LOCUST MAN'S CLOSE ENCOUNTER

By Sandy Bruney
Record Reporter

Although many people in Anson County have reportedly seen a UFO, they have so far been spared the experience of being in one. A man from Locust, NC, a small community near Albermarle, was not so lucky some 10 years ago.

The victim, a car salesman, left a friend's house at 3 a.m. and headed for home (10 miles away). He remembered crossing a steel bridge over Rocky River, and looking up to see a bright star. The next conscious recollection was of driving home, and the sun rising. The clock inside his house said 6:10. He went to bed, and woke with a severe "sunburn." As he drove to work, he noticed the paint was peeling on his demo car.

"Have you been working with an arc welder?" coworkers asked him.

Suffering dizziness and nausea, he visited a doctor and was given a cream for his burns. He began being troubled with both nightmares and "waking dreams" in which he pictured himself in the cockpit of an airplane, looking down at the moonlit earth below. He began having panic attacks.

Not a science-fiction buff, he suffered until he finally wrote to a UFO center in Illinois, which in turn referred him to Henry (Punky) Morton of Wadesboro, who is regional director of MUFON. "I wish I could go to sleep and have the whole dream and see the end," the man told the UFO expert.

Morton suggested hypnosis, and an expert in criminal hypnosis in Winston-Salem was contacted. After a number of sessions, the amazing story unfolded.

After he left the bridge, the victim, still in his car, was lifted closer to the "star," which he now saw was a globe shaped object. He could not move his body, but nevertheless had the feeling that all was well. He entered the globe, noting that the interior seemed larger than the outside. Three beings opened the car door and levitated him out, putting his body on a table.

As the tranquilizer effect wore off, he became excited, nearly paranoid. The beings left the room, and he again experienced the tranquil feeling. On their return, he was examined, stuck with needles, and had a globe passed over his body. He could see a screen on the wall -- like an x-ray -- and then he was driving home.

Even when confronted with the tapes from the sessions, the man refused to believe that such an experience had happened to him. He still thought it was a dream, except for the burns on his body and his car.

He died of natural causes two years ago, but "had learned to deal with it by then," according to Morton.

Not all victims have gotten off as lightly as the Locust resident. Some report that their abductors use no tranquilizers or anesthesia as they take blood and tissue samples, and even samples of ovum and sperm. "They were treated worse than lab animals," said Morton.
Not all visitors are bent on scientific inquiry, he speculated. "Some are here as tourists -- like we'd go to a zoo."

They may also come from different galaxies, he added, given the range of shapes and behavior of their ships.

Yet there is evidence, he said, that aliens have been interacting with man for centuries: teaching them and leading them, and even using them to build their "runways" in Peru, the Pacific Islands and England.

Many people believe that the circles and patterns in the fields of southern England are a sign that such contact will soon be made again.

And many others will tell us that, for them, it has already been made.