Okay folks, you ask for it (well at least someone did, sorta), so here it is by popular demand, an actual non-hoax eyewitness account of a cave related UFO sighting. How cave related can a UFO sighting be? Well, I'd say this one's about as cave related as the majority of postings I've seen on TexasCavers, but read on and judge for yourself.
What do you think a typical UFO sighting looks like? Have you ever listened to those call-in programs on late night radio, where people describe their UFO sighting experiences? Admittedly, the stories are quite varied, but I'd say the most common theme involves a bright light moving across the night sky, sometimes appearing to move at meteoric speed, but also appearing to do maneuvers that would be impossible for any natural meteor or any known man made craft. People talk about how these strange objects zip across the sky at fantastic speed, then quickly stop, hover, accelerate and make sharp turns at high speed. They may suddenly appear and disappear, seemingly at will, and they make no sound at all. Obviously, this behavior is way beyond the capabilities of any known human technology, so what could these strange objects be? Is the government test flying some new super secret technology from Area 51? Could nonhuman life forms from who knows where be flying through our skies with technologies more advanced than anything yet invented by humans? With no definitive explanation, speculation abounds.
Well folks, back in 2003, I actually witnessed one of these strange light displays in the night sky above Austin! Furthermore, I have reason to believe that the brightly lit flying objects I observed were not examples of some super secret government technology, but were actually the responsibility of nonhuman entities and that at least some of these entities might share our interest in earthly caves. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if someday you actually encounter them inside a cave, if you haven't already. Even if you don't notice them, they might still be there, noticing you. But never fear. They aren't exactly here to save humanity, but I'm pretty sure they don't mean us any harm either.
Here's how it happened. Back in 2003, I was doing some temporary consulting work with a British microprocessor company called ARM. I was working with a small R & D group in Cambridge England, but since I lived in Austin, they provided me an office in their Austin Texas facility (which, at that time, was a different building from the one they use now). Since the rest of the group was in England, I mostly communicated with them via email and telephone and often worked nighttime hours that differed significantly from the working hours of their Austin employees. One night when I was working alone in that office, I walked out towards my car parked behind the building. As I walked across the parking lot, I happened to look up and see some lights moving across the night sky. They looked like the lights one normally would expect to see on a jet airliner flying at high altitude. At this point, I saw nothing unusual, but the movement attracted my attention to the sky. I looked up and thought:
Ho hum, there goes an ordinary jet plane.
Then, however, in the portion of the sky where the plane had just passed, a single white light appeared and streaked across the sky with meteoric speed. It was about as bright as a bright star or planet and appeared to be moving several times faster than the jet plane in a direction almost perpendicular to the path of the plane. At this point, I'm thinking:
That's interesting, there goes a meteor.
But then the "meteor" stopped quickly, hovered momentarily, then accelerated and flew rapidly in a different direction, and then it suddenly disappeared, all in absolute silence! Now I'm thinking:
Meteors don't do that.
Satellites don't do that.
Falling space junk doesn't do that.
I don't know of any man made aircraft or spacecraft that can do that.
That looked just like some of those UFO sightings I've heard people describe on late night radio.
What the hell was that thing?!!
I continued staring at that now dark patch of sky, trying to think of anything that could explain what I'd just seen. Then, in the same area of the sky, another UFO of the same type appeared, or perhaps it was the same one reappearing. It flew rapidly across the sky, made a quick right angle turn, and then disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared. As I continued staring at the sky, I saw more UFOs similarly appear, do spectacular maneuvers, and disappear. Sometimes even 2 or 3 of them would be visible at the same time, so there obviously had to be multiple UFOs involved. A whole fleet of them were doing nighttime aerobatic maneuvers like nothing I'd ever seen!
Fascinated and awed by what I was observing, I kept looking for additional details to help solve the mystery. After a while, I noticed that some of the UFOs appeared somewhat brighter than others. Then, especially with the brighter UFOs, I thought I could detect that the light they produced was not perfectly steady, but, instead, seemed to flicker slightly as they flew. Fascinating, I thought, but still no closer to an explanation. ... Then, staring intently at some of the brightest UFOs, ... I thought I could see. ... What! ... They weren't just flickering, they were flapping their wings!!
