Why I'm Here at ATS and What Led Me Here.

OK, I’m finally getting around to posting the story, or should I say stories of why I originally found ATS and why I remain.

It is my interest in UFO’s and personal experiences surrounding that which led me here. I first started reading posts in the 1990’s on the old Newgroups. After that I read what I could find throughout the Internet, most of which is and was garbage. Intertwined among all that, I started to find interesting stuff worth a look. I did not find what I was looking for though until I found ATS and community here.

I’ll have to start at the beginning when I was a child.

From probably the age of five I was and still am a die hard Sci-Fi fan. I exhausted the schools supply of literature on that genre and then started checking out other books from the City Library. It was likely responsible for my ability to read at an advanced level years before the other kids. I absorbed books like a sponge absorbs water. Being I was interested in books written for adults, I learned to find the meaning of any word I did not understand as I read. With my choice of subjects my vocabulary grew far faster than the kids around me. In that regard my passion was actually a great learning tool, not to mention it opened my mind to possibilities beyond the ordinary.

My Sister who was 20 years older than me, had a passion for anything related to the UFO topic. I did not know why at the time; I’ll reveal that later. She left boxes full of every publication to do with UFO’s she could find at my Parents. Most collected during the UFO craze after Roswell. I’m truly sorry it did not work out that I saved all those publications as she had many. She was married and gone by the time I was three, so I ended up digging all her books out of a storage closet as I got older and absorbed them. She also had lots of science fiction works that were not at the Library.

Jump forward to 1967 just before my Father died. One night after crawling into bed, both my Mother and Father walked into my room which was very odd? My Father never did anything like that. They had a copy of “Interrupted Journey” by Barney and Betty Hill. Most of you are likely familiar with it. My Father handed it to me and told me they just thought it was a book I’d like and would I please read it. Again, very odd but I read half of it that night and finished it the next day. It was my first exposure to the idea of Abduction and the idea UFO’s might be real. Oddly, my Parents never brought it up again and I did not find out the reason until shortly after my Father died.

Now I need to back up a bit to add some quirks of my Fathers that I only understood after he died so you will understand the whole story.

A few years earlier my Father added an outside door to our house and put in a patio out back surrounded by a high redwood fence for privacy. This was really odd as my Father always had a siege mentality stemming from living through the Great Depression. He never spent money on luxuries like that, ever.

He would go out at night and sit for hours just staring up into the sky. Never talked about it or why he did it. He did it often in the summer on clear nights. In those days you could still see the Milky Way and the pollution and light pollution were not a problem. I still remember when he spotted his first satellite and he came and got me to show it to me.

He was also obsessed with the Apollo Program. He followed it from the beginning. He never watched TV other than the news but he never missed anything to do with a launch or later the landings.

When Apollo 10 started sending images back while orbiting the Moon on the test run, he kept me home from school after watching it all night long. That was also completely out of character. Then with Apollo 11 landing on a Sunday, he actually asked me to not go to church with my Mother and stay and watch it all with him.

My first impression was that this was due to his being raised on horseback on a Cattle Ranch a three day Buckboard ride from the nearest city. He had watched the world change at an almost unimaginable speed having lived through the Great Depression and the Great War (WW2). That and he was a huge fan of JFK and this was his legacy. I did not find out the truth until a few months after his death.

My Mother and I were going through the file cabinet packing and getting ready to sell the house and move to California so I could attend College. In the top drawer, in the back she found the copy of “Interrupted Journey”. She turned to me and said we never did tell you about this and she had a scared look on her face.

She told me that before I was born her and my Father were traveling south from Price, Utah towards Green River, Utah to visit friends and family that lived near where our original family Ranch used to be located.

Then without hesitating or looking at me she said that they were travelling late at night and were the only car on the road. She said they saw a bright light hovering over the road in front of them, moving towards them. She told me that it got very close to them and was huge in the sky. It landed on the side of the road and looked like the description in the book my Father gave me, the “Interrupted Journey”. It happened years earlier than that story however.

