Humboldtian

Arcatan Matt McGuffin and his roommate spotted what they believe was a UFO around the new year in the night sky above Arcata, according to a Times-Standard letter to the editor bearing McGuffin’s name. The UFO, a “red orb,” as McGuffin describes it, was moving slowly without sound from east to west. Suddenly it changed direction and shot out of sight “faster than I’ve ever seen anything fly, still no sound.” What appeared to be a military aircraft followed the UFO. McGuffin says he served time at the Marine Corps’ air station in Yuma, and knows a little about aircraft.

Before you chalk up McGuffin’s affirmation to a phantasm induced by Arcata’s favorite leisure-time pursuit, consider Texas. If you don’t know, this month a large number of Texans have reported similar UFO sightings. The most large-scale sighting occurred in Stephenville, in the heart of Texas, where dozens of townfolk watched in awe as a UFO “larger than a Wal-Mart,” said one veteran pilot, hovered in the night sky, totally silent, before being chased off by military jets, which were badly out-maneuvered.

A number of United Airlines employees sighted a similar UFO at O’Hare airport in Chicago last year.

McGuffin says in the letter that his sighting in Arcata came before the Texas sightings and decided to go public with what he saw only after he read the news stories coming out of the Lone Star state, hoping someone else in Humboldt got a gander at his UFO.

This blogger has always been fascinated by UFOs and stories of alien abductions. When I was in late teens and early 20s, I devoured almost all the literature ever written about the subject. If you’ve never read books or watched movies about reputedly true stories involving unexplained phenomenon, here a few suggestions:

Whitley Striber, a moderately well-known writer, wrote a book about his own abduction experiences, titled “Communion,” about 20 years ago. It was later made into a movie starring Christopher Walken.

By far the most terrifying book/movie I have ever read/watched about a UFO/abduction is “Fire in the Sky,” the supposedly true story of Travis Walton, an Arizona logger who was allegedly abducted by aliens in the White Mountains in 1975. The final 10 or 15 minutes of 1993 movie starring D.B. Sweeney creeped me out like nothing else I’ve ever witnessed.

The most well-known UFO incident is probably the alleged crash of a flying saucer in Roswell, NM in 1947. Supposedly, the federal government recovered the craft and the bodies of the aliens on board, and allegedly have been storing the remains at Area 51 in Nevada ever since. At least that was the premise of the 1996 science fiction thriller "Independence Day."

Perhaps the most notorious, because it was the first widely reported, alleged alien abduction was the Betty and Barney Hill incident in 1961, which took place in the mountains of New Hampshire while driving on a lonely highway late at night.

UFO sightings in the United States and around the world suddenly spiked exponentially during the mid-1940s when the world was at war. Shortly after the war, in December 1945, five U.S. Navy Avenger torpedo bombers disappeared during a training maneuver while flying over the notorious “Bermuda Triangle” in the Caribbean. Although no UFO sighting was reported during this incident, many believed the five planes and their pilots were abducted. In Steven Spielberg’s 1977 blockbuster, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” the five pilots walk off the giant flying saucer that lands behind Devil’s Tower in Wyoming.

Sightings remained common throughout the 1950s, leading to a spate of flying saucer movies during that decade. But for a few decades now it seems that UFO sightings have been nearly dormant. I began to wonder if all the old sightings/reported abductions were visual mirages/delusions/hoaxes, which the U.S. military/government has always maintained. But with this recent spate of sightings, especially those in Texas, I am beginning to believe again.

McGuffin, the Arcatan, said he hopes his letter will bring forward other locals who might have spotted his UFO. If you know anybody else who claims to have spotted a UFO recently, please direct them to this blog.