It was late afternoon in the summer of 1978 in Newton, Iowa. The corn stood tall, glowing in the warm light of the setting sun. I remember squinting upward, thinking the glare was simply hiding the wings of what must have been a normal airplane.
But it wasn’t an airplane. It was a long, white colored tube-shaped object that frankly, had no business being in the sky.
My brain wasn't comprehending this sudden reality and I remember doing mental gymnastics as I tried to grasp on to whatever it was I was seeing. If reality had been on a turntable spinning like a record, at this point - over and over - the record was skipping. I couldn't understand why I couldn't see this "plane's" wings.
The craft moved slowly east to west above the cornfield, drifting silently toward the sun. There was no engine noise and no contrail. Just a smooth, steady glide across the sky.
I was with a friend and we were riding our bikes when we spotted it. Recently, when I asked my friend about that day, he said he didn’t remember it at all. This seemed ridiculous to me. It was a pivotal moment of my childhood, one that I've thought about hundreds of times throughout the years. Surely he would have the same memory?
Maybe I’m misremembering who was with me, although I'm pretty sure I'm not. But It's incredibly odd that only one of us have retained that memory.
We watched the object for what seemed like several minutes before racing home to tell our parents. Breathless and excited, and after some prodding of course, we returned with adults in tow.
But as fate would have it, the sky was empty.
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