My 'sighting', feedback please

Hello,
I just happened upon your site here. I was reading some posts and decided to share my story with you guys, maybe you can help me understand it or at least come to terms with it.
I was about ten years old (23 now) and grew up in NW PA. My dad recently had gotten a camper, so me, my sister (~8), my brother (~5), and my dad decided to sleep outside. I was afraid of the dark as a kid, and sleeping in the camper outside really got to me. I was crying to my dad to walk me back to the house, but he was tired and just told me to go. I finally mustered up the courage to go after I convinced my sister to come also. As I walked to the house (about forty yards) I noticed it was bright out, a little brighter than a full moon usually is. As I walked past the tree line I saw a large object hovering over a field near my house. The thing was shaped like a diamond, with one light at the bottom, then two lights, three, four, five, then four again. It was huge, I would guess about 60 ft tall, at least, and about 25 ft wide at the widest point. It was about twenty feet of the ground. The lights were all white, very bright. I can recall the thing very clearly. Next thing I can remember is crying in the camper. I'm not sure about the whole lost memory thing, it was a while ago so I might not remember walking back. After about fifteen minutes I made a run for the house. My mother asked me what the big deal was and I told I saw a UFO. She looked at me weird and that was that.
I used to tell that story, but after being met with so much criticism, I stopped. It's been in the back of my mind for a while. Sometimes I even feel like maybe it didn't happen. But then I talk to my sister, who confirms the story. MY mother also remembers me coming in and telling her. The weird part was that as I got older my mom told me that she was pretty scared when I told her because she had also seen a UFO as a kid, but she never would tell me about it.
Thanks for listening everybody, it's good to get this off my chest. Any help about this subject would be appreciated. I search on the internet every now and again, but there's so much garbage.

Thanks for sharing that with us D. It certainly didn't sound like the ideal camping trip! Has it put you off camping for life??

I can see why you must have come in for critisism. It's easy for people to dismiss something when there's no physical evidence to force them to actually think about it. Especially if it happened to you when you were a kid. But something certainly seemed to have freaked you out.

People tend to be uncomfortable talking about things that seriously challenge their normal model of the world (and this doesn't even just extend to the paranormal).

Its also hard to apply an unusual experience into normal everyday life. I think almost all of us have had some sort of experience they just could not explain. You obviously saw something that you wholeheartedly believe was no ordinary craft. And you believe it was real. No doubt you've probably had people ask "are you sure you weren't dreaming?" or "maybe it was a trick of the light," or "ten year olds can have active imaginations" etc. But this ignores the fact that most sane people can distinguish pretty acurately between dreams and reality, or imagination and reality etc.

When people ask questions like those, it sort of insults your intelligence. But what can you do? You can't prove it to anyone. And no matter how huge the concept of alien life or even super-advanced terrestrial craft, normal life goes on, and most of the time, experiences like yours end up getting buried at the back of your mind because there is nowhere you can apply it. At least, that's my experience of it.

Anyway, at least now you've found a place where these sorts of experiences will be listened to with an open mind. Its a pity your mum didn't elaborate on her experience though.

I guess when it comes down to it, you are just one of probably thousands of people this happens to each year around the world. It's extra-ordinary, but at the same time, so are car crashes, or violent floods (which happened to me). They're a reality, but they are rare, and they are overwhelmingly outweighed by mundainity and normality. And that's probably a good thing.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't let it freak you out. Instead, let it keep you inquisitive about this universe, and then hopefully one of us will oneday find out what the hell people are seeing in the skies.

There's nothing suspicious about your story. It sounds very similiar to alot of ufo sightings I've heard of. There's really not much to say about it though. You were very young so who knows how much your imagination comes into play. You obviously have no pictures of it (and even if you did it wouldn't matter becuase people here would claim it's a fake immidiately). At least you have a sibling who shares the same story, so you don't have to feel too alone in your experience. I guess you can feel lucky not to have experienced a tramatic abduction story, considering the ufo seemed to be so close to your camp site. Maybe someday we'll have the answers to all of this.

Thanks for the feedback. Any recommended reading on topics like this?

Thanks for coming here and sharing your story. It sounds very real to me, and not hokey at all. Hopefully someday we will know the answer, and have proof, of the ultimate question.