien part came in with the weird balls of light that flitted about above the ridges and forest. Red, blue, yellow, and golden balls of light. Some nights we would see only two or three and on other nights there would be several dozen. What they were, I have no idea but they were spooky.

They would fly up and down and sideways. They would hoover and then shoot off in one direction or another. Sometimes they would just wink out, only to appear great distances away. The weirdest of all were the ones that shot straight up until they disappeared. The only thing is, thinking back on it, I never remember one coming straight down again.

Some of the local guys on the crew said they were normal for the area and had been around forever. What they were no one knew but no one seemed to be worried about it.

 

[49greg]

In the early 70's after i got out of the Marines, ...

The alien part came in with the weird balls of light that flitted about the ridges and forest. Red, blue, yellow, and golden balls of light. Some nights we would see only two or three and on other nights there would be several dozen. What they were, I have no idea but they were spooky.

They would fly up and down and sideways. They would hoover and then shoot off in one direction or another. Sometimes they would just wink out, only to appear great distances away. The weirdest of all were the ones that shot straight up until they disappeared. The only thing is, thinking back on it, I never remember one coming straight down again.

Some of the local guys on the crew said they were normal for the area and had been around forever. What they were no one knew but no one seemed to be worried about it.

I saw a light like that, but it was a one time thing and not alien. I had a few beers and went outside - we lived out in the country in a very very flat prairie state back then.

I could see the nearest neighbor a little over a mile away. The house was surrounded by trees, but they had a light on a power pole that lit up the farm yard. From the distance it was just a dot of light.

The milky way was bright and there was no moon. We had our yard light off. Then I looked in the direction of the neighbor's house and saw their yard light flare up, brightly yellow, then go back to normal. I thought about calling in spite of the late hour, just in case they had some sort of electrical problem.

Then the yellow light went off again, this time off to the side. I had seen a lightning bug flare off about a foot in front of me, lined up perfectly in front of my face. I felt like an idiot.

As for real flying balls of light, my dad was crew on a bomber in the war, he never saw anything like that, but heard about guys who saw stuff like that, they called them foo fighters. As kids we thought they were just stories flyers told. Back in the fifties people discounted stuff like that, and pilots tended not to talk about things they saw.

 

[R. Richard]

Up in the sky is the wrong place to look for aliens. Every day, I see beings driving vehicles, where it's obvious that the driver has never before driven on a road and probably never before seen a motor vehicle. ALIENS!!!

 

[Carnal_Flower]

No but I've had several "unexplained" ghost (?) encounters. Or something.

 

[NotWise]

As for real flying balls of light, my dad was crew on a bomber in the war, he never saw anything like that, but heard about guys who saw stuff like that, they called them foo fighters.

Possibly Saint Elmo's Fire? The Wikipedia article mentions it forming around airplanes.

 

[TxRad]

Possibly Saint Elmo's Fire? The Wikipedia article mentions it forming around airplanes.

Planes in WWII and planes today had and have wicking material on the trailing edge of the wings and tail to bleed off static electricity (Saint Elmo's Fire). One of my Uncles was a turret gunner on a B-17 and saw numerous Foo Fighters. From the stories he told, they were totally independent of any aircraft and had a mind of their own.

He even claimed to have shot several with a .50 Cal with tracers. The rounds he could see went in but had no effect and didn't seem to come out the other side.

When asked what he thought they were, he'd just shrug. "Hell if I know. Just strange and they kept the boredom down."

It took three tours in Nam for me to figure out Boredom in a bomber during a war.

 

[Handley_Page]

I have been touched by a Martian.

NASA-JPL were celebrating some anniversary with an unprecedented open-house at the Goldstone deep-space tracling facility on a military base in the middle of the Mohave Desert. Timing and direction were right; we went.

90-meter (300-foot) diameter dishes were scattered around the extended desert site, tracking and communicating with various deep-space probes to the outer planets. We saw techies at control screens, yada yada. We saw NASA-JPL project demos.

Trying to get any real information about those giant Dishes at places like Goldstone or Park is really not easy.
What's the forward gain on the 90m dish ?

 

[rjordan]

Trying to get any real information about those giant Dishes at places like Goldstone or Park is really not easy.
What's the forward gain on the 90m dish ?

I don't think Goldstone has a 90 meter dish, but I could be wrong. Their largest is 70 m. They also have several 34 m antennas and a 26 m. I found a couple of pdfs which seem to indicate the 70 m antennas have around 73 dBi gain, but one indicated as much as 85 dBi.

The Areceibo antenna is 300 m and has a similar gain--around 73 dBi. Not sure why the much bigger Areceibo dish is so low (!) comparatively, but it's spherical, not parabolic so maybe that has something to do with it.

I haven't been to Goldstone which is about 150 miles from here. I have been to the VLA in New Mexico, though. They have twenty seven 25 meter dishes. Very impressive. You can mostly wander around at will outside. I felt like Jody Foster.