She told me they stopped for a moment and got an up close look at it, but it scared them and my Father drove on at high speed to get away from it. She said they both then blacked-out. She said they came too, almost to their destination an hour later and neither of them could remember the previous hour of driving. She said it was like a switch being turned on and off. One moment they were just south of Price and the next second, after watching the ship land and speeding off they were an hour south.

This part I’ve never told even to my Parents. One day in broad daylight while sitting out back on the patio in a chase looking up, I saw my own UFO. It was the classic Saucer shape and metallic in appearance. It moved slowly a few hundred feet above my head for a while and then suddenly took off in a different direction and disappeared in the distance. It shook me up so badly, I never related it to anyone. Combining it with what my Mother told me a couple of years later, well you get the idea.

I should interject here that two of our family Ranches in a row, both in that area, were taken by the US Government as my Father’s Grandparents were German Immigrants who came here in the 1850’s and purchased huge parcels of grazing land between Green River, Utah and into Colorado. First they took what was likely one of the largest Ranches in the country at that time and gave my family 13% of its value. I know the number because my family has always kept a detailed family history written in the first person, from generation to generation.

The next, smaller ranch just north of there was taken during WW2 with no pay and my Grandmother finally had our name changed to an English name that was similar to our German name. I learned young to never mention my German heritage, even though my Great Grandparents’ had become citizens.

Both old Ranches are now surrounded by high fences with the same type of signs you see around Area 51. One was rumored by a magazine to be the site where everything from Area 51 was relocated. I walked the perimeter of one with my Father a couple of months before he died. The family thought they were hiding missiles and I honestly don’t know. All we could see was a mesa in the middle of the property of one with a road going up to what looked like a farmhouse. In 1975 while relating this story to a whacked out Vietnam Vet I knew who called himself 45 (we called him “Agent Orange”) he told me he had been a truck driver hauling classified cargo after returning from the war. He had made a delivery to our smaller, second ranch. I know he was truthful because he was able to describe it to me perfectly. A stroke of fate I guess.

He told me he drove down the dirt road and up the side of the mesa to the farmhouse I described earlier. He said his load always had seals placed on the doors when he hooked the trailer up to his rig and he never knew what he was hauling. He said they took him inside the house, which he said had fake windows. From the outside he said it looked like windows with curtains but inside it was plain rooms with no windows. They brought him a meal and locked him in a room.

He said a while later they came and got him. His rig had been turned around and the trailer was empty. He said he saw tracks in the soft road leading up to the side of mesa and a second set exiting but could not make out how they got inside. Sorry for the diversion, but thought you might find it interesting.

The year after my Father died while visiting my Sister and Brother In-Law in Pearl City, Hawaii where he was stationed, is the next step in this story. The first night we were there they started telling us about an odd thing that happened a few nights before. They were watching the Network News and it was interrupted with a report that a UFO had crashed in Florida and three live Aliens had been found and then the TV went black for nearly ten minutes. When it came back on they never mentioned it again.

My Brother In-Law called his buddy who would have been the one to receive the report for the Navy the next day and he said it was them who had blacked out the TV and he could not talk about it. He was never able to get any information beyond it was a person with the military that leaked the story and it was them who blacked out the TV for a few minutes to clean it up.

Now going forward a couple of years and now living in California, I travelled back to Utah to visit my friends during summer break from College. Again another strange thing happened. One of my friends related the same story I just told you about from my Brother In-Law and I’d never mentioned it to him. He said his boss at the steel fabrication plant where he worked had told it to him and it exactly matched the story I’d been told. His boss had just left the Air Force as a Colonel and a Pilot.

The next thing that influenced my beliefs happened in about 1995. I was visiting with a close friend I’d made while working in Idaho in the 1970’s. He relayed a story to me that left me really scratching my head. This man, like my Parents I should add, was a person who if he told a lie his head would explode.

