UFOs, ETs AND YOU

by Tom Dongo

Spending a great deal of time as I do in UFO/alien research, extraordinarily odd things happen to me and around me. I sometimes wonder if something "out there" plays games with me -- just for the hell of it, of course. Two examples of this are the following incidents. There have been many.

Several years ago I was spending an evening at a friend's house and they had a visitor from out of state. Their visitor was, in my estimation, not particularly well-grounded in reality. The fellow had heard that I was doing UFO research and began to tell me of some of the things he had been experiencing on a fairly regular basis. It became quickly evident that the man was, for the most part, living in a fantasy world that he had created for himself. I always listen to whatever someone has to say about paranormal activity because even people who are not mentally balanced will often have clear perception into areas a "normal" person might not. I have interviewed persons who were paranoid schizophrenic and even (and perhaps particularly) these people will have flashes of brilliance or insight into paranormal worlds that are quite extraordinary. Thus I listen carefully to anyone who has an unusual story.

The fellow went on about his experiences. When I noticed that the hour was late, I said that I needed to go home and he asked if I could drop him off downtown. I agreed, and on the way he continued to elaborate on his fantastic experiences. It was really getting heavy for me, because some of the stuff he was talking about was really crazy. It involved ETs. I took him to his destination and dropped him off. I turned the car around and headed home. At the intersection of Hwy. 89A and Hwy. 179, I was waiting for the light to change (it was almost midnight -- no traffic at all).

Looking to my right, I saw a man standing with his thumb out, gesturing aggressively for a ride. I thought it very odd that I had not seen him before. He was really giving me the "Come on, buddy, how about a ride?" look. Being a charitable sort, I waved him over. He jumped into the car just as the light changed. It was right then that things got extremely bizarre. Nothing takes me by surprise -- but this did.

We hadn't even gotten through the intersection when he picked up exactly the same crazy conversation that the man I had just dropped off had been carrying on. I mean exactly where the other guy had left off. I took a close look at my passenger. He looked to be in his late twenties. He had jet-black, shoulder length hair and black eyes. He hadn't taken his eyes off me since he got into the car. His right arm held a fully stuffed army duffle bag, which he placed on the floor between his knees.

We had gone only about two hundred yards when he suddenly changed the subject. Still looking at me with those piercing eyes, he said, "Look at me!" He said it twice. I looked casually at him, then resumed looking straight ahead. Then he shouted it -- loud, 'LOOK AT ME!" I turned and looked at him again, more than a bit perturbed. He asked "Have you ever seen me before?" to which I replied no. Then he asked, as if he knew the answer, "Do you know who I am?" I warily shook my head in response.

Then he added, still intently staring at me, "My name is John" (not the name he gave me). "Can you remember that?" he commanded. I nodded. Then he went on, "Remember this also: John-I.M.E.T.-Circle K. Repeat that back to me," he demanded. I did -- and made vivid mental notes of everything he said and did. He insisted I repeat them back to him several times. Then he said, "If you remember those three things and repeat them three times you can have anything you want."

About a hundred red lights lit up in my mind at that point. I am not gullible and I am not a greedy fool. I began to wonder nervously who he really was, but I couldn't come to a rational conclusion. I've known of ET contactees who had similar offers and usually ended up paying a very dear price for their greed and foolhardiness.

We continued down Hwy. 89A for a while. He asked if I would drop him off behind the Pizza Hut. I pulled into a spot where the streetlights were bright -- I wanted to keep a sharp eye on him. I was also watching my wristwatch closely in case I had any missing time. There wasn't any. He squeezed out with his large duffle bag -- and with the door still open, he stuck his head back in and said that he had something in his duffle that would be of great interest to me. He asked if I would like to see what it was. "No, no! -- that's okay," I replied, quickly adding that it was late and someone was waiting up for me. He nodded his head and I drove out onto the highway. He was still standing under the light watching me. I have wondered many times who he was. I never saw him again.

In May that year I met a southern California woman who wanted to be taken to Bell Rock. We went there and I was describing some of the odd things that happen in that area. We were standing at its base when she remarked, "Do you see that object coming from behind Bell Rock, near the top?" I strained my vision and saw nothing. Moments later I glanced again and saw what appeared to be a fully inflated 30-gallon garbage bag, carried along, high, by a strong breeze. But what was strange to me was that this bag was moving at a steady northerly speed and as not being changed in size or shape by the shifting wind currents. I replied to her, "Yeah, I see it now." We made some casual remarks about it and continued to observe it.

I took out my binoculars for a better look at the bag. With the binoculars it could be clearly seen. We traded the binoculars back and forth, watching the object. She passed the field glasses back to me and I brought them up to where the bag should have been. I didn't locate the bag immediately, so searched around the sky with the binoculars still at my eyes. What I finally found in the sky was a very curious object. Instead of a green garbage bag blowing in the wind, I saw a boomerang-shaped object surrounded by a ten-foot-thick brown haze about fifty feet wide. The (boomerang-shaped) object was making unusual maneuvers. It would stop, turn on its axis, or flip over and change direction abruptly.

I watched the object for two or three minutes. I didn't mention it to my companion because at the time I rally thought it was a hawk or a buzzard. I looked again, found the bag and watched it disappear in a climbing, northerly course. We didn't say anything more about it until later in the afternoon. I was running the incident back through my mind. Something seemed awfully weird about the whole thing.

I turned to her and said, "You know there was something really strange about that garbage bag we were watching this morning." She stared back at me with a blank expression. After a few moments she replied quizzically, "What garbage bag?" It was my turn to look blankly at her. "The one we watched with the binoculars blowing past Bell Rock." To my surprise, she answered with no hesitation, "I never saw a garbage bag. What I saw was a boomerang-shaped object with a brown haze around it. I thought that was what you saw all along." I quizzed her further; it seems that while I was looking at a green garbage bag, she saw the same object as a flying boomerang. I can't even begin to come up with a sensible explanation for that one!