Take me to your leader

Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich has seen one. Hundreds of
pilots report being tailed by them. My brother saw one once near Little
Falls. He remembers it was shaped like a triangle and didn't make a sound
while motionless above the highway for several minutes.

I am not talking about strange and horrible, unexplainable creatures such as
Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster or actor/husband Tom Cruise. No, what I am
referring to are the flying discs or cigar shaped craft we call UFOs. Or,
(play spooky music in your head right here) unidentified flying objects.

According to very recent news reports, a group of two dozen former pilots
and government officials have asked the U.S. government recently to look
into UFOs as a matter of safety and security given continuing reports about
flying discs, glowing spheres and other strange sightings. I believe this is
completely unnecessary. Let me tell you why.

My own unexplained experience occurred in 1996 while driving on Highway 10
between Staples and Motley in west central Minnesota. Believe me, there are
plenty of strange sights in both of these communities. Half the population
in each city looks a little alien, if you know what I mean. So I did not
expect to see anything exceptionally unusual. Ah, but see something I did.

While driving back to the Twin Cities on a spring evening between these two
dilapidated one-horse towns, I noticed three or four bright lights off in
some trees to the right of the highway.

"It's unthinkable that there would be any new construction in that
scrub-filled bog," I thought to myself as I stared intently at the glowing
yellow lights. The five-mile landmass between Staples and Motley is a
combination of swamp, swamp gas, dead trees, gnarled brush and three
confused beavers. Not exactly Park Avenue.

But this mildly unusual situation began to get stranger by the moment.
Driving 65 mph, I found I could not pull parallel with the lights. In fact,
they seemed to be changing position and kept increasing and decreasing in
number. A little freaked out, I sped up to 70.

I still could not catch up and it began to occur to me that this in no way
was a fixed object. I leaned forward in my seat and checked out the other
cars to see if anyone had pulled over to observe.

As my car hit 80, these strange lights suddenly accelerated and still very
low to the ground, disappeared in a flash right over the city of Motley
leaving behind nothing but a dark and quiet sky. Yes, it was eerie. Yes, the
hair stood up on the back of my neck. No, I hadn't been drinking.

Years of reflection have yielded no real answers for me. I am to this day
still a little unsure of what that thing was with the strange lights moving
so quickly and quietly through the scrub near Motley, Minn. But I'll tell
you what it wasn't.

It wasn't any type of strange craft from outer space. There is no such thing
as space ships from other worlds visiting earth. No little green creatures
or aliens with huge eyes. How do I know? First of all, if there were
intelligent life from other worlds visiting us they would not be wasting
their stinking time cruising the depressing bogs outside Motley, Minn.

Other than getting a greasy breakfast at Mr. Ed's Cafe or grabbing a warm
Grain Belt Premium at the Ten-Hi Lounge, there is no reason an
extra-terrestrial would want to spend any time at all in Motley. There are
certainly no decent shopping or high-end spa services.

Second, there have been some sweeping technological changes in the world
since I used to look out the window as a child and imagine beings from other
worlds visiting Earth. For instance, 80 percent of all Americans now have a
cell phone and most of those phones have still and video cameras. In China
alone, there are eight hundred million cell phones, most with cameras.

So now that every farmer in Idaho, every school kid in Iceland and every
laborer in Chile has a camera, why are we still looking at fuzzy images of
two pie tins taped together as our proof of extra terrestrial craft? Because
pie tins are still the only things in those photos. Those and the occasional
phallic cloud formation.

We have photos on Facebook and videos on YouTube of every drunken college
student in the nation. I think if a flying saucer was scooting over Houston
we might have some decent footage as four or five thousand people pull out
their phones to capture the event. No such good footage exists because the
only things flying over Houston are ducks, planes and two pie tins taped
together after being thrown like a Frisbee by some guy with acne on his back
living in his mother's basement.

Although I truly believe that we have not been visited by
extra-terrestrials, I do now have one theory about those crazy, bright
lights near Motley in 1996.

I still don't know what kind of craft it was . but I think that goofy Tom
Cruise fellow must have been driving.