39. MARK - FINAL - ON THE (UFO) ROAD AGAIN

A: Mark, what made you call Bob Gribble?
M: Well, I have been having problems with my nose and left ear lately. When I came back into the house - my parent's house - that night after I was wandering around my parents were up and they were in the kitchen and I was back in my room. Like I said the thing was - it had moved a little bit. It kind of drifted back and forth. I didn't know they were up but they were. My mother was fixing my father's breakfast so he could go to Atlanta to weld. There was this blinding flash of light in the bottom of this thing and right after it happened - right after it flashed I was just standing in front of the window and I said, "Damn, what was that?" I couldn't see. I was blinded by it. I was going to go out of my room and go in the bathroom and look at my eyes. I couldn't see, I was blind. When I opened my bedroom door I heard my parents in the living room or in the kitchen in the front part of the house. I didn't go out my door. I just kept the door cracked and I was listening to my parents and my father said, "Well, Jean, go over in the corner of the living room and see if the lamp blew out (to see if the light bulb in the lamp blew out)." So she says (I hear her go over to the corner of the room, I'm just standing there at the door listening to them.) "No, the lamps not even plugged in." she says "That was the brightest flash of light I've ever seen, it even lit up the kitchen." My father was sitting at the table and he said, "yes. I looked out across the road and it just lit up the whole countryside when it flashed." He said, "see if a storms coming up" so my mother went outside on the front porch and she came back in and said "no the sky is clear." "There's not a cloud in the sky." So my father says, "Well, its probably just heat lightning, or something like that." So she starts fixing his breakfast and they didn't say anymore about it. He went on to work, I would say about 4:30 in the morning. He got in the car and took off to work. My mother was... went back to bed. I got up and went in the bathroom to look at my eyes. My whole body everywhere, my entire body was pink like sunburn. I developed a rash all over. I went back to my mother's bedroom and she says what are you doing up. I said ya'll just woke me up making noise. She said "well you should have been up a while ago, there was this real bright flash of light that lit up the whole yard and inside of the house and everything." I said, "Yes, I know. It came from some kind of spaceship." She said "What!" I said "I'm serious. Come here and look outside before it goes away. There's this giant thing outside. It's been over my room all night." She says, "Oh, you're just kidding." I say, "No I'm not." she says, "What's wrong with your face? I said, "Well, it's like sunburn. That light that shined on me did that." See the light hit me directly on the face right between the eyes. Whatever this thing was on the bottom of it - light or spotlight or whatever it was - it hit me right on the face through my bedroom window as I was gazing up at this thing. They saw the flash, they weren't in the light. They were in the kitchen. After a couple of days when they took me to the Army psychiatrist they were sitting in the office with me in the doctor's office and the doctor said "Your son says that he's not making up the story, that he sincerely believes with all honesty that it actually happened. And he says that you two are witnesses to some kind of brilliant flash of light as this object departed." And he says "Is that true, did you witness any kind of strange light or anything like that? Did you see any object in the sky or anything?" Both my parents became real nervous as if they were going to get accused of being insane along with me. But my mother kind of stood up a little bit. She said,, "Yes, there was a big bright flash of light and we don't know what caused that but our son said it came from the bottom of some kind of space craft." That was unacceptable to them and unacceptable to the doctor. I've never told anyone else but lately I've been having trouble with my nose.
A: What is it doing?
M: It gets real cold, cold as ice. Not my face or my cheeks. The rest of my body will be warm, comfortably warm and my nose will be cold as a piece of ice. Just cold, ice cold.
A: Do you ever hear any buzz or beeps in your ear?
M: No, just a fading of my hearing in my left ear. I get a little bit deaf in it sometimes. Sometimes it is just fine. This is what I figured out because at that time in my life I wasn't interested in UFOs. I was trying to maintain a job. I hadn't been out of high school long and I was trying to make some money so I could have a place of my own. So I wasn't concerned about UFOs or anything but after this happened to me I went to the library and checked out some books from the library and they had... you know... they had built the UFO thing up. It was like a fad or it was... There were a lot of sightings back in the 60s and I think the whole thing was just too much publicity and a lot of people were making up stories that they had seen something when they didn't. Well after reading a few books and doing some thinking on my own this is what I think. I think it actually was some kind of exploration craft. Either stationed on the earth somewhere in an underwater station in the ocean somewhere or as far as that goes they may have a base station on the moon. I don't know, but I believe it was some type of highly advanced technology - some type of space craft. There were intelligent beings in it although they would not reveal what they looked like to me while I was in it. Not just because of what this surgeon told me a couple of years ago. I now believe this myself because I'm having trouble with my nose. It stays cold and it feels funny. I have looked at myself and I have had some kind of advanced surgery done on my nose that I have no knowledge of. I can't attribute the surgery to anything except that night in that spacecraft. They removed cartilage. They took skin samples. This thing scanned my entire body and with this cup-like device over my left ear I was able to hear almost like whispers between the beings in the craft intermingled with my own thinking.
A: Bob said something about poetry..
M: One of the beings, and it was very distinct, it was almost like a very quiet whisper. One of them was confused and he's saying (he or she, or it, or whatever) was temporarily confused. Wanted to know why was I not hysterical and reciting poetry? I didn't understand what that meant. I quieted down after I heard that. I settled down, I think my heartbeat was slowing down. I was getting calmer and calmer because the situation was becoming more and more interesting. I just really wasn't afraid. I thought about that later. Apparently they had. That same craft had abducted people elsewhere. I don't know where but I thought reciting poetry - he meant that they had abducted people and when they were abducted they had become hysterical and were praying out loud and he thought that was poetry. When I thought that I laughed till I fell down. Like I was saying I think the whole thing was just a... if you embrace infinity itself and believe in the entire universe, I think that it was nothing more than an exploration craft. A small craft from a mother ship. A much larger craft stationed somewhere and that they were just examining the variety of races we have and, "Oh Lord," it's really weird because if they have been monitoring our TV programs and our radio programs and if they have witnessed various activities that go on on this planet, I think that they would have a hard time figuring it out. I don't know about other planets. I believe there are other planets but this planet here really confuses them.

