I might as well tell you right up front that we were having a few drinks. If you knew the rogues I was drinking with you’d say, ‘Oh yeah, they definitely weren’t sipping lemonade.’
It was the summer of 1981 or 1982, if memory serves, and there had been a magnificent show of the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) the night before. I was living in Hopewell Cape, Albert County, New Brunswick and a couple of guys and I were having a few cold ones in the house and having a sing-song. Somebody went outside—it might have been Hubert, just to see if the Northern Lights were going to favour us again tonight.
No luck. When he came in, however, he remarked how nice it was outside—warm, not a breeze, and a million stars in the late evening sky. So we all decided to go out and sip our ‘lemonade’ on the deck and out in the driveway. There was me and Blair, Hughie and Gary if I remember right and we stood out there in that darkening Albert County evening, telling stories, gossiping—like you would, and enjoying a few laughs.
As night came on down the sky was even clearer, the backdrop to the stars even darker. It was a starblanket from horizon to horizon and being under a major flyway, we watched multiple jets go over, four or five miles high. We also watched a satellite or two. I was out in the driveway now, away from the little bit of inside light that was coming onto the deck and looking up I saw something I have not seen before or since.
It was the summer of 1981 or 1982, if memory serves, and there had been a magnificent show of the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) the night before. I was living in Hopewell Cape, Albert County, New Brunswick and a couple of guys and I were having a few cold ones in the house and having a sing-song. Somebody went outside—it might have been Hubert, just to see if the Northern Lights were going to favour us again tonight.
No luck. When he came in, however, he remarked how nice it was outside—warm, not a breeze, and a million stars in the late evening sky. So we all decided to go out and sip our ‘lemonade’ on the deck and out in the driveway. There was me and Blair, Hughie and Gary if I remember right and we stood out there in that darkening Albert County evening, telling stories, gossiping—like you would, and enjoying a few laughs.
As night came on down the sky was even clearer, the backdrop to the stars even darker. It was a starblanket from horizon to horizon and being under a major flyway, we watched multiple jets go over, four or five miles high. We also watched a satellite or two. I was out in the driveway now, away from the little bit of inside light that was coming onto the deck and looking up I saw something I have not seen before or since.
I saw a light about four fingers up from the horizon, a steady white light rising rapidly and in seconds it was directly overhead.
Just a pin of light, much higher than the airplanes, and suddenly, as my head was inclining to follow it, it turned. I should say changed direction. A turn implies some curvature. There was no curvature. This object did a 90 degree angle change of direction instantaneously. It didn’t stop, it didn’t curve, it just ‘turned’ at right angles without slowing, and keeping the same speed went down to the horizon and disappeared.
No plane or satellite or balloon that I’ve ever heard of travels at the high rate of speed this object did, and nothing I have ever heard of can change directions without a curve or slowing. One of the other guys saw it too, but the other two were too slow in reacting as this was all over in less than 20 seconds.
I hadn’t thought of it in years, but a few months back I was trying to remember which of the guys it was who saw it. It’s not something you would forget, if reminded. I messaged Gary but he has no memory of the event. It might have been Blair or Hughie. I haven’t seen Blair in many years and don’t know how to reach him, so that left Hubert.
I contacted Hughie on Facebook and he has no memory of it either. Unless someone else was there that night, it must have been Blair. I’ve searched the skies many nights, and for hours at a time. This is the only time I’ve ever seen anything that I couldn’t explain. But I know it wasn’t a Frisbee, or a plane or a satellite, or an hallucination. I’m not saying it was a flying saucer, or Aliens. It was, however, an unidentified flying object, or UFO.
Another time I only thought I saw a UFO was out on the same deck, on another evening. It was just a brief flash as a small object flew by, very low. There was some lettering on the side of it—I think it might have been ‘Labatt’s’. Hughie later apologized for the ‘near miss’ but more than likely I had it coming.
Discover more great stories in 'Grandpa Pike's Outhouse Reader'. It is available at all the usual online channels--Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, Kobe, Indigo.com, directly from Flankerpress.com, and at any Chapters, Coles, or Indigo store including Chapters in Dieppe. In (God Bless) Albert County it is available at The Albert County Museum, Jeff Cooke's Albert County Hardware, and Lindsay Butland's Crooked Creek Convenience.
The book is a collection of short stories most of which are humorous, some of which are inspirational or perhaps thought-provoking. A number of the stories take place in Albert County.
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