My not-so-amazing UFO sighting

Warning: this is kind of a boring sighting, but it is the only one I've ever had. Also, when I say "UFO", I simply mean "Unidentified Flying Object", and nothing else.

When I was about 4 or 5 years old (1979 or 1980, spring or summer, central Maine), I opened the back door to see if anyone was playing outside. I looked up in the back yard, looked down the driveway into the street, and didn't see anyone.

Then, I saw something flying. It was only about 6 feet in front of me, and perhaps 10 or 12 feet above the ground. It was small, about 1½ to 2 feet long, and flying slowly (maybe a few inches per second) with a horizontal trajectory toward my back yard. I don't remember it making any sound, nor were there any lights or flames or anything like that.

It looked like a simple rocket shape, and it was mostly white, with some black here and there. It had bold black lettering on the side, but I don't remember what it said. It wasn't anything that was inflated; it was made of plastic or metal. Here is a simple drawing:



I doubt it really said "NASA" on the side; I just put that there to indicate that it said something, in big, bold, black lettering.

I thought it was a toy, a wicked awesome one at that, and I wanted it ... bad. I ran inside to get my shoes and then ran back outside, but I couldn't find hide nor hair of it. I searched my backyard, thinking maybe it landed there, but to no avail. I figured that maybe my older brother (8 or 9 years old at the time) knew which kid in the neighborhood owned that incredible toy, but he had no idea. He said his friend Peter sometimes launches "bottle rockets", so maybe that's what I saw. That sounded good to me, since I didn't know what a "bottle rocket" was exactly, but what I saw looked like a "rocket" at least. I hounded him for weeks to take me to see Peter's bottle rockets, but as it turned out, he was talking about these, which obviously isn't what I saw.

As I got older I realized that no toy really fit the description; well, I'm sure there were plenty that could fit the physical appearance, but there are none that can fly anywhere near that slowly; a toy would need rotary wings to do that (like a helicopter). Plus, as it turned out, none of the kids in my small-town neighborhood had any toys that looked like that, nor any toys capable of controlled flight at all, so needless to say, I never saw it again.

reply to post by MaximRecoil

When I was about 4 or 5 years old

That makes it hard to remember too, I bet. Just as a focal point. You say you can't remember the "bold lettering". You were to young to know letters but you say lettering. Was wondering if you could remember just one of the symbols. Sometimes it helps to jog memory by focusing on one part of something. One symbol. It had a shape… like a…

A friend in the UK once awoke to see a miniature ship of some kind.....fly through the bedroom wall and out the other wall as if they weren't there....it flew with a buzzing noise she said.....

I love your thread title!

My initial thought is .... drone? They say technology is advanced years beyond what we know.

Was your neighborhood around any type of military base or government facility?

My sister and I had a sighting together when we were young, like 8ish and 10ish. We ran into the house and got our mom, but it was gone when she came. Funny thing is, we didn't really talk about it until much later because we were kids and that was that, let's go ride bikes! But when it finally came up again years later, our memory of its appearance differed greatly. I trust her memory more than mine because she is older. But we saw something that was not right.

Damn kids.

Great story!

reply to post by MaximRecoil


I have some very weird memories from when I was 4 or 5 too. 4 is generally about the age you start to recall events baring anything traumatic. most people don't recall anything earlier or really cant put memories into context before 4. My memory is of GI Joe action figures being animated on a movie screen and being a part of a really cool movie that I helped create. I have no idea if its a real memory. It was a very magical time. Memories in general are very pliable especially from that age.

intrptr
reply to post by MaximRecoil

 

When I was about 4 or 5 years old

That makes it hard to remember too, I bet. Just as a focal point. You say you can't remember the "bold writing". You were to young to know letters but you say writing. Was wondering if you could remember just one of the symbols. Sometimes it helps to jog memory by focusing on one part of something. One symbol. It had a shape… like a…

I don't think I can extract any more information from the memory. It made a big impression on me at the time, so it ended up in long-term memory, and I talked about it and thought about it quite often over the next few years. I remember at Sunday school when I was 10 or 11 they said that when you get to Heaven you can ask God any question and get the answer, and I remember thinking, "I'm going to ask what it was that I saw flying that day."

The thing that stands out the most to me about its appearance (aside from its general shape) was the material that the cylinder-shaped body was made of. It wasn't perfectly smooth; it was like little, say, 2-inch, squares of thin material, each of them slightly overlapping each other, to form the surface. It was more of an off-white than pure white, and it had a slight sheen to it; not highly polished, but not matte either.

If it had been a simple English word written on it, I could have read it (even at 4 years old) and most likely would remember it to this day, so the writing either consisted of a more complicated word or words, or it consisted of symbols as you suggested. I remember bold, black writing along the side; unfortunately I can't remember anything more specific about it than that.

raedar
I love your thread title!

Thanks. I figured this story was pretty mundane compared to, for example, the "Giant Black Triangle/Missing Time" thread that I'm reading, so I gave fair warning.

