SPOOKED

     in the sky over alleghany county, by tj worthington

Driving home from Woodlawn tonight from 9:15 to 10:45 I saw the ufo again I've been seeing every week with three white lights. Again tonight was overcast with no stars. This tight triangle of three lights was bright and clear in the night sky. The three lights were as bright as a white headlight. Tonight it looked to be over the Piney Creek region from Galax. From Sparta it looked to be in the Piney Creek direction. From Whitehead it looked like it might be over the Stratford region of the western part of the county, between Piney Creek and Twin Oaks. I took 89 and 18 home from Galax. If I'd taken 58 I'd have come closer to it at Twin Oaks. Stopped on the way, north of Sparta, first road to the right on the long stretch this side of the river bridge, and got some photographs of it with the telephoto lens and made video of it, using the trunk lid to keep a steady hand. The camera couldn't focus very well on a tiny light in the sky, so I don't know what I got but a speck of light. Like the other ones I've been seeing recently, it appeared to be stationary. I watched it for an hour and a half. If it had been a plane, it wouldn't have hung around so long in one spot.


I missed the turn at Fairview to take Edmunds road from 89 to 18, drove what seemed like a lot longer than usual and unfamiliar. I drove to Mt Airy. The sign for Fairview Ruritan was not on, neither was the sign at Fairview Baptist church that tells me next right turn is it. Went into a curve I didn't expect, going down the mountain not quite aware I was going downhill. All of a sudden I'm in a curve and going way to fast to keep the car in the road, didn't have time to look at the speedometer, but it was up there at 70 or 75 going downhill, wrestling the steering wheel to keep it in the road, hearing the tires sing, not wanting to hit the brake too hard in a curve at that speed and I didn't even know I was going into a curve until the curve came at me faster than usual. I think I was so focused on the lights in the sky I missed about everything on the road, except oncoming cars. Seemed to be a lot of cars. Usually on a Friday night I'll see 2, 3 or 4 cars on the way home. Tonight it was like daytime traffic.


The whole drive home had an air of unreality about it, almost like a dream. The feeling when I dream I've extend my hand to someone to shake hands, wake and my arm is reaching outward, hand open for the other hand that suddenly wasn't there when I woke. Very much the same feeling. I knew what highway I was on, but nothing was familiar after that last light in Galax. It was like driving a highway I'd never driven before. It felt like a David Lynch movie. I know these roads very well. It was like I was blindfolded tonight. It was like a dream of driving on the highway. Kept it in the road, though. The important part. It became so bewildering I turned the radio off after Joey Logano won the Darlington race. Looking for something familiar kept me occupied. The radio was distraction.


When I came to the interstate turnoff to 77, I was dumb founded. It was like a movie. How did I get here? For the first time I knew where I was, besides highway 89, anyway in my head; didn't know for sure. All the way along 89 I wondered if this really was the road I drove almost every week in the night. It was not familiar anywhere from the last light out of Galax all the way to 77. Nothing was familiar, yet there was no way I could be on any road but 89 considering where I entered it. Turned around and was looking directly at the light as I was driving west on 89. Like sharks, airplanes need to keep moving or they sink to the bottom. It wasn't a plane. All the ones I've seen have been below the clouds and over the western part of the county, with the exception of the one over the Southeastern quadrant of the county, Cherry Lane. I don't worry about somebody thinking I'm nuts for seeing these things. So many people think I'm nuts already, a few more won't be noticed.


 Very strangely when I turned down Waterfall Road, took the curves to the hairpin curve at the bottom by the culvert, I saw two vehicles parked together down by the gate to the meadow where the circle barn used to be, headlights on. When my headlights appeared, one of them started moving slowly toward the direction I was coming from, a black car, and a white pickup at the gate. When I passed, the car turned around and went back to the pickup. I was sitting in my parking space about to crawl out when the black car and the white pickup drove by. They stopped down at Allan's gate, stayed for a few minutes, came back up the road and stopped where I originally saw them. It was suspicious beyond suspicious. But I wasn't interested in finding out what they were up to. I don't want to know. Made me want a gun in my hand, a pistol-grip double-barrel sawed-off shotgun that goes boom-boom, says no with authority. :~)



*