Late last night, as I was sitting on the couch in my studio and reading a novel, the phone suddenly rang. This was somewhat after 11:30 PM CST - nearly midnight. Who the hell would be calling at this hour? The only things I could think of were family emergency, a UFO sighting occurring in real time, a prankster, or a frightened, freaked-out experiencer. I picked up the phone and answered. Apparently, it one of the was the latter two possibilities.
I won't use any names, but the person indentified himself, slowly, fearfully, haltingly. I finally coaxed his first name out of him, and asked him what had happened. He said his name was 'Ted' (a pseudonym), and he had just experienced an alien abduction, only a few hours before.
I asked him to describe it - I won't give the exact details here, but will say enough to convey the emotional torment that Ted was portraying to me. In short, from his speech, the tone of his voice, etc. it was plain to me that this incident- whatever it was - had scared the tar out of him.
I asked him where he was. He gave me the name of a town, a little town that I had never heard of, somewhere in a southwestern state. I asked him for his phone number and he asked me why. Didn't I have caller ID? I explained that the number wasn't visible to me at the moment but he hedged on giving me the number anyway.
My intent was to see if the number he gave me matched the number I would later look up on my caller ID. Still, sympathetic to his fear, I said OK. I could get it from my Caller ID, later.
I asked him to describe what had happened and he proceeded to begin his story.
He had been walking out of the plant where he worked, sometime in the wee hours (he wasn't sure of the exact time, but it is clearly well after Midnight). Preoccupied with his own concerns, he suddenly found himself interrupted as, a hundred or so feet away, an alien-looking - device/craft appeared barely in front of him. Two beings appeared from the object and escorted him to the craft. His next memory was of lying in the dirt, apparently about two hours later.
His voice cracked as he was speaking, describing in slow, painful steps, what had happened. I again asked him his phone number and again he refused to tell me - making me suspicious. I said OK, I understand, and left it at that. I could, indeed, look it up on caller ID., but I wanted to see what his reply would be. It was revealing indeed - again, it made me suspicious.
I gave him the name of the MUFON state director for his area. He thanked me and we ended the conversation. As I hung up the phone, I was still uncertain of the veracity of the case. Was this man really frightened, or was he just a really good actor? I suspected the latter.
I looked up his phone number and name on caler ID. To my surprise, it displayed a name, which I will describe as "Jim Smith." The name appeared to have nothing to do with anyone living in his area, and/or with his name he had given me. Furthermore, when I did a reverse phone lookup on-line, I found that the phone was registered to someone in southern California (I'll say San Diego). The location, just like the name, had nothing to do with the phone number and name of the person who had called me.
Passing it off as a prank, I ignored the event as just one of those annoying events that dot the picture of life. Like rain during a picnic, a fly on the wall, etc., it was ultimately of no real consequence. Still, I wonder. If the guy was making all of this up, he was passing up a great career as an actor. This guy had sounded really scared, scatterbrained and generally distressed. Hoaxing that was certainly possible, but for what reason? Why waste his talent on something like giving me a rough time?
People do things for a variety of reasons, and like all other aspects of the phenomenon, these are a mystery to me. But whoever he was, I wish him well - either as a close encounter experiencer, or as a pretty decent actor.