Never had an ET encounter of any kind, though watching coverage of the domestic terrorists at Malheur NWR in Oregon, I'm at a lost as to what planet those people must come from.

rj

 

[beachbum1958]

No but I've had several "unexplained" ghost (?) encounters. Or something.

Ditto, a couple of really unsettling experiences in the trauma unit in Camp Bastion, Helmand Province, Afghanistan

 

[Carnal_Flower]

Maybe we should start another thread. I'd be very interested. The weirdest one of mine occurred in a very spooky museum after hours.

Ditto, a couple of really unsettling experiences in the trauma unit in Camp Bastion, Helmand Province, Afghanistan

 

[beachbum1958]

Maybe we should start another thread. I'd be very interested. The weirdest one of mine occurred in a very spooky museum after hours.

Do tell; I'll show you mine if you show me yours...

 

[Carnal_Flower]

Lol

I used to belong to a study group that met on Friday nights in a kind of creepy alternative museum in LA.

I heard a woman saying Who's There? coming from the dark exhibition space. I thought someone had left a recording on. We checked, no. Heard it again later. Finally they fessed up that ever since they'd installed this collection of antique Christmas ornaments they'd had complaints of people seeing an old woman and hearing voices.

The prof who was there heard it, too. 'Soneone's out there.'

It was at the Museum of Jurassic Technology.

Do tell; I'll show you mine if you show me yours...

 

[Hypoxia]

I don't think Goldstone has a 90 meter dish, but I could be wrong.

You could be right. Our visit was probably around 1993 and memory is fallible. Anyway, they are big boogers. The experience was great, and I get bragging rights for being run over by the first Mars rover.

It was at the Museum of Jurassic Technology.

Haven't been to the MJT yet but I read the book years ago and it's on my bucket list. We might actually get there in a few weeks. I can hardly wait!

Meanwhile we had an anniversary near Area 51 once but we were not abducted nor probed. We were so disappointed.

 

[beachbum1958]

Lol

I used to belong to a study group that met on Friday nights in a kind of creepy alternative museum in LA.

I heard a woman saying Who's There? coming from the dark exhibition space. I thought someone had left a recording on. We checked, no. Heard it again later. Finally they fessed up that ever since they'd installed this collection of antique Christmas ornaments they'd had complaints of people seeing an old woman and hearing voices.

The prof who was there heard it, too. 'Soneone's out there.'

It was at the Museum of Jurassic Technology.

From 2009 until I was released from secondment end of 2012, I worked in the Base Medical Unit, Trauma 1, Camp Bastion (the British Sector). We were dealing mainly with the boys who'd been too critically injured to send on to either Jeddah, Akrotiri, or back to the UK, keeping them stabilised and out of pain as much as possible while they either recovered enough to be sent to a more specialised medical facility, or, as was more usually the case, until they died.

One evening I clocked in to check on a couple of very seriously injured soldiers, and saw a squaddie in full patrol kit, wearing Osprey body armour, Oakleys, desert boots and Bowman headset, and carrying an SA-80 bull-pup. I blew my top; for obvious reasons, no armaments or ordnance was allowed in the hospital, and especially in the trauma unit, and no patrol gear; it was a sterile area, so scrubs only, and no visitors, yet there was a soldier in full pack, armed to the teeth, looking like he'd just come in off patrol, standing by one of the beds, a young lad, I'm going to call him Lt. John Smith, a tank commander with the Blues and Royals who'd been eviscerated and suffered multiple traumatic amputations after stepping on a landmine; he was beyond our help, all I could do was keep him out and wait for him to go, and there was what I thought was one of his squad-mates standing over him armed to the teeth.

Funnily enough, the Senior Nursing Sister was sitting and reading at the Nurses Station 20 feet away, and she didn't seem to notice this guy standing there draped with guns, grenades, and smoke canisters. I went charging up to grab this squaddie and sling him out on his ear, but he turned and grinned at me, saluted and walked past me and out through the airlock. When he turned and saluted, I saw his name plate on the front of his Osprey; John Smith, and his Blues & Royals insignia, his non-standard Mecanix gloves some of the guys used to beg, steal or borrow from their pals in the American units, and even the small kukri knife in a brown scabbard fixed to the front of his body armour, and the same scar on the bridge of his nose as my patient in the bed not 5 feet from me. I heard the power door open and close, and then I wondered how he'd done that, as the doors only operated for those of us carrying RFID badges, to stop people randomly wandering into the clean areas. As the doors closed, the crash alarms went off because John Smith had finally passed away.

I asked the nurse once all the activity had died down and I'd called it if she'd seen a fully armed soldier standing by John Smith's bed and she looked at me like I was crazy. However, some of the other doctors also told me that on occasion they'd seen fully-mobbed-up soldiers leaving the trauma unit when they knew damned well there were none in there capable of moving, let alone walking, or seen glimpses of young men in full battledress reflected in the scrub-room mirrors. I'm still not sure what to make of it, I have no explanation.

 

[Carnal_Flower]

Agh. Creepy. Very creepy. Reminds me of similar tales I've read about Gettysburg.