It seemed rather unlikely that extraterrestrial space aliens would be using ornithopter technology to visit earth, and, although I wouldn't put it past our own government to invest in such technology, I doubted that they would have perfected it well enough to account for what I was seeing. This led to the thought that maybe I was observing some kind of winged animals, such as bats or birds, but why would they be glowing brightly with lights they seemingly could turn on and off at will? The UFOs obviously were not fireflies. They were much too large and fast to be insects. Was some genetic engineering lab putting firefly genes into bats or birds? Somehow that didn't seen likely, either. Not that no one would be willing to try such experiments, but surely it would be expensive, and I couldn't imagine a business model that would justify an investment in glow-in-the-dark bats! (Even LowGun doesn't do that. ;-)
This UFO flight began to remind me of something I had observed years before in front of the Oak Hill Motorola plant, where I had once worked. In front of their main building they had 3 flagpoles, each equipped with a bright spotlight located at its base and shining upward to illuminate a flag. The lights would attract insects, and the insects would attract bats. Bats would continually fly back and forth through the light beams to catch flying insects. Whenever a bat entered a beam, it appeared brightly illuminated, and whenever it left the beam, it seemed to disappear into the darkness. Bats, of course, can turn and maneuver very quickly, and whenever a bat is flying directly towards you or directly away from you, it can appear to be stationary or hovering for a short time. The bats in front of the Motorola building typically flew low enough that we could see they were flapping their wings, but, of course, higher flying bats or birds in a spotlight beam might look like mere specks of light moving across the sky.
This seemed like a plausible explanation for my UFO sighting behind the ARM building, except for one thing. There were no flagpoles or spotlights anywhere to be seen! What could possibly be the light source? At this point, I began walking around, looking at more than the sky. In front of a nearby building just north of the ARM building, out of sight from where I'd observed the UFO flight, I found an exceptionally bright spotlight illuminating a flagpole. This light was aimed upward at an angle somewhat towards the building, such that its beam extended over the building and could illuminate high flying bats or birds above the parking lot in back. At that distance, most of these bats or birds appeared simply as points of light whenever they flew through the beam. The beam itself was not visible behind the buildings, since there was not enough dust or mist in the air for the beam to be observed directly.
So you see, at least some strange UFO sightings really can be the work of nonhuman entities (illuminated bats and/or birds). Some of these entities (the bats, at least) are known to inhabit caves, so to whatever extent they were involved, I suppose you could call this a cave related UFO sighting.
Actually, I suspect that the critters I observed behind the ARM building were birds (perhaps nighthawks) rather than bats. It was hard to tell for sure at that distance, but within a few days of that sighting, I observed what appeared to be birds pursuing flying insects at night under the streetlights in the Barton Creek Mall parking lot. The critters I used to see flying around the flagpoles in front of the Motorola building, however, appeared to be bats. In fact, bats occasionally got inside the main lobby of that building and seemed quite frustrated as they flew around looking for a place to land on a ceiling that was too smooth for them to get a grip. Either way, bats or birds, it's an interesting phenomenon, which, under the right conditions, can produce some very impressive UFO sightings, and it's not even a hoax.
Rod
-----Original Message-----
From: Jenny Holt
Sent: Jun 23, 2011 12:57 AM
To: [email protected], [email protected], texas cavers
Subject: RE: [Texascavers] Fw: Tornado? Hide in a culvert? (maybe not a goodidea)
Ok Rod...now I wish for more info on on your "truthful" cave related UFO sighting. And I love tales of Chupacabra, Andy. I was on FB tonight Roger and I didn't see anything about your demise or the Miata's; do tell. Oh and Chris, maybe we will take this OT for your sake. It's my bedtime, I hope to read enlightening stories tomorrow. :)
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2011 23:34:31 -0500
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Texascavers] Fw: Tornado? Hide in a culvert? (maybe not a goodidea)
Hey, that was a long time ago, Roger. The UFO sightings were more recent (2003). They looked just like some of the UFO sighting I've heard callers describe on late night radio, there were more than one of them, they turned out to be real, and there's even reason to think they could have been cave related! You don't think I'd hoax you about something like that now, do you?
What happened to your Miata? I might be curious, but not curious enough to join Facebook.
Rod
-----Original Message-----
From: caverarch
Sent: Jun 22, 2011 10:25 PM
To: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Texascavers] Fw: Tornado? Hide in a culvert? (maybe not a goodidea)
Not a hoax, Rod? Not so sure, having been successfully hoaxed by Rod upon at least a couple of occasions in the distant past.
BTW, any word of my demise is premature. Not so, unfortunately for my Miata, as Rod would know if only he was on Facebook.
Roger
-----Original Message-----
From: Rod Goke
To: Andy Gluesenkamp ; TexasCavers
Sent: Wed, Jun 22, 2011 10:17 pm
Subject: Re: [Texascavers] Fw: Tornado? Hide in a culvert? (maybe not a goodidea)
Oh no! See what you've done now, Andy! You have us all curious to read your chupacabra story. Keep this up, and I might have to retaliate with my somewhat cave related UFO sighting story, and it's not even a hoax.
Rod
-----Original Message-----
From: Andy Gluesenkamp
Sent: Jun 22, 2011 9:56 PM
To: Fritz Holt
Cc: "[email protected]" , Rod Goke , Andy Gluesenkamp , TexasCavers
Subject: Re: [Texascavers] Fw: Tornado? Hide in a culvert? (maybe not a goodidea)
Oh god. Please don't. My chupacabra story is much better. ....
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