He was in Elk Valley about 30 miles up a dirt road on the border between Idaho and Utah, where we would often camp and go hunting. He said he was sitting up in front of the fire and it got bright so he looked up. He said it was a UFO so big it “covered the sky from horizon to horizon”. He said it took his breath away and scared him so badly he could not sleep for days afterwards. He told me it was covered in bright colored lights and structures protruding from it. It hovered over him for about ten minutes then shot straight up and out of sight. I know this man well and if he says it happened, it happened.

Combine all of the above together and you get to what led me to be here on ATS and why I’m so interested in UFO’s. Even though I come off as a Skeptic often, I’m really searching for proof. I know my Parents were honest beyond reproach and that was also true of the others I’ve mentioned who I truly believe. I can’t not believe.

Take my story for what it’s worth, even if it’s just another story like so many others. Please forgive my lack of writing skills in relating this. I’m no English Scholar.

OK, I've bared my soul so to speak. This thread might be a great place for others to relate experiences that led them to these topics.

There is nothing wrong with your writing skills....

I read the whole thing without being bothered , so

Amazing story. I'm gonna take your word for it. Because if you're lying, then you are a talented story teller.
Thank you for sharing this with us.

Sincerely

~ Sinter

reply to post by Sinter Klaas


Thanks No reason for me to lie. I can only relate experiences as best as I can remember them. Most of it relies on my trusting my own Parents truthfulness and that of others. My sighting in my youth is permanently burned into my memory. I have no idea if that saucer was military or otherwise, but it fit so many other peoples descriptions from that time, I have to give their stories due consideration.

I've seen others also but I'm convinced those were military craft. Only that one fits into the UFO / possibly Alien category.

Thanks for your post.

reply to post by Blaine91555



I do not think about you telling the truth or lying as it doesn't matter. I can only compare it to my personal experiences and my ill judgment, so ...

I can only say that I know there is more to life then what we see, but what exactly is a puzzle to me.

No wonder then, how your experiences have come to shape your beliefs, and your curiosities. This was a wonderful story, and I turned the sound down on Ghost Hunters to focus better.

Of course, there is no choice but to believe those whom we trust, and why shouldn't we? Your mother waited a long time to tell you their story, and they even gave you the book to somehow prepare you for when they did.

It is a very interesting story, too, about the ranch property, and what became of it. I've read that once you've been abducted, they tend to "keep an eye on you". Do you think they somehow became associated and/or drawn to this property, and frequented it, causing it to become valuable in this respect? Being drawn to it initially because previous abductees lived there?

The fake windows are also interesting. Certainly they were concealing something. How odd to not know, or be unware of what you are transporting. I think if warned not to look.......I would be certain to do so. lol.

Thank you so much for sharing this. I want to keep up with this thread to learn what others have to contribute.
I doubt if there is a flaming in store. You are a respected member here on ATS. How dare they!

It would be way cool to see the ranch property on google earth.

Can you do it?

reply to post by ladyinwaiting


In my Parents case there was no mention of any Abduction, just the close up sighting and the missing time. I suppose one could postulate that from the similarities to the Hill's story and I imagine it was on my Parents minds. I did not get the impression from my Mother she thought that, but we never discussed it again. She said it, she never lied, it was true is how it played in my mind.

Same with my friends siting in Elk Valley. He said it, he never lied that I know of and I'm sure he believed it. He just came out with it out of the blue one day and never mentioned it again. Makes me wonder how many like them have similar stories they never tell to anyone. Even now I'm not terribly comfortable relating this stuff, but I've been promising myself I would and this is the place to do it.

What others think does not matter as much as me putting my thoughts down in writing for the first time as one, hopefully coherent thought.

Thanks for posting.

reply to post by Blaine91555


Thanks for relating a most personal story. So in your investigation into the UFO phenomenon have you come to any conclusions and if so how has it impacted your life to the present.

reply to post by ladyinwaiting


That would be interesting to try. I've been to these locations but that was in the 1960's. I've been back again in the 1990's and tried to find roads I remember but many have changed and often I found myself remembering a road going west when it went east. We spent a lot of time in that area prospecting as my Dad was also a Rock Hound and knew that area like few would, having rode it all on horseback as a kid herding cattle.

