Purgatory, Pandemonium and a Question of UFOs

There is nothing comparable to the wonder of the blue skies of Southwestern Colorado over the vast white of the ski runs of Purgatory, now Durango Ski Area. This was the end of winter 1988 and my girlfriend and I were headed out to get one last ski trip in for the year.

We were staying in a motel at the north end of the main street in Durango. It was filled with folks from the various states in search of that perfect run. The weather was beautiful and the sky was clear. At night, from the hot tub you felt that you could reach out and touch the Milky Way, the Pleiades, Ursula Major and Minor. We tracked satellites with ease, it was breathtaking.

On our last day we headed to the ski are via a shuttle service (read old yellow school bus) that was provided by the motel. We gathered our equipment together, and met at the bus. As equipment was getting loaded onto the bus, that familiar tingling started right at the base of my neck. I looked everywhere in the sky, but did not see anything that I felt could account for that feeling. We headed out.

For the early part of the day, my girlfriend skied with her brother’s girlfriend, teaching her how to ski. I was left up to my own resources, and made a couple of new friends from Texas. We had skied down a run called Lower Pandemonium and were heading back up to the top, when the gentleman next to me on the lift asked me my opinion on ETs and UFOs.

I told him that I was quite certain that there were other sentient beings beside us on this planet. We chatted for the better part of the lift ride to the top of the run, where he began to tell me about a crash that had taken place near the Texas/Mexican border, Laredo I believe, and the retrieval. We then got off the lift he waved goodbye and headed down the run. I never saw him again. Never. Not on the run. Not on the bus back to the motel. I didn’t think twice about it at the time.

That night we were getting ready for bed, and J and I were discussing the day. I was telling her about this Texan that I had met, and she asked me where he was from in Texas. I didn’t know. What was his name, again not a clue. We finished getting ready, showered and gathered our belongings so that the next day would go off without a hitch. I was out like a light. 

The next thing I know I have the feeling of falling. The bed compressed as I ‘hit’ it, and it bounced J up and then back down. She awoke with a start and rolled over to see what had happened. According to her there were several seconds that I had laid there, my eyes opened, but not responding to her voice. 

Needless to say, it shook her up. Then I had “The Talk” with her regarding Socorro.

Sandia ER and a Case of Mistaken Identity

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Albuquerque, NM. The year is 1988. 

My girlfriend and I had had many discussions about life on other planets and other planes of existence.  We were both basically on the same page as to the reality of it all.  However, the other staff members at the hospital where we worked varied on the subjects.

We worked the “war zone” at the hospital's Emergency Room. I was in an administrative position, so it was stress-relieving fun for the staff to give me my ration of s__t for my beliefs. 

It was all in good fun and I took it that way but to me a person should never be ridiculed for their beliefs; be it religious, political or life in general. 

One day in the midst of our duties, my ward clerk suddenly came running in from the ambulance entrance, breathless. It was about 5 or 6 in the evening and the setting sun had cast it’s coloration along the Sandia Mountains turning them the color that gave them their name…a watermelon red.  

He was very excited and urged me to go quickly outside and look just above the ER.  He said that their was a metallic craft hovering, and it wasn’t moving. I thought that this was quite odd as I didn’t have any tingling that I would normally associate with the presence of a craft. 

I walked out the ambulance entrance and down the drive.  I looked up and indeed there was a metalic object just sitting there in the sky. I went back in and retrieved my clerk. We walked back out and I pointed to the object. It was sitting there quietly hovering and not moving perceptibly.

I looked at my clerk and said “That, my friend, is what a weather balloon looks like.  Notice how it looks like an ice cream cone? That's a dead give away.” He looked at me in disbelief.  He said he could understand how someone could actually mistake one for an unidentified craft.  I smiled and went back inside.

My girlfriend and I were planning an end-of-the-season ski trip. 

More on that next time.

Manzano Mountain, Sandia Labs Sightings

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Back to the timeline…1985...

After a long period of abstinence, both from sightings and females, I started seeing the girl who would be with me for 10+ years. She didn’t have any problems with my history, at first.

Our first outing was camping in an area just South of Belen, NM, in the Manzano Mountain range. Keep in mind that the Manzano Mts were where Sandia Labs were doing propulsion and weapons testing. Much of our nuclear stockpile was stored there during the ‘Cold War’.

We drove down I-25 South, took the turn off for Isleta and headed down Hiway 47. This trek took us thru Bosque Farms, Peralta, and Los Lunas. We followed it down past Belen, NM and took a dirt road that ended at a trail head. 

It was early October, the air was very crisp and there was the promise of snow in the air. We hiked up the trail head about 2 miles when I noticed a very large, shallow cave on the right side of the trail. We made our way to the cave and set up camp for the weekend. It was just dusk when I got the campfire started. We had our supper, sat there telling stories, jokes and I passed time blowing on a harmonica that I always took camping. 

After it was dark we sat looking at the sky, and my companion looked at me and said “I’ve never thought we were the only ones here. That would be the stupidest statement one could possibly make.” I agreed and we turned in for the night.

About 2 hours passed, when I got that tingling in my neck. I woke her and we went out the tent opening. There was a glowing object passing from West to East, silently, at a fairly rapid rate. It was about the size of a match head at arm’s length. We turned back in and snuggled down in our down bag.

The next morning, we decide to hike along the ridge that was just East of our camp. As we came up a draw, near the top of the opposite ridge, was a bubble-like object sitting next to a pine. I quickly took a photo of it and wanted to hike towards it. My date, however, felt otherwise.

Needless to say, we did not go and explore near the bubble. This was the beginning of an interesting 10 years.

Note:

I am currently going thru multiple boxes and photo-books to find that print. When I do I will post it here.

UFO Sighting and Albuquerque: Lost Week-end

Please forgive me for a bit of regression here. 

It is amazing what friends remember.

This past week I was talking with one of my friends from my years at NMMT in Socorro. I was mentioning this blog and we were comparing notes from that time. She asked me if I had mentioned what I apparently called a “Lost Weekend”. The following is the meat of our conversation.

Apparently in late 1976 or early 1977 my friend had agreed to take a mutual acquaintance to the Albuquerque Airport. They had left Socorro at around 4 a.m. on a Saturday morning. Her friend was headed back to Pennsylvania for a family emergency. They were headed North on I-25 when they got to the “Twilight Zone” just south of Belen, NM.

She was driving her Triumph sports car, when they pulled over to the side of the road. She was unable to recall exactly why they pulled over, but as soon as they had come to a complete stop she looked above them.  Moving silently across the sky was what she describes as a HUGE deck shaped object.  She judged the length of one side to be about 300 yards. There were multiple lights between the top of the craft and the bottom, making the appearance of it being a multi-storied object. It moved silently, heading West across the interstate.  Her other observation was that it appeared to be landing, just West of Los Lunas, NM. She said that if her passenger hadn’t had to be at the airport to catch his flight, she would have chased the thing.

According to her, that weekend I had headed up to Albuquerque. I left Socorro right after band practice, so that would have put it around midnight. When I returned to Socorro, I complained that I had ended up coming into Albuquerque from the West side. I had taken a cut-off that I was sure was a shortcut to Albuquerque. I arrived in ABQ late Saturday afternoon, feeling blank. I told them when I returned to Socorro that I felt like I had lost my weekend.

Even more interesting is that I hadn’t remembered that incident until we talked this past week. Even now it is a piece meal affair of memories.