I camped alone at Hay's Lake State Park adjoining Beltrami Island State Forest, one fall weekend, back in 1982. It was a campsite near the lake, apart from any other campers; I particularly enjoyed it because it offered tranquility and not social interaction. The lake's quiet vigil, its surround of stately spruce and pine trees, its separation from the protrusion of man-made light made the environment seem remote, almost wild, if I didn't dwell on the fact that many of the trees had been planted with a bulldozer pulling a team of tree planters in a roughly-armored tree planter, and the lake itself was man-made, by damming a portion of the North Fork of the Roseau River in 1971 or so. I visited it then too, before there was even water in the lake. I took those things in stride.
I thought, here I am, about 35 miles from the Canadian border, and only 700 miles or so from Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, where the polar bears roam, with a whole bunch of woods ... er, 'bush,' as the Canadian say, in between. Lots of semi-wilderness with more-or-less real wilderness thrown it here and there; oh, and lakes and rivers ... just lots and lots of them. Tons.
With a bigger ton of wild and domestic animals thrown in to make it seem surreal, I thought of just how removed from civilization I was, in reality, compared to how much laid south of me within the same distance. Laying there looking at the stars, all by myself, I could imagine a timber wolf laying with its mates, panting, planning their next move under the same sky I was under. Or a black bear sow and her two cubs, digging grubs from a rotted log; one of them catching a glimpse of a falling star, then completely forgetting all about it; going back to the matters at hand. Iowa doesn't have them!
The fragrances of the vegetation around me; the rustling in dry grass, a wiggling through fallen leaves; the swift and startling flight of an owl in the nearby grove of conifers --there and gone in an instant, made my hair stand on end. I was loving it. I was right to move to Minnesota from faraway Iowa; it was nothing like this. I could almost fall asleep here on the needle-strewn ground. just look at all those millions of stars against such a black sky ...
What the hell?
There was a 'star' 'way up there that moved. It wasn't my imagination although I hoped it was ... Nope, it did move; it was moving. CRAP! "It's a !@#$%^&* SATELLITE! I CAN'T EVER GET AWAY!
It ruined my night. I packed up the next morning and went home.
Two nights ago, October 15, I was outside, about 7:30 pm, blissfully grilling a pork chop on my new propane grill, at the back of our house, when my step-daughter Janel let loose with a shriek from the front door, which I heard plainly, "MOTHER! JACKIE! COME HERE QUICK! SEE ALL THESE LIGHTS IN THE SKY! LOOK! LOOK! SEE THEM? WHAT ARE THEY?"
Well, I dropped my spatula don't you think I didn't, and came running toward them to see what it was they were excited so about.
"LOOK BOP-BOP! (A grandfather-name my grandson Ozaawaa gave me and she perpetuates.)
"LOOK UP THERE! IT LOOKS LIKE AN AIRPLANE PULLING SOMETHING. IT'S ALL LIGHTS AND THEY FLASH!'
I WAS DUM-FOUNDED.
(I capitalize this because I was, totally, absolutely astonished. Speechless.) I watched this unbelievable sight of what did appear to be an airliner pulling a segmented 'train' of grayish-looking box cars, that suddenly all lit up simultaneously and begin flashing --- then disappeared.
"WHAT THE HELL? WHAT THE HELL?"
Janel and Jackie were talking excitedly, shouting questions, pointing at an empty sky. I didn't know what to do, so, of course, I called Chairman Joe -- who didn't answer.
Shit. "Who to call? Who to call?" I'll call the Stenzels! They know stuff that nobody else knows (well, other than CJ and Teapoetry) never giving it a thought that at 7:43 pm they'd be asleep.
"Early to bed; early to rise makes a something, something ...,"
Catherine answered, sounding not at all perturbed, if but a bit confused that it was not Joe McD as her Caller-ID indicated. (There's an explanation). My gut said this was EXACTLY who I should've called first and not wasted valuable time calling:"You have reached Joe's phone. Please press 'seven' to leave me a message." [He never checks his messages. He just calls you back, eventually, and asks you what it was you wanted to speak to him about not having listened to the lengthy highly-detailed message you had left him, and are now exhausted and unwilling to go through all again. Good Grief.]
'Ennaways', as Jerry Solom used to say, I just knew that after I described what we three had seen, Catherine was going to chuckle about all the excitement, as her dad's whole life --and hers to an extent -- had been aeronautics and she was going to say,
"Lawdy, lawdy Young Blood, thar's no sense in gittin' your britches in a knot over... Lessee here, ... Wait a minute, uh ... STARLINK Flight J36839 outa Houston bound for Greenland. Sounds like it was right on time, as usual. Thar's nuthin' to do 'bout it, darlin'. No problemo. I'll be gittin' m'self back to sleep. G'night! Over and out."
https://www.space.com/starlink-satellite-train-how-to-see-and-track-it
I'm glad you didn't call me. I woulda been all, "Aliens! UFOs!" then your heart rate and blood pressure woulda really gone through the roof and up to the skies, joining those streaky lights. All's well that ends well.
ReplyDeleteI texted him it was the Comet Kohoutek.
ReplyDeleteWrong!!
A little knowledge…
Hello WW! I'm so pleased that you captured this sky-pilot episode! It's a goodie! You did forget to say that my dad - who after he turned 16, flew almost every day of his life, with thousands of hours of night time. Every now and then he would come home and report a sighting of something in the sky that he could not explain. And I'm here to tell you, when it came to aviation, there wasn't much he couldn't explain. A couple of times, he sighted a UFO-type object flying parallel with him an right off his starboard wingtip. He was a conservative believer and he was almost certain we were being observed. As for your experience, I still stand by what I told you on the night of the 15th - marsh gas and reflective ice crystals which, if you recall, were abundant that night. Maybe one of us should have contacted the FAA to try to find out if someone had filed a flight plan that crossed our territory? Now, ghostly apparitions? That's another story altogether! Here's to all visitors from the stars - or the marshes around here!
ReplyDeleteAnd just when I thought I might sleep tonight, I find you stirring the cauldron. Happy Halloween to you, too, JPS!
DeleteThe thing is, I had successfully robbed myself of all this knowledge of current space technology simply by not listening to NPR/BBC radio on a twice daily basis on my way to and from the toy factory beginning in June of 2017, not that I ever had any interest in the stuff at all; it still would've penetrated my mind in some subliminal way and secretly cached itself there for recognition when, in such an event as of October 15, 2024, instead of freaking out that I had seen something like that at all, my otherwise feeble brain would've jumped to the fore and recognized it for what it was, as more space junk floating around overhead. I could've shrugged it off and gone back to my pork chop grilling in the light of the moon; I wouldn't have called Joe, nor disturbed Catherine, I would've just sipped a bit more of my beer, said g'night to the ladies and that would be that.
ReplyDeleteAs it was, I learned I was the last person on earth not to know what that was; EVERYBODY I told about it -- including all the others that read the post as well, knew all about it, some for years, including Chairman Joe. "Sorry old chap, I guess things like that have become blasé in my old age." Ho hum, ho hum.
Argh.