I'm at work for a few more hours, so I'll try and do that this evening or tomorrow. The original huge Ranch was between Green River, Utah and towards and into Colorado. It was a huge property and one of the reasons the Government wanted it is the land was patented in the mid-1800's and my Great Grandparents owned the mineral rights. It has produced huge amounts of high grade Uranium Ore. If you check the surrounding are and over into the Grand Junction Colorado area, you will find a history of lots of mining for that.

The one area that is fenced off is near Green River and I've never been in to see that, but the second Ranch I've walked all around the fence with my Father as I mentioned.

The smaller second Ranch I can maybe find by a geological feature. Last time there with my Father just before he died, a Hippie Commune had squatted there and was living in the old cabin next to the Green River. My family was given a small farm there on the river, supposedly in perpetuity, but I'd imaging the Government long ago forgot that promise. My Father did not bother the Commune and did not seem to care about them taking over the cabin. He was not the type to care or run them off if they wanted to eek out and existence there.

Originally posted by whaaa
reply to post by Blaine91555

 

Thanks for relating a most personal story. So in your investigation into the UFO phenomenon have you come to any conclusions and if so how has it impacted your life to the present.

Oddly enough it has made me more of a skeptic in nature because what I want is validation. I'm sure you can imagine the impact my Mothers story had on me and the way it was presented to me. I tend to always try and debunk my own sighting and I'm really critical of my own memory of it, however it remains crystal clear in my minds eye.

If that metallic saucer was what I perceived it to be, I have to believe at least that others have seen one of the same type of craft as I see them described so often in stories from that time. I had clear view of it and it was not that high above me and the way it changed course and took off, it was a controlled craft. Was it Alien or Military? Who knows? I'd have guessed it as maybe 30 or 40 feet across and I got a good look at the bottom of it perhaps a few hundred feet above me. I had a mountain near our home close by to judge it by. Still that was a lot of years ago.

I ask myself often why this group of events surrounded me and why would I see a classic Saucer only to later find out about my Parents experience which I think took place in the mid 1940's. Then to so often run into other information to reinforce it for me from people I know and trust? Is whatever is out there trying to tell me something? I don't know?

I'll likely continue to be a bit of a skeptical presence around here as it seems to me you have do some searching to find accounts worthy of consideration. I empathize with some here and I can't help that some I just don't believe. On that same note, I don't truly expect many to believe me on an anonymous board, but it's nice to put this down in words, all the same.

Thanks for visiting my post.

Wow, great story! And yes, I believe you totally. I don't know what it's like to have that many encounters/experiences with UFOs but I would love to have at last ONE experience with a UFO, close up or not.

Does anyone have any idea what the incident in Florida would have been? Anyone ever remember hearing or seeing that newscast before they blacked it out? I'm only 23 and wouldn't have been around, but the op, as I stated, seems very honest and has been here a while so I'm sure his contacts/friends are just as reliable as him. I searched online and cannot find any reference to it and I assume that there are more people than just OP's friend that saw it. If anyone has info, it'd be interesting to hear about that incident.

reply to post by PennKen2009


That would have been in the later half of 1971 and I've never found a matching story other than getting it from two sources, my Brother In-Law not long after and the same story that came from my friends Boss a former Air Force Colonel. Of course that was second hand, but from a close friend.

I'd be interested also in something in that time frame. Likely October to December 1971. If I'm mistaken on the year after all this time, October to December 1972 may be right. I recall I arrived in Pearl City just before Christmas and I know the incident was told to me as something which just occurred. As I recall it was one craft with three occupants that survived.

Edit:
After thinking a bit more, it would have been in the later part of 1971, earlier than mid December.

reply to post by Blaine91555


First, I believe you Blaine. The way you think and write, it just resonates right with me.

I may come off as a skeptic as well, but I really am searching for that discrete piece of information, that definative evidence that can be held up as beyond reproach. So, I look at the explainable answer to photos, videos and phenomena, in order to weed out the chafe.

