Three Encounters of the Close Kind

My seemingly never-ending quest into Masonic research has taken a strange turn lately. I blame Google; promising links gone bad. We all know there is some off-the-wall stuff out there about Freemasons, but lately I just seem to be hitting an abundance of space/alien/Masonic connections. It's not always a direct link, but I've found mysteries with multiple theories where the author spirals into a shotgun approach that ends up with, "If you can't blame the Freemasons, blame it on aliens." The treasure buried on Oak Island is a perfect example: "If the Freemasons didn't put it there, ET did." Then there is my personal favorite — Freemasons get mystic powers from the hexagon on Saturn. Really, I wish these creative conspiracy theorists were right. I could use a few mystic powers.

In our Masonic Lodges we are not to discuss politics or religion. I think we should add UFO discussions to that. I have learned differences in opinion about the nature of UFOs can lead to big trouble between two people who are otherwise friends. Suffice it to say, I'm a skeptic. That's all you get. I don't want any big trouble.

Having said that, hitting a bonanza of links about Masons and aliens lately has given me reflections about my three UFO experiences. That's right, I've had three encounters of the close kind. All three happened when I was in college. I should add, none of those experiences were enhanced by any recreational chemicals so prevalent on campuses then... and now.

Trash Bag UFO

Encounter One: Strange Lights I personally never saw the strange lights hovering over the campus, but I knew people who did. For a few days talk of the lights was all the rage. They were rumored to appear just after dark. I made a couple of rooftop excursions with friends. We didn't see any UFOs, but at least it was a diversion from studying... which was good enough for me. Apparently, the lights just hovered in the sky. Some saw one light, some saw a group of lights. It remained a mystery until one of the lights "crashed." Turned out to be a prankster or group of pranksters who fashioned miniature hot-air balloons out of garbage bags, and launched them in the same manner as Japanese sky lanterns. The flame at the bottom created the mysterious light and kept the contraption airborne. As I heard it, their first effort was an experiment with one balloon, but the fact that it attracted attention inspired the perpetrators to expand their efforts. Mystery solved.

Encounter Two: A Cover-Up My roommate during my sophomore year was a level-headed guy. He was, in fact, the president of our dormitory's student government group (I understand it's debatable any politician could be level-headed, but let's move on anyway). One night he raced into our room and announced he had just seen a UFO. Mr. Levelhead went into great detail describing the thing, and said he was convinced it was the real deal. According to him it had a flashing light, moved in three dimensions, turned at right angles and changed direction rapidly. He finally decided it should be reported, so he called the Campus Police (not exactly the FBI, but again I digress). He gave them a description in great detail. When pressed further about the object's appearance he said, "I guess you could say it looked kind of like a helicopter with a strobe light." The next day, much to our initial delight, the story appeared in the campus newspaper (never in danger of winning a Pulitzer). The writers there checked the campus police logs daily and got the story from my roommate's report. It pretty much followed his description of the object and the way it moved, but we were a bit surprised when we read the last line: "Authorities determined the object was a helicopter with a strobe light." If that's not proof of a cover-up, I don't know what is.

Encounter Three: Contact! Then there was the night my friend Carl (That's his real name. This is, after all, non-fiction) came running down the hall banging on doors yelling that he had seen a flying saucer. Carl was not a levelheaded guy. It seems he and his girlfriend had been out in a remote area... uh... collecting plant samples for biology class... nocturnal plants. "We saw it land," he assured us. Well, it was either keep studying or save the world from space aliens, a no brainer. So a few of us grabbed cameras and headed for the hinterlands. We soon found ourselves on farmland a few miles outside of town. It was a moonless night and pitch black. Good thing we remembered cameras. Too bad we forgot flashlights. We spread out to search the area. I headed for a dim light which turned out to be some kind of outbuilding. I stumbled up to the side of it, felt my way along to a corner, rounded it and... There wasn't enough light to see how big the spaceship actually was. I could see it was made of metal and had rounded edges. Even though it was completely dark, the thing almost gleamed in front of me. I froze. I couldn't hear any of my friends who were out there somewhere hunting the amazing thing I had found. It was just me and the space aliens. I didn't know what to do, so I just stood and stared. As I did my eyes became more accustomed to the dark. Gradually I could see more of it until I saw its entire shape. No space alien was going to get me. Boldly I walked up to it and smacked it with my open palm. It made the metallic ping I had expected. Suddenly I heard one of my buddies yell and ask if I had found anything. I smacked it again. "Naw," I said, "just this propane tank." Can't fool me, no sir.

So that's where my Masonic research has taken me lately: to sites linking us with space aliens — and fuzzy memories of encounters long past. I think I'll resolve to sticking to the first few hits on Google searches. You never really find much worthwhile on page 27. But I am happy to know about the hexagon on Saturn, which is, in fact, very real. That's cool.