Exira Sesquicentennial Special: Aliens in the Cornfield, 1982

Defensemaster1: Hey, Lynn...do you know any old Exira ghost stories?
HAWKNESTMONSTER: ghost stories?
HAWKNESTMONSTER: such as?
HAWKNESTMONSTER: I thought there were some about Oakfield
Defensemaster1: You know, ghost stories...my goddaughter is writing some down to tell young girls at camp.
Defensemaster1: Oakfield is scary in and of itself.
Defensemaster1: lol
HAWKNESTMONSTER: lol
Defensemaster1: Do you remember how any of them went?
HAWKNESTMONSTER: I'm trying to remember
HAWKNESTMONSTER: It seems like there was someone or something living in an abandon rickety old house or building
HAWKNESTMONSTER: items left in the building would be moved or disappear.....then return on a following day
HAWKNESTMONSTER: the weird thing was the doors were all locked
Defensemaster1: Sounds like a typical boozy weekend in the rolling hills south of Exira-y.
HAWKNESTMONSTER: then the lights whould shoot out of the other guys eye sockets and his head would explode
Defensemaster1: Seen it in Jerry's, 1990.
Defensemaster1: lol
Defensemaster1: Tell me something really weird, Lynn.
HAWKNESTMONSTER: we were running so fast we didn't have time to look back....we didn't stop till we got back to the bar
HAWKNESTMONSTER: like you haven't already seen it before
HAWKNESTMONSTER: um.....my brother and I saw a UFO
HAWKNESTMONSTER: you want me to make something up?
Defensemaster1: A UFO...are you serious?
Defensemaster1: This is the kind of interesting news I would expect in the Bigmouth under "Recollections"
HAWKNESTMONSTER: yes.....it was October '82
Defensemaster1: Why do that month and year strike me as unusual?
HAWKNESTMONSTER: Bruce and me were go-fers for the brothers combining in the field
HAWKNESTMONSTER: ???
HAWKNESTMONSTER: am I missing something
HAWKNESTMONSTER: anyway, I was a bit of a ruffian.....21 years old......I wrapped my arms around Bruce preparing to throw him to the ground....because I did that sort of thing and he said I'll give you a nickel if you can find that airplane.......because we could hear an airplane in the sky somewhere
Defensemaster1: And...?
HAWKNESTMONSTER: I said, I'm not going to fall for that......and he said, no Lynn I'm serious.......what is that? And sure enough directly above us there was a 5 sided object dangling up in the sky
Defensemaster1: Like a pentagon?
HAWKNESTMONSTER: sort of......a little more abstract......orange and black in color
Defensemaster1: Wow...and then what happened?
Defensemaster1: How far away was the object from you?
HAWKNESTMONSTER: well, it dangled directly above us for a minute or so
Defensemaster1: What is "directly above us"? 5 feet, 500 meters, 5 miles...I need to know.
HAWKNESTMONSTER: it looked like it was 4 or 500 feet up
Defensemaster1: Could you make out any markings or details of the craft?
Defensemaster1: Or object?
HAWKNESTMONSTER: I say that because what was really amazing about it was that just as I said should we tell the brothers about it, it suddenly flew away
Defensemaster1: How long was it there? Would you consider it to have hovered?
HAWKNESTMONSTER: the best way I can describe it is as a beam of light.....for example
Defensemaster1: A beam of light? You said it had 5 sides.
Defensemaster1: What kind of noise did it make? You mentioned it sounded like an airplane...jet? prop? How loud was it?
HAWKNESTMONSTER: if you shoot a flashlight in the air, or more accurately a pointer, and watched where that beam of light reached, and you pointed it way from you.....it moved that fast. It was exponential. it sounded like a prop jet....but the sounds disappeared while it was above us
HAWKNESTMONSTER: It was out of sight in a matter of seconds
Defensemaster1: That is weird.
HAWKNESTMONSTER: yes it was
Defensemaster1: Wow. You don't think that Greg was upstairs with a red flashlight and a piece of cellophane in the field, do you?