Was your neighborhood around any type of military base or government facility?

There's a small "armory" in town, used by the National Guard mostly; not exactly Area 51.

My sister and I had a sighting together when we were young, like 8ish and 10ish. We ran into the house and got our mom, but it was gone when she came. Funny thing is, we didn't really talk about it until much later because we were kids and that was that, let's go ride bikes! But when it finally came up again years later, our memory of its appearance differed greatly. I trust her memory more than mine because she is older. But we saw something that was not right.

Damn kids.

Great story!

Yeah, the perception of kids is a funny thing. All I could think was how awesome of a toy that was, and I had to have it, or one just like it. I was all ready to start asking for one for Christmas, but of course, we never figured out what it was, so that hope was dashed.

reply to post by MaximRecoil


I've had some things like that happen that tend to defy logical explanation. You try to search deep within your memory to make sense of it. Interesting.

reply to post by MaximRecoil

When I was a similar age, me and a friend (Jenny) weren't allowed to play on the park across the way without parents being there. Well, we did anyway and it wasn't long before our folks came after us. We held hands and ran as fast as we could back to the house to avoid being caught and told off. I remember looking to my left at her and the feel of her hand in mine - we were scared and laughing. The farm fields were in the background and sun shining. We ended up locked in my parents' bathroom with them on the outside shouting angrily to unlock the door.

Anyway, it was in my 30s when that incident came up in conversation and it never actually happened. It was a vivid dream and lucid enough to leave a memory.

Now I'm not saying that to be some fingers-in-ears uber-skeptic and dismiss your account as simply a dream. Not at all. It's just that I was trying to imagine being part of your recollection (place myself within that scene) and it doesn't ring true. By 'ring true' I mean it has the sense of surreality that overlays the most realistic dreams. For example, how long could you stand and watch a moving 'rocket' of that dimensions within your back yard? At 12' feet high, wouldn't it be beneath tree-lines, shrubs, fences and walls? Would it have been manoeuvring rather than straight-trajectory? Given the shape of the object, the speed you suggest wouldn't be enough to stop it from falling to the ground. After all, the ballistic shape is one that relies on propulsion and doesn't have the wings for gliding.

Of course, some of the more interesting UFO-related experiences that were reported during the 60s and especially the '70s also had that quality of surreality to them. They had the dream quality despite occurring far from comfy chairs or cosy beds; who has dreams mid-day in the woods or in traffic? This has led to several decent thinkers wondering if some reports were generated by our own consciousnesses or by our own consciousnesses with the aid of input from unknown stimuli. 'Unknown stimuli' doesn't take us anywhere really, but it's worth keeping the door open to to ideas and explanations that might make more sense to us in the future.

Kandinsky
It's just that I was trying to imagine being part of your recollection (place myself within that scene) and it doesn't ring true. By 'ring true' I mean it has the sense of surreality that overlays the most realistic dreams. For example, how long could you stand and watch a moving 'rocket' of that dimensions within your back yard? At 12' feet high, wouldn't it be beneath tree-lines, shrubs, fences and walls? Would it have been manoeuvring rather than straight-trajectory? Given the shape of the object, the speed you suggest wouldn't be enough to stop it from falling to the ground. After all, the ballistic shape is one that relies on propulsion and doesn't have the wings for gliding.

I've never had a dream in my entire life that seemed real upon waking, though they always seem real while you are dreaming. I've also never seen or otherwise experienced anything that even approaches unexplainable, except for that "rocket".

I've long been aware of the discrepancy between its shape/design and the way it was flying. Rockets, missiles, arrows ... they all work on the same principle; strong rearward thrust, either as an initial burst or sustained thrust, with stabilizing fins or vanes (a rifle bullet falls into this category too, but uses spinning for stabilization). It is of course this discrepancy which creates the mystery in the first place.

I saw only a straight, horizontal trajectory, but I only saw a small portion of its flight path; i.e., I didn't see where it came from or much of where it went. When I first noticed it it was in front of, above, and a little to the right of me, heading to my left. I watched it slowly fly past me, and when it had passed me by a distance of about 10 or 15 feet, and I was mostly seeing the rear of it from the doorway, I ran inside to get my shoes. As slow as it was moving, I figured it would still be out there by the time I got back, but it wasn't. I really wish I'd just gone out there in my bare feet and followed it.

The main reason I expected to find it on the ground in the backyard when I didn't see it in the air is that my backyard was mostly uphill, and where it transitioned to the neighbor's backyard, it became a very steep and high hill (great for sliding in the winter), and had it continued on the same flight path I saw, it would have hit that hill.

I wasn't sleeping; it was in the middle of the day, and I immediately told my family about it, i.e., my mother, brother, and older sister. Dad was at work at the time (and my younger sister was just a baby), but since I talked about it for weeks afterward, he eventually heard the story. The question for me wasn't if it was real (because I didn't know enough about how things worked in general to understand the discrepancy of slow flight from a "rocket"), but rather, where could I get one. For a while I had no doubt that my brother was right, i.e., "bottle rocket" was just the ticket. A few weeks later, on the way to see Peter launch a bottle rocket, I fully expected to see that exact same "rocket" I'd seen fly by, and I was very excited at the prospect. What a disappointment that turned out to be.

brazenalderpadrescorpio
reply to post by MaximRecoil

 

I've had some things like that happen that tend to defy logical explanation. You try to search deep within your memory to make sense of it. Interesting.

