Saturday III

Saturday

3.
Driving alone in my '64 yellow Pinto,
at 2:30 a.m. on Highway 395, a few
minutes north of Red Mountain,
California, headed for Ridgecrest.
It was a balmy night on the high
desert, and I drove with my window
down, letting the sage and cactus
flowers fill my nostrils. The star
map over Death Valley was awesome.
It was a Sunday night. I had made this
journey numerous times recently,
since our situation dictated that my
young wife and I work in different
towns. I was the opening manager
for a restaurant in Ridgecrest.
I was flying low in the sweet darkness
and I came over the lip of a hill,
and dipped into a wide basin that
spread out ten miles from town.
There were city lights glowing
northeast of me over at the China
Lake Naval Weapons Center.
Then I saw some other lights
ahead of me that looked like a
work crew. Coming closer I noticed
two strong searchlights moving
about, illuminating some old buildings
and a railroad car on a siding.
"What kind of work crew would be
out here this time of night?". The
big lights were mounted on some
kind of large aluminum water tower
perched a hundred feet overhead.
Confused, I speeded up toward the
strange activity. At one block's
distance suddenly I could see clearly
that the oval-shaped metal object
was certainly not a water tower;
there were no stanchions under it;
just 100 feet of bare air between it
and the buildings.
"Christ, that is a UFO!"
I heard someone say in my head,
thinking why do people always
witness such things when alone on
the desert at three o'clock in the
morning? I was terrified, the flop sweat
soaking my shirt, but still I pushed
down hard on the gas pedal heading
straight toward it. Was I losing my
mind? Was I hallucinating? Was I
going to be abducted? What would
they do to me? Two hundred yards
out the distinct saucer shape was
evident, with two rows of lights
amidship, red and green, oscillating
in opposite directions. In the space
of a breath the encounter was over.
The searchlights snapped off, and in
a blink the silver craft took off from
a dead stall to out past the horizon,
disappearing in the eastern ink.
Somehow as a reflex, I had jerked
my head to the right, and was able
to visualize its warp speed travel
path clearly against the white sands
on low ridge lines under a full moon.
It made no sound at all, probably
utilizing anti-gravity propulsion.
I stopped my baby Ford and sat
idling alongside the road, shaking
like a dog crapping tacks. There I
sat for five minutes, alone in the
night, 40 miles north of Edwards
Air Force Base, and a bare 50 miles
west of Area 51, in what later I found
out is called "The Triangle". Weeks
later when I began to tell a few
people about my sighting, I could
not shake the feeling that a craft
of that size and complexity could
not have operated so close to
three military bases without their
knowledge. Twenty years later
while visiting the UFO museum at
Roswell, New Mexico, I was asked
to record the event for their permanent
archives. I was happy to comply, and
as we talked--government
conspiracy was on all our lips.

Glenn Buttkus May 2010