I was struck by some similarities in my own life. Helper, Utah....... high strangeness.. Preston, ID........ Moab, UT, Salmon, ID..... anyway....

thank you for sharing part of your story. I hope you are sucessful in making a comfortable thread for others to share their stories.

Great thread.

reply to post by Blaine91555

post by Esoteric Teacher
post by Esoteric Teacher

Outstanding recount Blaine, and thank you for sharing. Thank you very much.

Why I'm here at ATS and What led me here...

I was born in late 1971, December, and raised in Illinois. By the time I started 3rd grade aliens and ufo phenomenon had saturated many aspects of pop culture and I had been exposed to alien related stuff from many outlets of media. Please keep in mind this was before the days of cable, so our TV had less than a dozen channels, and choices were slim. I remember while attending St. Mary's school in the first grade in Decator Illinois watching the Saturday morning cartoons and I was introduced to such foreign characters as Gazoo From the Flinstones, and Marvin the Martian from the Merry Melodies/Looney Tunes casts. Also I remember one of the few channels we had available after school showed a ufo detective and investigative show I used to watch after school during first and second grades. Not to mention the Star Wars movie that came out during that time, the Superman movie, and the Close Encounters Blockbuster movies as well. I also remember watching the Six Million Dollar Man which was a bionic man who was an astronaut, who also had encounters with aliens and ufos in many episodes:

3-18 "The Secret of Bigfoot (Part 2)" February 4, 1976
An earthquake imperils Steve and his captors from outer space.
Wikipedia's Six Million Dollar Man episodes list

As a child, and during an impressionable age, long before the E.T. movie even came out in the 80s it seems a generation was being saturated and funneled alien themed information for over a decade ... even back into the 50s and 60s with the Twilight Zone movies which had many episodes surrounding alien and space travel themes.

Through the 80s and 90s I did a lot of reading and studying of older science fiction novels and books, as well as ufo and alien related stuff. Even delved into the Ancient Alien theory, which again, came out in the 70s, and even William Shatner hosted an in depth documentary about the subject which included interviews with the top bosses at NASA and other prominent scientific professionals. William Shatner Mystery of the Gods [1976] Part 1/8

I joined the Air Force in 1998 at the age of 26, after working for/with developmentally disabled children for well over a decade. And during my eleven year career in the usaf as a firefighter had a few encounters with what I can only refer to as ufos.

The event was ordered by us (the people keeping the logs of the event from the FD point of view) to be a "Helping Hand" so to speak, which at the time simply meant it was someone in the Q area (area 2) who was an unauthorized entry attempt or someone who should not have been there. it started early in the morning around 8:30. Our head personnel were dispatched to the area. We had no radio contact with them until nearly 14 hours later. They were gone all day. Landlines were working on and off all day, and we could not contact those on scene, higher ups, via commercial cell phones, either. Early in the afternoon we were told it had turned into a training excercize... possible. I went out for a smoke break flighline side ... and saw things flying around that were not helicopters and were not planes or aircraft I was familiar with. I went inside got a few more firefighters, we went outside together and watched few things in the air not moving, hovering I suppose, over the munitions area, area 2, the Q area, for about 15 minutes, and then I went back inside into the FACC (no windows/secure) Around a little before 10 pm (2200) We heard the first broadcasts over our radios (we monitor many frequencies) since that morning. It was the control tower (Airfield Traffic Control Tower) stating they had electricity again, and were asking us for a radio check, wondering if their radios were working again. They did not have radio capability all day long. Before the incident ended, I had went outside to see what I could see about 4 or 5 times I think, and to smoke a cig. During the evening hours they were amber in color, but seemed to change color, and also seemed to be "phasing" in and out of places. They would be over sunset mountain (commercial aircraft still flying around them) and then as they dissapeared from that location, they would be "popping" into existence simultaneously over different locations over the base, but I did not witness any over the flightline itself. Recordings of every radio transmission and every phone call exist stored in the Fire Alarm Communications Center (FACC) always until the end of the month, but these recordings were gone the next day and reset more than a week early, first and only time I had seen that done in my eleven year career. I'm not sure what happened that day, but why would they tell me, I was just the acting NCOIC of the FACC in charge of the emergency 911 systems on base with no capability for an entire shift + 2 hours, why would my superiors feel the need to tell me why I could not have the capability to do my job, and why all 911 systems didn't work? I don't know, and I don't know.
post by Esoteric Teacher
an exerpt of my contribution to this thread on ATS:
Have You Ever Considered That UFO's Might Be A Distraction By the Government?