Well this is what I have accepted. The disappointing thing to me now is I have encountered nothing but trouble since then - to the extent that I wish they had taken me with them.
A: Have you seen anything of them since?
M: Oh yes. Let me tell you what I think. They wouldn't take me with them or anyone else because of... with their degree of intelligence and all of that... I don't know how they sustain their lives or if they're actually beings that are composed of what we call life. They could be. If you get into science fiction, they could have been highly advanced robots or maybe that craft was completely unmanned - it was being remotely controlled from somewhere else. I don't know. But I have seen crafts - space craft come up from the bottom of the lake about three miles from my parent's house in the country.
A: How long were you in that mental hospital - just a month or what?
M: No, they had me there once for 9 months!
A: Oh my gosh. Did they look in your nose and your ear?
M: No, they didn't.
A: Do you live with your parents anymore?
M: No, I don't.
A: Do you get along with them now?
M: Pretty good, yes, I guess I do.
A: Are you able to hold a job now?
M: No, I'm not. I'm drawing a disability check every month. I'm on medication. I get an injection of an anti-psychotic medication every week.
A: Why are they giving you that?
M: Because I claim that I was inside a space ship. (sounds exasperated)
A: What if you don't take that injection, what happens to you?
M: Oh, I get real healthy, I quit smoking.
A: Why do you let them give it to you then?
M: If I don't show up at the clinic they call the Sheriff's Department and have me arrested.
A: Why?
M: I don't know, I really don't have any idea. I took 2 years of psychology in high school and I'm familiar with all the terms - schizophrenia - I'm diagnosed as schizophrenic with hallucinations to the extent that I had vivid hallucinations where I could not determine whether what I was seeing was real or not and they have reduced me down to a .... they're just saying that I'm mentally ill that what happened that night was due to severe schizophrenia and that I hallucinated the whole thing.

A: Mark, is there any way that you can get away from there?
M: No, I already tried.
J: You're not saying that the drug causes you to not work, right? Does it make you tired or...
M: No, it's what they classify as a neurollepic drug. It's taken along with some tablets because if you take the injection without the tablets which are kind of an antidote, you can go into severe extreme convulsions and I've already experienced that.
A: Mark, I wish you didn't have to be in this...
M: I tried. I escaped from the State Asylum twice and the first time I ran. I climbed over the brick wall that had iron spikes on top of it. This asylum here in South Carolina is like something you would see in an Alfred Hitchcock movie - only it's real.
A: A horror movie.
M: I climbed over this brick wall and when I got on the other side my feet hit the pavement and I took off running. I ran about three miles and I started to go into convulsions. So I hid in an alley and went through convulsions for about 4 or 5 hours of convulsions.
A: Was it from the medicine?
M: Caused by the injections and the medications they were forcing me to take. After I experienced the convulsions and real bad muscle contractions and I couldn't see, I laid there until it began to wear off. When the effects wore off I got up and started running again. I went to a supermarket and got a big piece of cardboard and a magic marker and I wrote "Augusta" on it. I was going to try to make it to Augusta, Georgia before they captured me. I stayed gone two months before they captured me and they put me right back in there. As far as any crime or any sin to society or anything like that, I don't... I had done nothing at all. I was completely innocent.
A: Mark I want to help you.
J: Sounds Terrible.
M: I'm ready to defect to Russia, buddy. That's what I'm talking about. I am ready, I've had it with America. I'm fed up to the top of my head with America. I'm ready to defect to Red China. What really brings me down to earth in a real sad way is they didn't... they wouldn't take me with them and then later on I figured out well.... there would be no need for them, they got whatever they wanted; blood samples, skin samples,, cartilage samples, I don't know If they are into cloning or whatever they are into. Want to know what their motives are? I think they are just collecting specimens - anyway - I was worthless to them. They don't need us. I don't think they have any use for us at all. I don't even really think they want anything that this world has to offer. I found myself feeling that lately, that I don't want anything else to do with this planet.