It wasn’t until Christmas 1977 that I would be confronted with something that couldn’t be denied or explained away. A simple answer would have been if it was only a onetime event, but instead it would be three, back to back, within a seven-month period that would leave others and myself without answers.
It all started with seeing a light, low to the horizon, pacing the vehicle I was in. The others in the vehicle did not take notice of this event, because they were too busy catching up on the past. But as I sat in the seat looking out into the night sky I saw it follow us for about seven miles. At first I thought it might be lights from a plane, but it then zipped across the sky in less than a second to disappear hundreds of miles in the distance. This was December 26, 1977 and it was no plane.
Then in and around March or April 1978 I was traveling along the same route with family. My mom was more attentive to the traffic and my sisters than what was happening in the sky around us. The sun was still up when we were returning home and this is when I saw a silver disc in almost the exact same spot. This object flew low to the horizon, not far from the car as before, and it kept pace with us for about five miles this time. Again out of the blue it flew off into the distance disappearing out of sight. All within less than a second or a blink of the eye as it might be said.
The final occurrence would be during the summer in either June or July 1978. My
Grandmother was visiting our new home. We had moved to Moriarty, which is located in central New Mexico in January 1978. My mom was excited to share the local places she had come to know over the past few months. We were in the mountains enjoying a dinner at a local restaurant. Just as we had finished our meal, and were on the way out to the car my mom decided she wanted to take the scenic route home instead of the way we came.
The scenic route, as it was called, added another two hours onto the trip. The route would wrap us up Highway 14 to the Interstate 25, just west of Santa Fe. Then on Interstate 25 we would travel another fifteen miles at which time we would turn off on Highway 285 heading back south. From there we had another seven miles until we took the final turn down Highway 41 bringing us within thirty miles of our house.
The entire trip was about as boring as possible when my Grandmother’s attention was focused on a light in the distance. She had been watching it for a few minutes and alerted my mom. My mom decided after she watched it for a few seconds that it had to be a prison break since it was coming from the area of the State Pen, which was an area we were just at. But that theory went out the door after the light did what it did next.
The light moved to the north, slow and methodically. It went into a cloud disappearing out of sight, but when it went in the cloud, the cloud itself lit up as if it were day. By this time at night it was pitch black other than some stars, a crescent moon, and the lights from Santa Fe, none of which were enough to make it seem like daylight, which was what was happening. As the cloud lit up my mother and grandmother believed it must be lightening, but it didn’t go dark for a couple of minutes and they could not explain what was happening, again another theory out the window.
Soon the light came back out of the cloud and the cloud went dark again. You couldn’t distinguish its shape anymore. This is when the light begins to slowly move south until it was directly west of where we were. Since we were at this time traveling west it stood still. When my mom veered south it began to pace the car keeping even with us staying just to the west low in the horizon, but high enough to skim the top of the Ortiz Mountains.
Soon we climbed the ridge to the upper portion of the valley, which Moriarty sits in. This is when the light begins to come toward us and yet kept pace with the car. Now alarmed my mom hits the gas trying to get us home. As we sped up it sped up. When it made this movement it would come within a few miles of us and then it would pull back to its original position. It did this zigzagging for the rest of the trip home, about seventeen miles. The unique thing was it always stayed the same distance away whether it was coming toward or going away from us.
As we pull into the driveway of our home the light was still visible to us, and was now sitting still. It was just below the top of the Sandia Mountains. Located closely to an area called Edgewood. My mom rushed everyone into the house. I run to the kitchen window to see if I can get another glimpse of it. It was still there and I watched it for a minute when I heard my mom yell at me to go to my room. It was in that moment the light went out, just like the lights in the house might do. I spent that night wondering what it might be and how it was connected to other ones I had seen before. What I didn’t know was these events would be in connection to someone who I would soon meet that would forever change my life.
Liz