We were just finishing a late dinner at
the kitchen counter when Agapi spotted a pinpoint of light on the
flank of the Florida Mountains. It seemed to be situated at the place
where the bajada (slope) meets the steeper pipes of the range. In the
foreground was a copse of trees. At first, the light was situated over
the small cone-shaped tree; but it moved slowly over to the right
until it was above the taller deciduous tree bare of leaves.
In the car moving toward the light (how
could we resist?) we speculated further.
"There's no road up there, is there?"
"Maybe it's a four-wheel drive. Maybe it's a rescue mission for stranded hikers."
We drove parallel to it for awhile
along Lucca until we hit Sunshine and crossed toward the mountains on
Sunshine. The light split in two and seemed lower down now and the
lights seemed to drift apart.
"It could be just the angle as we
get closer."
Another light appeared or seemed to
appear on the mountain further to the North end of the range. It
seemed to have a little orange to it. As we drew nearer the lights
seemed to manifest lower and lower, until it seemed clear that the
original pinpoint we'd seen must be floodlights at the bottom of the
bajada.
How could that be? We stopped where the
pavement ended and the dust began. The light to the North end was
still there, still apparently higher than the plain but not as high
as it had seemed a few seconds before. As we drove home, Agapi
reasoned that:
"Aliens do that, I hear. Make it
seem like a normal light so that they blend in."
--
So, of course, the next morning we
sought to retrace our steps and set out to get closer to the
mountains again. We took Sunshine past the pavement and into the dust
and continued through a fence onto a road of colorful stones. No way
there could be the light from a house at that height on the
mountains! No house there. Neither at the North end nor in the middle
of the range. We walked and gathered stones: green, blue, dark blue
with clear crystals, purplish, pinkish, white, white with green and
blue spots.
On the way home, after our 2-mile walk
around the perimeter of "Pit Park," a former quarry or
washed-out anomalous arroyo at the East end of town, we saw a plume
of smoke or dust rise up from the base of the Florida Mountains. It
continued to extend higher and higher in a thin column very unlike
the conical form of a dust-devil, rising nearly half-way up the
height of the mountain before it dissipated.
"Looks kind of like a rocket
taking off," I said. And...
--
A day later:
Didn't a coyote just limp across the
road in front of us about a 1/4 mile away? Into that
recently plowed field. No brush. No boulders. No structures. Nothing
to hide behind.
Yes, but...
No coyote.