Yes, I have gone on at length about it in other threads, even over at
The Paracast.
Not a fast story but here goes.. It was the summer of '75 or '76 so I was either 11 or 12 at the time. I was in the back of my brother's van which was a '74 Plymouth Tradesman all kitted out as his love machine with the carpets, bed, all that in back. His girlfriend was in the passenger seat and I was sitting on the bed in back. I could see pretty well out the windshield but my only views out the sides were small plexiglass tinted vanity windows maybe a foot in diameter.
We were waiting to turn onto a larger road from a residential neighborhood when both of them in front pointed out what I described as a
'fluroescent tube with a red light at the end' Very low, just above the treetops. That side of the road is undeveloped wetlands. It seemed to parallel us as we went into town. I got one more really good look at it through those vanity windows.
That view I remember clearly. I saw rows and rows of lights, which struck me as odd. At the time I had a toy Goodyear blimp that looked just like that, you could change the message it scrolled with plastic inserts. Never forgot that.
It scared the crap out of me and my older brother took great delight in making sure that continued as long as possible. Shortly after that he moved out to Wisconsin and one day I get a long letter he wrote. I no longer have it and regret whatever I did with it. Bear in mind this isn't more than a year after we saw that thing and there was a huge amount of family turmoil at that time, mostly involving my brother. He made up a huge story about seeing the exact same craft again and this time it hit him with light, he had lost time. Very, very detailed. Naturally I believed it.
What he had not expected was that I contacted MUFON and Ted Bloecher who in turn called an investigator out in Wisconsin who repeatedly called my brother trying to get an interview. Of course he never gave it, he made all of it up and later admitted it grudgingly. To this day I am not laughing about that - someone I trusted and loved lied to me so convincingly for a long time for no purpose other than torturing me. He was having a big joke. Between that and
The UFO Incident I was terrified something would come in to grab me at night. Made me sick and still does.
Much, much later I found that it was likely an advertising blimp. Not Goodyear, but newspaper archives reveal that they were active in the area at that time. I also recall a deputy sheriff saying that to my mom - she was a waitress and knew all the cops.
This is one of those cases where my memory really did record an excellent image and as an adult who is no longer afraid I have gone back many times to recall what I can and it's spotty. What I do recall is that one image where I saw rows of small lights and I honestly said to myself 'that does not look very extraterrestrial' There must've been a reason my brain snapped that pic and remembered the toy, but Fear and deliberate manipulation kept a more rational explanation away for a long time.
I also had someone I knew a long time be revealed as a complete bullshit artist - Stolen Valor. He had an incredibly detailed account of his combat service in Vietnam that later turned out to be utterly fake.
So call that birth of a skeptic. Even people you know and love will lie to you for their own purposes. What did Deep Throat tell Agent Mulder? Trust No One. I'll take that a step further and take a phrase prom Gorbachev - trust but verify.