I reserve a category in life for "Things I can't explain." They do happen.

From 2009 until I was released from secondment end of 2012, I worked in the Base Medical Unit, Trauma 1, Camp Bastion (the British Sector). We were dealing mainly with the boys who'd been too critically injured to send on to either Jeddah, Akrotiri, or back to the UK, keeping them stabilised and out of pain as much as possible while they either recovered enough to be sent to a more specialised medical facility, or, as was more usually the case, until they died.

One evening I clocked in to check on a couple of very seriously injured soldiers, and saw a squaddie in full patrol kit, wearing Osprey body armour, Oakleys, desert boots and Bowman headset, and carrying an SA-80 bull-pup. I blew my top; for obvious reasons, no armaments or ordnance was allowed in the hospital, and especially in the trauma unit, and no patrol gear; it was a sterile area, so scrubs only, and no visitors, yet there was a soldier in full pack, armed to the teeth, looking like he'd just come in off patrol, standing by one of the beds, a young lad, I'm going to call him Lt. John Smith, a tank commander with the Blues and Royals who'd been eviscerated and suffered multiple traumatic amputations after stepping on a landmine; he was beyond our help, all I could do was keep him out and wait for him to go, and there was what I thought was one of his squad-mates standing over him armed to the teeth.

Funnily enough, the Senior Nursing Sister was sitting and reading at the Nurses Station 20 feet away, and she didn't seem to notice this guy standing there draped with guns, grenades, and smoke canisters. I went charging up to grab this squaddie and sling him out on his ear, but he turned and grinned at me, saluted and walked past me and out through the airlock. When he turned and saluted, I saw his name plate on the front of his Osprey; John Smith, and his Blues & Royals insignia, his non-standard Mecanix gloves some of the guys used to beg, steal or borrow from their pals in the American units, and even the small kukri knife in a brown scabbard fixed to the front of his body armour, and the same scar on the bridge of his nose as my patient in the bed not 5 feet from me. I heard the power door open and close, and then I wondered how he'd done that, as the doors only operated for those of us carrying RFID badges, to stop people randomly wandering into the clean areas. As the doors closed, the crash alarms went off because John Smith had finally passed away.

I asked the nurse once all the activity had died down and I'd called it if she'd seen a fully armed soldier standing by John Smith's bed and she looked at me like I was crazy. However, some of the other doctors also told me that on occasion they'd seen fully-mobbed-up soldiers leaving the trauma unit when they knew damned well there were none in there capable of moving, let alone walking, or seen glimpses of young men in full battledress reflected in the scrub-room mirrors. I'm still not sure what to make of it, I have no explanation.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

Do any of you really want to know the truth...?

 

[Hypoxia]

I'm still not sure what to make of it, I have no explanation.

I have read and heard many similar accounts -- I've been an editor at paranormal-UFO-conspiracy forums -- and I don't know what to make of such. The best I can come up with is that SOMETHING inexplicable happens and we interpret it through current paradigms. Huh? Well, if we see SOMETHING, we might explain it as angels, or demons, or ghosts, or aliens, or atmospheric or cosmic phenomena, depending on what we *expect* to see.

Do any of you really want to know the truth...?

We can make anything "the truth" if we try hard enough.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

'...make anything the truth?' Not according to Euclid.

 

[Hypoxia]

'...make anything the truth?' Not according to Euclid.

Alas, we live in a non-Euclidean universe.

'Truth' is a human construct. 'Reality' is another matter. My definition: Reality is whatever bites your ass. I.e. if it affects you, it's real, whether or not it's true. Thus political-religious-etc zealots with fucktard notions of 'truth' may stomp your blasphemous butt. Their paradigms are bogus but their weapons are sharp -- they are real. Reality trumps truth.

 

[49greg]

Planes in WWII and planes today had and have wicking material on the trailing edge of the wings and tail to bleed off static electricity (Saint Elmo's Fire). One of my Uncles was a turret gunner on a B-17 and saw numerous Foo Fighters. From the stories he told, they were totally independent of any aircraft and had a mind of their own.

He even claimed to have shot several with a .50 Cal with tracers. The rounds he could see went in but had no effect and didn't seem to come out the other side.

When asked what he thought they were, he'd just shrug. "Hell if I know. Just strange and they kept the boredom down."

It took three tours in Nam for me to figure out Boredom in a bomber during a war.

My dad was out in the central pacific in a bomber, he kept a log book of his missions that I ended up with after he died. Those missions were long, and they usually ran to at least eight hours, some much longer. They were often at night usually timed so that they arrived back at their base in the morning.

He once talked about how cold it was. Wind would come in through the gaps around the nose turret and run the length of the plane. There were only a few places to get out of it. Those who could find spots like that would nap once they were out of danger from enemy fighters.

I guess bored would be the word for wanting to nap during a combat mission, knowing that if you didn't find a small atoll at the end of the mission you would go down in the ocean, and chances were if that happened you wouldn't be found.