Tuesday, August 11, 2009

The Thing in the Sky

Cool air poured through the open windows of the car as Lisa Becker and her husband pulled through their suburban Chicago neighborhood of Oak Brook one night in 1996.

Nature painted the dusk pink, orange and red, but something dark suddenly smeared the canvas.

“As we approached our subdivision, we saw a large blackness in the air,” Becker said. “It was about eight feet in diameter, about 100 feet away from us, and about 30 feet in the air. It was moving in a straight line.”

Her husband also saw the black figure.

“It had no specific shape and its edges undulated,” she said. “As it flew closer we pulled over to watch it. It was so low that you could have hit it with a rock.”

When they noticed the object, the Beckers later named the “pterodactyl,” it slowly and noiselessly crept through the sky from east to west about 50 yards from the back of their house.

“It moved in a perfectly straight line as if it were on a tightrope,” she said.

The couple watched the object as it sailed about 10 feet past them, 30 feet in the air, and folded in upon itself, disappearing.

“It was not a vehicle,” Becker said. “The best way to describe it would be to say it looked like a very large flat stingray (with) no tail. It moved in a perfectly straight line, and never varied from its path.”

This left the college-educated Beckers wondering what they saw.

“My husband thought it was strange, but didn’t have any particular emotional response to the thing,” Becker said. “Also it didn’t seem to have any sort of depth to it. It was like looking into a very dark spot that could have blotted out anything behind it. It didn’t have any wind or exhaust in its trail. Our best thought, though entirely illogical, was that it was a rip in the space-time continuum.”

Whatever the black, undulating “pterodactyl” was flying over their house, the memory has stayed with the Beckers for 13 years.

“I asked myself at the time, ‘how did the object make me feel?’” she said. “It wasn’t pleasant, maybe even slightly menacing. Not that it was menacing me. It creeped me out a little that it clearly came from the direction of my back yard. So it easily could have crossed over my house.”

The couple, that now lives in Creve Coeur Mo., hasn’t seen the object since.

“My husband and I were amazed. We’re just regular people who saw something strange one day and still can’t reconcile that thing with our logical minds,” Becker said. “This stuff is sort of like UFOs in that there is no one you can talk to or no one to report it to. At least with UFOs there is MUFON. Ever since then I’ve been wondering if anyone else has ever seen something like it.”

Copyright 2009 by Jason Offutt

Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt c/o The Examiner, 410 S. Liberty, Independence, Mo. 64050, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”

Jason’s books on the paranormal, “Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us,” and “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

A swarm of mosquitos or gnats perhaps? Up here they kind of look like whirlwinds or something, though not completley opaque. The disappearance: just the bugs suddenly dispersing.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like someone was burning a car tyre or some old engine oil somewhere

Anonymous said...

smoke

naughtyzut said...

Smoke doesn't suddenly close up on itself and disappear, except on Lost. What this couple described was not mere dissipation of smoke (which they would likely have smelled, especially if it was the smoke of burning tires). Also, a swarm of insects as large as described, and so thick it appeared completely black, would have made a distinct sound that could be heard from the vantage point of the observers.

Anonymous said...

oh yeah you're right it was a rip in the time space continuum.... how could i have been so dumb to suggest it might be something as prosaic as smoke? and we know that this couple, in their car in 1990something and looking up at the sky would have had to have smelled or heard something, because...well we just KNOW that....
this story is really a strech...come up with something better next time

Some Guy on the Innernets said...

Anonymous, could you please get just a little more ludicrous with your "explanations?" Some of them are almost plausible, if you assume the witnesses are morons.

naughtyzut said...

Anonymous, did I say it was a rip in the space-time continuum? Or did I merely point out the flaws in your ill-considered and illogical "explanations"? Your attempts to debunk this story are sillier than the space-time continuum hypothesis--at least those witnesses admitted it was illogical, whereas you become snidely over-defensive. Just because your conjectures are prosaic doesn't mean they're plausible.

Anonymous said...

People who see such things KNOW what they saw, or didn't see.
Obviously, these two were, and are, looking for a natural and/or logical explanation.
For some things, there ends up being neither.

Anon #2

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