Where do I begin my unique story? Well now, I guess a good a place as
any is at the very beginning, when I saw him or should I say his vessel
for the very first time.
As I recollect it was sometime in the third week of July 1999, on
a beautiful crisp and cool night, while standing on the balcony of my
small and meagerly appointed home in Tasmania, which faced the
banks of the beautiful Tamar River. The location offered generous
panoramas of the Batman Bridge and surrounding river frontage. It
was roughly around 9 o’clock in the evening and I recollect there was a
moonless sky above me.
The night air was so clear and clean with zero pollution, as the
westerly winds predominately blow from one side of the island to the
other. They begin from as far away as the Indian Ocean, thousands of
kilometers away, rounding Cape Town at the bottom of Africa. Another
benefit of living in a rural area was having the advantage of no street
lights interfering with the view from above, giving me 100 per cent
visibility.
One of the many passions of mine has and always will be, staring
at the stars on a crystal-clear night. Why even as a young boy I would
drag out my sleeping bag and lie out on the back lawn while gazing
skyward for hours at a time, mesmerized by the amazing vista above
me. I would lay there and think of the possibilities of distant Worlds,
trying to imagine what they would look like. Is there any type of plant
2 MR E.
life on those Worlds? And, who or what type of beings live on them? Also,
on that odd occasion when I was lucky enough, I’d catch a glimpse of
an asteroid’s last moments, watching it fall towards Earth in a white hot
death roll.
Why even being a new father hadn’t dampened my interest in stargazing,
generally most evenings that’s where you’ll find me, especially
after a hard day’s work. I’d star gaze while having a coffee and a roll your-own
cigarette on my balcony, mainly so I don’t smoke inside the
house for young Timothy’s benefit. Relaxing and unwinding watching
for asteroids, orbiting satellites and space junk to drift by.
I gave my glasses a good clean on the corner of my flannelette
shirt, so I could see more clearly. There was nothing worse than gazing
through dirty spectacles at the fine details above. It never ceased to
amaze me just how much crap was floating around up there, including
parts of old multistage rockets and old satellites no longer in use.
Suddenly my eyes were drawn to a particularly bright object, a
satellite moving rapidly from East to West. Wow! Isn’t that amazing!
I thought. I could even see its anti-clockwise rotation. Once again I
thought, how clear the air was here.
What I saw next defied everything you ever heard from governmental
authorities, especially in regard to UFOs. ‘Officially they don’t exist’.
However, I was following the path of the satellite when a vessel swerved
out of its way. In doing so, the reflection from the sun hit what I thought
was the underside of its hull, exposing all of its texture and details,
especially its overall size. It was huge, bloody huge in fact.
Guessing by the size of the satellite it missed, it was roughly the
size of a large family home, of course that’s only the one side I was able
to see. God knows how tall it was. Although, the texture of the side
facing me was pitted and rough like an orange skin. In some strange
way it appeared to be almost organic. Only when the vessel changed its
course did it come into view, which made me assume it has some type
of stealth capability, because once it had dodged the oncoming satellite,
it vanished from my sight.
So, there I was, alone on my balcony with 101 questions running
through my mind. I started imagining all types of creatures which may
inhabit this vessel, or perhaps it was a fully automated probe of some
kind? But as I said before, it was a crisp, cool night and I was freezing
my ass off out there, it was now time for me to get back inside next to
the fire and warm up.
After rinsing my coffee mug in the kitchen sink, I sat down in my
favorite lounge chair, right next to the blazing fire, the warmth coming
from it was both calming and comfortable.
My wife Stella was staring at me rather strangely. “What’s wrong
Jim? Looks like you’ve just seen a ghost,” she said, after turning around
from viewing the TV.