UFOs or Not
The recent reference to UFOs was not based on science fiction. When Christie and I moved to St. Helena, Ca. (1970) we had a lot of work to do restoring an old Craftsman-style home. I was working on the roof, shortly after sunset, when I noticed three bright orange lights in the sky, southward towards Napa. I yelled for Christie to come out and I quickly descended the ladder. The lights continued on a due north flight-line. It took several minutes for them to arrive over the Pope Valley area. We had no idea of how far away they were, they may have been in the next county or state. Suddenly, two of them veered west toward Santa Rosa and the third headed east toward the Sacramento Valley. It got smaller and smaller, suggesting that it was going farther away. Meanwhile, the other two looked to be over Santa Rosa, and then “it” happened. I had just looked back to the singleton and it zipped from wherever it was to join the other two. It left a faint streak of light, but was almost instantaneous. Immediately, after the third body rejoined the two, all three flashed away in the direction of the Pacific Ocean. Christie and I looked at each other and laughed. We were both thinking, “This is a story better not told.”
Interestingly, when I did share it with students, their response was typically, Wow! Far Out! Cool! Wish I could have seen that.