Meta Mysterious

Since that night I’ve questioned myself many, many times.  Did I really witness what I thought I witnessed, or was it something my mind fabricated because I was tired to the point of exhaustion?

After three days in the Santa Fe area visiting Native American pueblos and places like Nambe’, Galisteo, Cerrillos and Madrid my physic senses were overloaded with visions of past peoples who once lived in this area. Colorful, sensual art was everywhere.  Spices used in the local food saturated my body. When native rhythms and melodies were not actually playing, they were filtering through my mind.

After a longer stay in Old Town Albuquerque than planned, visiting galleries and the museum, my friend and I headed to Flagstaff where we had hotel reservations. Our intention was to spend two days there at the Navajo Festival of Arts and Culture, tour the Grand Canyon and then drive home to Sonoma stopping one night along the way.

The drive across the desert was deceiving.  We thought we were making good time but according to our navigating device we were not even close to Flagstaff and it was midnight.  When we left Gallup we topped off our gas tank knowing we were heading into desolate territory.  We had no idea just how desolate until it was too late.

The sky was clear and filled with more stars than I had even seen before.  The Milky Way appeared like a solid mass and looked, well, milky. The highway disappeared into complete blackness in front of the headlight beams.  Somewhere around the New Mexico-Arizona border our clock stopped.  All we could get on the radio was a Native American station that played drum and flute music with an announcer who spoke in a native language. We decided it was Navajo or Hopi since we were near that reservation.

We weren’t sure when we stopped seeing highway signs but we knew we were lost, had made a wrong turn somewhere.  We had already switched the driving job back and forth and both of us were afraid to drive further without getting some sleep.  We pulled off the road at what looked like the gate to a ranch thinking that would be the safest decision under the circumstances.  We locked the doors, put our seats in a reclining position and fell asleep.

Bright flashing lights and a loud whizzing noise awakened us.  “Oh my God!  What is that?” We said, almost in unison.  We sat up and scanned the horizon.  Whatever it was appeared to be at least a football field away.  We’d heard about UFOs in this part of the US but didn’t believe any of the reports thinking the people who saw such things were nuts.  

We held on to each other in fear.  Did it see our car or us?  It didn’t seem to be coming closer so we just watched in silence.  The object was enormous, the size of a large airplane and was definitely flying or hovering.  It seemed too big to be a helicopter but swung through the air like one.  It circled around the prairie and disappeared into the brush.  There were numbers of lights that flashed on and off like in a Morris code sequence. A cloud of fog or something that looked like fog surrounded us. It was so thick we lost vision for a few minutes. The noise quit, replaced by silence and then a subtle grumble like a crowd of people talking. 

Something was going on in the middle of nowhere about a hundred yards from us and whoever or whatever didn’t know we were there. We watched and waited not moving or making a sound, afraid for our lives.  After fifteen minutes or so our curiosity overtook our terror and we decided to get closer. We crawled across the sand, hiding behind cactus and brush along the fence line until we were parallel with what looked like an old fashioned campfire.  After the flashing lights and flying object, this was even stranger.  We looked at each other communicating in signs.  

Finding a crevice under the fence, we struggled, nudging our bodies inside and continued our mission to get closer to the action.

Finally we could see a circle of people sitting around some kind of light.  Their bodies were covered in robes.  It was easy to see some were dressed in Native American feathered headdresses with beads and silver shining over their robes.  The others were bald and their skin seemed transparent. It almost glowed. They had eyes, noses and mouths in the right places but they were not human.  The group seemed to be conversing by transmitting signals and sounds.  We watched in awe because this surreal group was, without doubt, conveying information, feelings and thoughts.  

That was our last memory of what we now refer to as the great meeting because the next thing we remember was waking up in our car in front of the ranch gate the next morning.  Each of us waited while we adjusted to our surroundings before speaking.  I hesitated mentioning my weird dream to my friend until she began crying and through tears told me about hers.  We compared perceptions and we knew our experience was real, not identical dreams.

We retraced our journey through the underbrush and back to the hole under the fence.  It was there.  We crawled through and walked to the site of the campfire gathering.  Nothing.  There was nothing, no indication of the night’s affair.  That is until we found my scarf hanging from a cactus plant, the one I had wrapped around my shoulders for warmth the night before.  We had evidence.  Evidence we had been there.

When we told this story to our friends they laughed at us and accused us of drinking too many Margaritas or of making up the story to get attention.  So, as I tell you this, please know it is true.  I can only speculate what the great meeting meant, but I know, am positive as I have ever been about anything, that I witnessed something rare and remarkable.

Meta’s Bio can be found by clicking Author’s Biographies on side panel.