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U.F.O.
by Chris Sorrenti
I saw my first and only Unidentified Flying Object, so far, last summer right here in Ottawa, and in broad daylight no less. Nothing like what some describe and is seen in TV documentaries. Mine was quite benign.
South Keys is a sprawling box store shopping mall, with Walmart at one end and Blockbuster Video chain store at the other, with everything else you might need to buy in-between. The parking lot is as long as the mall and as wide front to back as the stores.
Coming from work, rather than taking the bus all the way home, in order to get a little exercise, I got off at South Keys Station, and was walking through the parking lot toward home. It was around 5pm, and quite sunny. High up in the north east I spotted a silver object, but too distant to make out any details.
As l had grown up with planes, my father having been an aeromechanic in the RCAF, almost embarrassingly I still watch with childhood fascination as any and all move across the sky. And so I continued to look up at this particular object as I kept walking. It didn’t make the sound that a jet airliner would, nor as I soon realized, any sound at all for that matter, also noting that it didn’t seem to be moving.
As it had obviously caught my interest, I watched more intently to see if it would veer or bob in any way as a helicopter or plane, but it just hung there, quite still...no deviation. Every time I looked up, it was in the same place.
Walking very slowly, after about five minutes, by that point if it had been moving in a straight line away from me, it would have become smaller, but it didn't, maintaining its same narrow silver shape, the only way I can describe it due to the height and distance.
The whole episode lasted roughly ten minutes, as I took my time, and then finally lost sight and interest with trees and houses blocking the view as I reached the intersection at Bank Street and the road home down Cahill Drive.
To this day I have no idea what it was. Weather balloon? Though I've never heard of them being launched over Ottawa. Didn't read or see anything the next day either in the local press.
© 2008
900 hits as of January 2024
12/14/2008 Author's Note: Maybe not poetry or even prose, but something I felt compelled to share.
Posted on 12/14/2008
Copyright © 2024 Chris Sorrenti
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Morgan D Hafele on 12/14/08 at 08:16 PM does this mean you're going to become a bonafied ufo hunter now chris? |
| Posted by Philip F De Pinto on 12/15/08 at 01:25 PM Chris, I believe I've had a similar experience, I was looking at the sky one afternoon and I believe to this day, I saw two metallic discs sail into the distance, no sound, no wavering, until they had reached their vanishing point. Might they have been balloons of some kind? perhaps, but I've never seen balloons traveling at such velocity and in such straight lines. |
| Posted by Quentin S Clingerman on 12/17/08 at 09:01 PM Fascinating! Do you wonder if anyone else saw it? Obviously your local paper or TV didn't pick up on it. |
| Posted by Frank Lee on 12/26/08 at 05:32 PM very cool. |
| Posted by Christina Bruno on 01/05/09 at 01:54 AM i liked it. when i was a kid i used to always look up as a sky and wonder what things were, as an adult. i never seem to have the time. |
| Posted by Sarah Graves on 01/16/09 at 01:49 AM I really enjoyed reading this story, thanks for sharing Chris :) |
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