Story of the Day: 1-10-11

Little Green Men

I saw a UFO once. It was the summer after my freshman year of college. That was a strange summer. We were all the same to each other even though we had created new lives and identities in other places. It was like we returned from summer camp to find a new summer camp built where our homes used to be.

Lisi was visiting. We had just gone to pick up Keith Bradburn at his house in Flushing. Fairweather, Rosenberg, and someone else … McCurdy? … were riding in the other car. We were all headed back to my house in Clio. I was driving the Sunbird. It didn’t even have a name, my car. It was just the Sunbird. That’s how much I hated it. 

We were heading north on Linden Road. Rosey and the others were in front of us. As we crossed Pierson Road, I saw a triangle of light hovering in the sky, right above I-75. 

“What is that?” I asked. 

“UFO, I guess,” Keith said.

“Shit,” I said. “What should we do?”

“Let’s get under it,” Lisi suggested, “and see if it lifts us up.”

I stepped on the gas and headed east on Pierson Road, trying to see where exactly the ship was located. It was impossible to tell how far away it was. It could have been close and small or far away and huge. All we could tell was that it was a triangle shaped thing with lights underneath it that hovered in one place. It didn’t make helicopter noises. It definitely was not a plane. I’m not saying it was filled with a buncha ETs, but it was definitely unlike any other aircraft I have ever seen.

We drove for about a mile, trying to get underneath it. Just when we seemed to be getting a bead on its location, it stopped hovering and flew off into the distance. It didn’t shoot across the sky in a quick burst of light, but it did move across the sky in a smooth and direct line that implied it was moving very, very quickly. We couldn’t keep up, so we turned around and headed back to my house.

The others were waiting when we arrived.

“Did you see that thing?” we asked. 

They had, but they hadn’t tried to chase it down. No one seemed as excited as I was about it, but everyone admitted it seemed like a pretty strange thing.

We thought we should report it, but we didn’t think the police would care. So I called CK105, Flint’s biggest radio station. 

“We just saw a UFO!” I said, when the DJ picked up the phone.

He asked me what I’d been smoking. I’m not sure if that’s exactly what he said, but it had a similar flavor of sad local DJ ineptitude. 

“You’re working the late shift at CK105 in Flint,” I complained. “A guy calls you up to say he just saw a UFO, and that’s the best you can do? Are you the worst DJ in radio history?”

He hung up and didn’t mention anything about our exchange on the air, proving that he was, indeed, the worst DJ in radio history.