HAWKNESTMONSTER: Bruce has told the story and claims there was a sonic boom, but I don't remember that
HAWKNESTMONSTER: lol I'm sure it was an elaborate hoax by one of those darn Brady kids
HAWKNESTMONSTER: lol
Defensemaster1: You should have called the Audubon County Journal right away!
Defensemaster1: Ethel Petersen would have come right out to interview you on the spot.
HAWKNESTMONSTER: at the time we didn' t know what it was....we still don't.....we weren't taken aboard.....we just saw something that defies explanation
HAWKNESTMONSTER: all of the 5 sides were different lengths
Defensemaster1: I wouldn't expect aliens to pick you two up anyway. lol
HAWKNESTMONSTER: I've never heard any descriptions of UFOs fit mine
HAWKNESTMONSTER: but Bruce gives credibility to the siting. He is a learned man with a Masters Degree. My degree was in Budweiser.
HAWKNESTMONSTER: at least at that time
Defensemaster1: You definitely need to sit down with him and write a 25th anniversary account of this Nelson oddity.
Defensemaster1: It would be perfect for a Festung Europa Exira Sesquicentennial Special.
HAWKNESTMONSTER: we thought someone else might have seen it, but no one said anything....Bruce and I both agreed you wouldn't have seen it unless you were looking straight above us.
HAWKNESTMONSTER: Well, the story is yours. You may change the names to protect the innocent
Defensemaster1: Maybe it was getting positioned to beam you two aboard, and then you saw it.
HAWKNESTMONSTER: I doubt it of course
Defensemaster1: No, you should write it down with Bruce and send a copy to me.
Defensemaster1: I want first hand accounts from both of you.
Defensemaster1: Man, that should have made the paper back then.
Defensemaster1: You would have had a definite place in the history book timeline.
HAWKNESTMONSTER: like I said, Bruce's account has become embellished over time
Defensemaster1: How? Alien abduction?
HAWKNESTMONSTER: He heard a sonic boom that I don't remember......and the sound of the plane he remembered might have been a little different than I remember
Defensemaster1: It still is an interesting anecdote. I like it. I have never seen anything like that.
HAWKNESTMONSTER: like I said, he got me to look up because there was the sound of a plane in the area.......then he saw it.....then I did.......we talked....
HAWKNESTMONSTER: Bruce said what is it, and I said, I guess that is a Unidentified Flying Object
HAWKNESTMONSTER: and it seemed so natural
Defensemaster1: And then, the aliens having realized the gig was up, immediately departed the area!
HAWKNESTMONSTER: naturally true because of our innocence that it struck a chord
Defensemaster1: Maybe they wanted to catch a quick bite to eat at the Redwoods.
Defensemaster1: There could be a song there somewhere: Onion Rings for Aliens
Defensemaster1: Or even a band name.
Defensemaster1: O-R-A
HAWKNESTMONSTER: yeah
Defensemaster1: I'm surprised you haven't turned the event into something like Stevie the Race Car Driver.
HAWKNESTMONSTER: people only write one Stevie the Racecar Driver
HAWKNESTMONSTER: I think it's amazing listening to it that I was able to devise so many rhymes
Defensemaster1: Yeah, but there could be a weird, Alice's Restaurant-like ballad about the Alien Invasion, October 1982.
HAWKNESTMONSTER: and then have them fit together
HAWKNESTMONSTER: what were you saying about October of 82?
Defensemaster1: That was when the sighting occurred, isn't it?
Defensemaster1: Twenty years after the Cuban missile crisis.
Defensemaster1: I would be interested to see if anyone else had sighted something back then. You may be able to search the internet for it.
Defensemaster1: You could 1) either get an explanation of what it was you saw or 2) confirm that it really was unidentified.
HAWKNESTMONSTER: I suppose. I wrote down my account after it happened. It seemed like it happened October 7th or something.....but I've never been able to find that document again
Defensemaster1: Wow...you need to find that.
