A True Account of Strangeness in the Desert
I was feeling nostalgic so I decided to check out the paranormal section of ask dot com. I know what you're about to say and I an honestly tell you that I haven't had one additional thought about ask since the browser tab on my Motorola Backflip closed. Anyway, ask is gone now which means all my stories are also gone now which is fortunate for you because you now you get to read the nostalgic ramblings of a e-hag. I'll even write this in the style of an old cracked article just for you.
(I couldn't find a gif of a motorola backflip so here's a random gif I did find while searching "motorola backflip")
Tonight is a special night, the temperature dropped just right and I'm feeling extroverted enough to regale you with exactly one of the strange encounters I had while wandering the desert about 15 years ago (it doesn't actually seem like it was THAT long ago when i write it out like that. The internet skewing my perception of my own age? It would NEVER!)
So, I'm not from Nevada, there are generally no black helicopter style PMC patrolling or protecting the random patches of the desert southwest I hailed from and that's what makes this encounter notable and strange.
The story starts with my friend and I smoking weed in his Toyota Supra, in our hidden spot out in the scrub concealed by exceptionally full and tall units atripex polycarpa (cattle saltbush) and secured by a surrounding of thick zygophyllaceae that wouls have frustrated any potential, terrestrial interlopers. The moon was high in the clear, black, and starry sky and the speakers of the Supra alive with the sounds of AM radio. George Noory's voice brought J, the friend, and I to the topic of aliens.
(the last you see before being slimed out at the smoke spot)
Specifically we both had noticed that there was some strange fencing being put up miles away from anything and hugging the ridge line of a cliff. Not only had the fences mysteriously materialized seemingly overnight but a strange pool of water also appeared and was large enough that reflection of the noonday sun could be seen glittering off the surface if one were to climb onto the roof of our high school and look out toward the ridge. Why was on the roof of the high school so much? I'll answer that question with another question: What's the statute of limitations on ditching PE? The colors reflected were rusty shades of green and orange it was a strange sight in that area and, even stranger, nobody ever seemed to go to it. We never saw any tanker trucks or work vans or even any wild animals in the vicinity. Anyway, back to the scene.
My friend and I were wrapped up in our conversation about extra terrestrials and and so deep into hotboxing the cabin of the car that it may well have been a phone call based on how little we could see of each other. Of course we began to wonder exactly what was that odd pool out in the desert. No sooner had the thought entered our brains than we (carefully) drove to J's girlfriend's house nearby.
We woke her up asked her to drive us out to a specific portion of the desert that we would navigate toward we just needed her for safety and for verification. We were consummate professionals after all didn't want to be dismissed as the drug addled crack pots we most definitely were at the time.
(rough approximation of J's gf in this portion of the story)
She accepted our request and we set out. When we got near the boundary of the high school and the dirt road became more of an undeveloped animal path. The soft sound of packed dirt gave way to a more noisy gravel under the tires and the shadows at the edges of the headlights seemed to grow a bit more eerie the further we moved along down this trail. It was a relatively warm night so we had the windows down for comfort and to air out the car of the nights opening events. The desert is an abnormally noisy place at night. There's always some sort of unseen rustling or howling or screams of immense terror and angst, those are the mountain lions. But tonight the desert seemed to be holding it's breath with us. Even the stars seemed to grow dimmer as we progressed. But there was a reason for that.
We started seeing strange flashes of light illuminating the dark sky. brilliant blue and bright as anything I've ever seen. They seemed to be originating from a particular spot on the ridge and, as I watched, the apparent rhythm became clear. I don't know what the lights meant or who they were intended for but I didn't have long to think about it before the soundless still life we inhabited was invaded by a set of headlights about half a mile behind us, they came out of nowhere and they were speeding up.
This freaked us all out and we started driving faster, the bumps in the road tossing us to and fro as we progressed toward the ridge and frantically began discussing our alibis and wishing this was actually a case of aliens so we could hitch a ride out of this dire situation. But, because misfortune must follow it's code of threes, suddenly a pair of vehicle lights appeared in front of us. This remote locale was getting quite popular and I will definitely take credit for making that the most happening spot in BFE for the night.
(I'm iconic the way my dumbass ideas have vehicles rushing to the middle of nowhere just to meet me)
One set of the new headlights was maybe a mile off and slightly to the left and the other almost directly in front of us. Illuminated suddenly in the headlights of J's supra was a jeep. Maybe it was tan or grey I couldn't really see it through the fear and anxiety. This apportation of offroad vehicles finally spooked J's girlfriend and she made a hard right turn off the path into the wild desert.
We sped away, gravel and sand blowing into my face as the car accelerated the lights of our pursuers growing farther away but it was still apparent that they were in fact in pursuit. The twists and turns J's girlfriend took as we shot through the valley like the roadrunner threw me and everything in the back seat around like a tumble dry cycle so from my perspective it was only sheer luck that we avoided hitting any large rocks or massive yuccas or anything that would've disabled the car at the moment. When we made it back to the paved road near the school, the three pursuers still in tow but much farther back, she put the pedal to the floor and we managed to lose the tail or so we thought.
A couple of miles down the road, as we were decompressing and panicking about where to go to lose the heat, a black SUV that was way too nice to be roaming around this neighborhood was driving toward us head on in our lane. J's girlfriend swerved and narrowly avoided the bulk of the SUV only breaking off the mirror and leaving a pretty gnarly scratch on J's passenger door.
We managed to get into the city without further incident and went to a Denny's where we laid low ordering appetizers for a few hours. After we all calmed down, we apprehensively drove back to the jam room where our band practiced and recorded. We got all the blankets we could find and sort of made a fort to sleep it off. nothing ever came of that encounter or not to me at least and I continued to wander around that desert for years to come.
So, what was it? I honestly think the fence guys were private security and the black SUV was a drug dealer. Or perhaps vice versa. I mean I guess in the end they are kinda both the same thing when the employer is the government.
This isn't the end of my tales from the desert by far. Stay tuned, strange signalers from beyond the ridge. Next time we may even get to see a craft.