Blaine91555,
You aren't crazy. Your family and friends are not crazy, either. I believe they are a real phenomenon, us from the future, or us from the past, or aliens, or a mixture of all three and other things we do not fully comprehend, yet. I sincerely thank you for sharing your story with us fellow ATS members. I read each paragraph twice, and focussed on what was being conveyed. Detailed as best as you can recall, considering the gravity of the subject material, no pun intended

It was around the time of my own personal unexplained sightings that I sought out and joined ATS as a member.

Thanks again for sharing Blaine,
ET

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/6ee256973974.png[/atsimg]

Resistance.... was not futile???

reply to post by argentus


My Mothers family, she was the youngest of twelve from a Farming family, were some of the earliest settlers in the Salmon Idaho area. My Father was the youngest of eleven kids that spread all over Southern Utah and even into the area around Dougway Proving Grounds. I, being basically a late life accident, have buried my whole immediate family over the years. I've lost track of what must be hundreds of cousins and what not throughout that area. Some Mormons, others more of the Lucky Lager drinking variety; all down to earth nice people. I regret not keeping in touch.

I always liked Preston and the Logan area. I lived in the Bear Lake area in Idaho for a few years and worked between industrial construction at the mines in Wyoming and Roughnecking on the Rigs there. Preston was always a speed trap I recall

Thanks for posting.

Thanks Blaine91555

That is a great story, and the reason I stay on ATS.

Peace

Blaine I admire you for being brave enough to tell your story.

I do believe you as I have had experiences with my parents that are similar to yours. I especially remember the starry nights my dad and I spent laying on a blanket on a dock when I was a child.

He was very smart and was always explaining life to me through books in his library like he was teaching me things he learned long ago.

I still stare at the sky expecting something to happen.

reply to post by Blaine91555


Blaine, I have read your posts for some time. It is why reading this one, gives me pause.

For what it's worth, you persuade me to remain open to the possibilities.

Perhaps that is why I am here too.... I like to consider the possibilities...and maybe to find even some small measure of insight.

Cheers to you for sharing your story.

reply to post by Esoteric Teacher


Thank you so much for sharing. That is the type of story I find far more convincing than the constant drivel of video's and photo's. I've always found such reports more important. That experience you related would definitely make anyone wonder just what the heck is going on.

I know there are many stories here that are yet to be shared. I'm thrilled how this thread is turning out. I had visions of a flame war if you know what I mean.

I am myself guilty of not responding as I should when others relate their stories and these positive responses have shown me my thoughts were faulty.

I'm the last living person who knows about my Parents story and I'm glad to have it out and posted. I'd hate to see others stories go to the grave with them. I wish I'd had the sense to question my Mother further, but I just accepted it and stored it away. I've only shared it once before and now to thousands here. Scary thought, eh.

Speaking of Marvin the Martian, I'm a fan and in fact my Wife just gave me a T-Shirt with him on the front. You got to love Marvin and his Instant Alien Army out of the Bubble Gum Machine. That and Duck Dodgers from Outer Space.

Thanks once again.

reply to post by loam


I know it's out of character for me Loam. I'm not much of a social animal and the fact I never engage in the Chat Room is evidence of that. My skeptical attitude however on this topic comes from my belief and I know that may not make sense to others. It's a defense mechanism if you will.

Thanks for posting and I hope you at least got some entertainment from my post. I assure you this is really me. Without the anger. I tend to immediately disbelieve and I know how that comes out.