HAWKNESTMONSTER: I think it might still be out at the East Place, but so much stuff has been pilfered out of there I hardly know what is left
HAWKNESTMONSTER: I put it in a white glass decorative kind of jar with flowers painted on it
Defensemaster1: A memories urn?
HAWKNESTMONSTER: it was mom's. pretty decorative and not functional
Defensemaster1: I see.
HAWKNESTMONSTER: thin
HAWKNESTMONSTER: light
Defensemaster1: I just noticed a site that had 2 sightings of UFOs in October 1982, one in Utah, one in SC.
HAWKNESTMONSTER: at least that is my recollection
HAWKNESTMONSTER: I'm trying to think, could it have been in 81......the years bleed together
Defensemaster1: It would be very interesting to find your writings on the subject.
Defensemaster1: A written account from just after the sighting would shed a lot of light on the subject.
HAWKNESTMONSTER: The fact is that we didn't know what we were looking at. I remember asking Bruce if it could be a weather balloon, because I had never seen one of them either
Defensemaster1: You could have a date fixed and comparable to other sightings.
Defensemaster1: A weather balloon wouldn't just disappear quickly, and wouldn't make noise.
HAWKNESTMONSTER: Exactly, we dismissed that
HAWKNESTMONSTER: we were intelligent about the way we perceived it
Defensemaster1: Good.
HAWKNESTMONSTER: we didn't jump to a hick conclusion
Defensemaster1: "Uh, is that one of them there new-fangled aero-planes?"
HAWKNESTMONSTER: well, we weren't exactly completely sure that it wasn't a government experiment
Defensemaster1: "If Gawd had meant for men to fly, Lynn-bo, he'd of given us all wings!"
HAWKNESTMONSTER: SAC was sending out old fighter planes, and I remember them flying over us LOW while we were walking beans
HAWKNESTMONSTER: that was about that same time......except during the summer
HAWKNESTMONSTER: they had the painted noses like monsters
HAWKNESTMONSTER: it was some maneuver exercise
Defensemaster1: I remember being out in the field with a buddy, Brad Conner, when his jaw suddenly drops and speechless, he points to the sky. I looked up and there was this B-52 bomber at perhaps 100 ft., I waved to the co-pilot and he waved back.
HAWKNESTMONSTER: yeb
HAWKNESTMONSTER: yep
Defensemaster1: They are still flying those planes. I have one for the FS, but I haven't tried it yet.
Defensemaster1: I am a prop kind of guy.
HAWKNESTMONSTER: when did you see your plane?
Defensemaster1: It would have been around 1980-81, I think. Brad Conner left Exira around 1982.
HAWKNESTMONSTER: probably the same period as the ones I'm referring to
Defensemaster1: Cold War...could have been some weird Air Force project.
Defensemaster1: Who knows?
HAWKNESTMONSTER: in '80 I was at UNI, '81 i would have been working at Faga implement April to October......so maybe it was in September and not October
Defensemaster1: Whatever it was, it is more believable as you both saw it.
HAWKNESTMONSTER: true
HAWKNESTMONSTER: and we are still able to talk about it
HAWKNESTMONSTER: post x files
Defensemaster1: It is a shame that you didn't report it to the paper at least, although you guys may have been laughed out of town. You couldn't go anywhere back there if you were "seeing UFOs".
HAWKNESTMONSTER: which was what i believe the brothers were saying to us
Defensemaster1: Yeah, but in retrospect it was probably a bad decision. For one, there may have been a logical explanation which would have come out.
Defensemaster1: So then: mystery solved.
Defensemaster1: Or others who saw the same thing would have come forward.
HAWKNESTMONSTER: right
HAWKNESTMONSTER: well Chris.....
HAWKNESTMONSTER: it just goes to show you
HAWKNESTMONSTER: you can't always believe what you see
Defensemaster1: We don't see everything anyway. We only "see" what is visible to us in the spectrum. I don't see ultraviolet for example.