With 5 billion cellphone cameras not a single CLEAR picture or video of a UFO or an Alien.

Its all fake.

No don't direct me to fuzzy pictures or videos claiming to be UFO or Aliens.

ZetaRediculian
reply to post by MaximRecoil

 

I have some very weird memories from when I was 4 or 5 too. 4 is generally about the age you start to recall events baring anything traumatic. most people don't recall anything earlier or really cant put memories into context before 4. My memory is of GI Joe action figures being animated on a movie screen and being a part of a really cool movie that I helped create. I have no idea if its a real memory. It was a very magical time. Memories in general are very pliable especially from that age.

My earliest memory is from the summer of '78, 3½ years old. Interestingly enough, it involved flying objects; giant, colorful, hot-air balloons; a bunch of them. It was at Fort Knox (not the famous one, but rather, the one in Maine, at a hot-air balloon festival. There are two prominent things I remember about it. The first is being among a large crowd of people on a sunny day on a large grassy field/lawn, looking up at those amazing balloons, and the second is, a small commotion among my family and others; pointing and gasping, and saying, "Is that Scott??"

My cousin Scott, who would have been about 6 years old at the time, and who was a hellion, had decided to get onto the edge of this wall and run along it. I vividly remember seeing him run along the edge of that wall, and his parents (Aunt Violet and Uncle Bob) were having a fit (we were all down in the grassy area, so no one could easily get to him). Aunt Violet was convinced he'd fall to his death.

When it comes to reminiscing in my family, I'm the one everyone turns to when they want an accurate "play-by-play". My younger sister is too young to have remembered a lot of the stuff, my older brother and father remember next to nothing, my older sister remembers in broad strokes rather than in detail, and my mother remembers in broad strokes too, but she also adds "spice" to both fill in the gaps and make the dull portions more interesting (and to sometimes make herself figure more prominently in the story than she did in reality). This makes her accounts the most entertaining, but the least accurate.

reply to post by MaximRecoil


Thats cool, thanks for the added descriptions. I understand the compelling nature of these kinds of things. They stick with you.

Here you are years later wondering, WTH?

Thanks for sharing.

championoftruth

brazenalderpadrescorpio
reply to post by MaximRecoil

 

I've had some things like that happen that tend to defy logical explanation. You try to search deep within your memory to make sense of it. Interesting.

With 5 billion cellphone cameras not a single CLEAR picture or video of a UFO or an Alien.

Its all fake.

No don't direct me to fuzzy pictures or videos claiming to be UFO or Aliens.

cell phone cameras suck and it would be unlikely that a 5 year old in 1980 would have one handy.

here is a clear picture of a ufo

My initial thought would be something like this:



But I don't recall those being widely available back in '80.

ZetaRediculian

championoftruth

brazenalderpadrescorpio
reply to post by MaximRecoil

 

I've had some things like that happen that tend to defy logical explanation. You try to search deep within your memory to make sense of it. Interesting.

With 5 billion cellphone cameras not a single CLEAR picture or video of a UFO or an Alien.

Its all fake.

No don't direct me to fuzzy pictures or videos claiming to be UFO or Aliens.

cell phone cameras suck and it would be unlikely that a 5 year old in 1980 would have one handy.

here is a clear picture of a ufo

clear picture my foot.its just an over exposed fuzzy blob.

1980 ? who cares .it's history.

show me a high def picture or video from last year.must be clear,sharp be detailed.no fuzziness,no blur,no artifacts,

1 billion high def cameras on smart phones.

No don't direct me to fuzzy pictures or videos claiming to be UFO or Aliens.

championoftruth


show me a high def picture or video from last year.must be clear,sharp be detailed.no fuzziness,no blur,no artifacts,

Here you go.

draknoir2

championoftruth


show me a high def picture or video from last year.must be clear,sharp be detailed.no fuzziness,no blur,no artifacts,

Here you go.

now that what i call a decent picture.

you can see details.

people.scale and contrast

beach.

no fuzziness.no blurriness.

now if you want to prove UFO or Aliens exist supply a picture like that non of this lame fuzzy blob nonsense.

reply to post by championoftruth

clear picture my foot.its just an over exposed fuzzy blob.

You couldn't tell that was balloons?

1980 ? who cares .it's history.

The point was that cell phones were rare amongst five year olds in 1980.

show me a high def picture or video from last year.must be clear,sharp be detailed.no fuzziness,no blur,no artifacts,

Why last year? Have the ones from 2012 expired already? You see, the thing with alien space vehicles is that they look fuzzy even when they are standing still. So inevitably any picture will look fuzzy.