UFOs

It was Sid who first mentioned it in a rather matter of fact way. "Daddy, there is a UFO chasing us." I nearly skidded off the road! We were on the 14th day of our little sight seeing trip of the mid-west starting from Chicago and heading north west via I90 to South Dakota, then turning south past Wyoming and Colorado, across the continental divide to Four Corners and the Grand Canyon, before turning back east again to take I40 to Alburqueque, then north on I25 to Colorado Springs and Denver and then out East again in I80 back to Chicago. We had initially thought of stopping for the night at Iowa City, but decided to push on to make the best of the summer daylight hours. I promised the kids we would stop off as soon as they felt they had had enough. The time was past 9pm and dusk was giving way to darkness very quickly. I had to stop off at the next exit that had some decent lodging.

Nick was more excitable of the two. He was giving a running commentary on the red ball of light that appeared to wobble at a very high speed over the trees to the right of the highway. I had a quick glimpse of the object. Sure enough, it appeared to be going parallel to the highway and was travelling at the same speed of the car as it remained in sight just off the rear window. Sid said he was taking a video and was getting a good shot of it. Nick would have fallen out of the window if we had allowed him to open it as he was gesticulating wildly to Sid each time the object appeared to bounce up. I asked the kids to see whether they could zoom in on it, but Sid found it difficult to do so due to the erratic flight path of the object. Nick kept his nose glued to the window while Sid managed to keep it in his viewfinder. He must have taped about 20 minutes of it, when I saw the exit sign ahead. I asked the kids to put the camera away and keep tracking it until we stopped at the car park. But as abruptly as it had appeared, it was gone.

We stopped in front of the motel, scrambled out and scanned the skies for another sighting. Nothing. We collected our bags and wandered into the motel - deadbeat! But we had the tape - proof enough to show the whole world. I couldn't wait to see the results.

We connected up the camera to the TV, rewound the tape and switched it on. Sure enough, there it was, bobbing in the distance. The camera shook quite a bit, but Sid had the thing on tape. And as we watched it, I saw a faint outline of Sids face and the video camera reflected off the side window. For some unfathomable reason, the blob appeared to be moving in unison with the camera. And then it dawned on me. I asked Sid to disconnect the camera and give it to me. I switched it back to camera mode, pointed it at the mirror and pushed the button. And the mysterious ball of red glowed right back at me!! :-(