The Touch Of The Stars

As a child of the 1960s I lived in the suburbs south of Boston. Summer nights were filled with silence; no cars, no voices, no music. Every house was a tomb and the deep darkness often found a pre-teen boy stealing out the back door to spread a blanket on the ground, strip off his pajamas and lie on the lawn, looking to the sky.

My ritual was always the same.

I was not seeking the mystery of God in the celestial night, but an aberration in the galactic traffic.

"Oh, UFO come take me away."

Alien abduction was a better fate than suffering pubescence in the suburbs, yet no flying saucers snatched my body. I was stranded on Earth along with billions of other humans. None of us were going to the stars, for our solar system is located on the most remote edge of the Milky Way.

Think as distant from New York as Great Slave Lake.

Spaceships warp past Earth without deccelerting. Our planet isn't on the Inter-Galactic Guide. A cosmic billboard on the Moon WINE AND DINE AT EARTH might help trade with the passing aliens, however Earthlings are stuck on the planet, especially after President Nixon had NASA abandon a Mars landing, colonization of the Moon, or a permanent space station in favor of Space Shuttles of the Space program.

From that moment on I felt we were alone, despite claims to the contrary by Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell that UFOs regularly visit this blue planet and not only the cow-mutilators of Wyoming.

His conversations with old-timers from Roswell strengthened his own experiences in Space and Edgar Mitchell is convinced that NASA and the Pentagon have been vigorously prevented the truth from reaching a public more interested in potato chips than UFOs.

"Is there life outside of Earth?"

The Colonel thinks so. although my late father considered billions spent on NASA a waste.

"There's nothing out there?"

No go-go bars for sure or romantic lakes or no marching bands.

Tubas take up too much room in a spaceship, although I once saw a tuba on a Star Trek episode.

The former astronaut also says that the three crafts once hovering over Phoenix were not ours. They were from another planet and not Mars either. Someplace much farther away and we can't even estimate that distance with our pea brains, but I no longer want to go to the stars.

I have four kids.

A three loving daughters and two busy boys.

Plus two grandchildren.

Those are my aliens, for ET are us.

Children from future.

MR. SPACEMAN by the Byrds 1968

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoD0-5DTqpU

We Are Not Alone

On April 4, 2013 the National UFO ALERT Rating System along with California, Florida, New York and Texas updated the UFO status alert to Code 3 with the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) according to Huffington Post.

California had 59 sightings in March.

New York experienced 30.

I have looked for space ships since my youth.

At night I lay on the back lawn. Our house shielded me from curious eyes and I watched the skies for any signs of extraterrestrial traffic. I prayed an alien might take me to Space. It had to be more interesting than my suburban hometown south of Boston.

One night my father came out of the house.

"What are you doing?"

"Looking at the sky."

"There are a lot of stars up there. No one knows how many?"

"No one?" I thought Klattu and his robot Gort from THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL might have a good idea.

"No one." My father believed in infinite space.

"Not even God." I was only saying that to camouflage my puerile atheism

"Maybe Him." My father reached down and lifted me to my feet. He knew me well and said, "Go to bed. If the Martians come, we'll hear their death rays."

"Okay." I walked inside the house up to my bedroom. My brother was asleep. I laid in bed and joined him, only my dreams were of the stars.

One day with the help of aliens they would be mine.