Balls Capone

I was thinking about the time when they found that strange metal monolith out in the desert of Southern Utah, before it was known “Art Installation” or whatever and it got me all fired up and hopeful for strange otherworldly experiences again and it brought me back to the time I had a pretty close encounter of my own up in the high woods near Duchesne, Utah.  You can choose to believe me or not, that's your choice, but I state for the record that I am telling the truth.  This really happened and I remember it clearly, I'll never forget that night.

I had come to a cabin that was partially owned by members of my family, it was way up in the mountains above Duchesne in a place I believe was called Argyle Canyon.  It was a long steep switch back dirt road and even in dry summer conditions the road was a dangerous drive, especially for old shitty city mobiles like we had in those days, and from time to time my old sputtering ’86 Toyota Corolla didn’t want to pull the final hill and needed a push from a couple friends, which no one liked doing, but hey, I drove.  Now get out and push!

We had arrived around dusk and began to haul our stuff into the cabin for the night.  We had some cheap beer, a couple of guitars, a couple bottles of whiskey to enjoy, and plans to have ourselves a good old fashioned country blowdown!  I needed to grab my sleeping essentials from the car, so I headed back out to where I had parked my jalopy when something caught my eye.  There was a light, a very bright light shining down at the bottom of the valley that was slowly moving through the trees.  It was incredibly bright for being so far away, but I dismissed it as a truck or some campers out in the middle of nowhere doing their thing.  That is until the light turned bright blue and got even brighter, then turned to red, then to yellow, then green, and back to bright white again.  

What the hell?  Now that's not a car and that's not a camper unless he's got a million watt flashlight down there or a very powerful spotlight with colored lenses.  Maybe it was some of those raver kids looking for a hidden place to throw their dance party at?  But how would they get a lighting rig in there?  There was no roads to this location, it was in the middle of the damn woods.  I kept trying to run explanations so I could get comfortable with it and write it off, but I just couldn’t.  Just then a little bit of fear jolted through me and suddenly I couldn’t take my eyes off the thing, and it almost felt like it knew I was watching it.  But I broke away, quickly dismissed it as my imagination, grabbed my gear and quickly headed back to the cabin.

The party began and good times were being had, I was a few beers deep and we decided to move the party outside.  We built a big nice fire in the fire pit, playing some tunes, and enjoying conversation when again, something caught my eye.  This time it’s high up over the ridge, it’s that same light, big, bright, and changing colors.  Then, as if it knew I saw it, it slowly sunk back down below the ridge line and disappeared from view, only to come up over the ridge on the opposite side of the valley and do the same routine again, up and slowly back down.  Now it was getting real and having a little liquid courage flowing through my veins, I was now very intrigued.  But once again it floated out of sight and seemed to just vanish.  My friends told me I was seeing a plane and nothing else, but I wasn’t so sure, it seemed to move with it’s own will and intelligence, and planes don’t flash all sorts of random colors like that.  But okay, screw it, back to our whiskey. 

A couple hours later we’re all pretty much a few sheets to the wind when I noticed a light off in the distance, but this time, it was VERY close, maybe a couple hundred yards away from the cabin.  It stayed far enough away behind the trees that you could never make out exactly what it was, but all you could see was a large extremely bright ball of colored light that was moving slowly through the trees.  White, yellow, green, blue, red, slowly moving through the forest and coming closer to the cabin all the time.  It seemed to be headed right toward us, it began moving faster, and it sent a shock of fear through me.  Strangely, it was almost like it could feel that fear and instantly started to back off.

Being good and shitfaced, I decided it was time to find out what this thing was, so I mustered up my alcohol courage, got up and said, 

"I'm not afraid, I'm gonna go see what this thing is" and started charging into the woods toward the bright colored lights.  

As I got closer it stopped moving and I could almost make out what it was when it completely disappeared.  Just like that, *poof* gone.  Now I’m standing in the middle of the woods in nothing but pitch blackness, so feeling annoyed I shouted into the darkness,

"I'm not afraid, come back, show yourself!”, and just as I said that I heard a voice in my head say "We're Glad…”, and just at that same moment, my Cousin JJ turned his up towards me from the fire and said, "They're glad!"  

It was very eery, I had not said anything about hearing that, I didn’t have time.  It was all in an instant, yet he heard the same thing at the same time.  It also wasn’t really a voice, it was more like an instant thought transmission.  Like a text message for your mind from some other dimension.  Now I’m standing in the woods in the blackness and even over the whiskey, I started to feel very nervous, man am I vulnerable right now, drunk, away from the group, and talking to the darkness.  I suddenly realized that this was probably a pretty bad idea, what if it was some kind of alien being?  Is it hungry for stupid drunk dude?  Because I would have made a great meal right then, or maybe the next abduction victim only to reappear as a carcass with my eyes cored out and my anus missing.  Who knows.

So I started crackling back to the group with great haste.  The light never came back that night and we all eventually passed out for the night safe in our sleeping bags within the comforting closeness of walls.  I'll never forget that encounter.  It didn't feel evil or bad, just creepy.  That primal fear of the unknown and this was certainly the unknown.  The woods up there were always strange though, it had a weird anxiety like vibe, and always felt like you were being watched by something from the tree. line.  I don’t think anyone would have been really surprised if a big smelly Squatch came crackling out of the bushes somewhere.  It was just that kind of place.

So did I have an encounter?  Or am I just completely nuts?  I have seen similar balls of light while out camping before, but this was the only time one ever came close or seemed to take interest in us.  Have you ever had a similar encounter?  

It certainly sticks with you.