My Biggest Secret - Dancing with Desert Lights

I love the smell of rain when it falls on the desert floor. There is just something about that clean earthy smell. Most of all I love to watch the lightning storms on the desert. You can see for miles and miles in the clear desert atmosphere. Even if a thunderstorm is all the way across the valley you have an unobstructed view of it. The intensity of those storms I've seen there have never been surpassed anywhere I have ever been.

I grew up on the backside of the Mojave Desert about 60 miles from Death Valley. Our little town called Trona is sandwiched between two mountain ranges. The valley use to be a large lake in the unknowable past. As the lake began drying it left shoreline imprints on the mountainsides. I have found remains of clamshells even on the top of some of these mountains. I have also found some really neat rock caves. Today however, the mountains are mainly rock with little vegetation.

When the thunderstorms come through they come up over the mountains giving you a lot of time to watch them before they get close to town. I always like to play the counting game to try and judge how far away a storm is. You know the one...after seeing the lightning you count...One, one thousand...Two, one thousand until you hear the thunder. Each count is a mile.

When I was a young boy of 12 back in '69' I faked a stomachache on one of those rainy days so I wouldn't have to go to school. I wanted to stay home and be able to watch the thunderstorm as it moved across our valley. Sense both of my parents worked I went outside and lay on a mound of dirt in an empty lot near our house. With great anticipation I watched the approaching storm as it moved slowly towards me.

I wasn't disappointed because this particular storm was a big one. It came very slowly over the mountains. I watched the lightning flashes across the sky and lightning strikes that hit the mountainside far away. It continued moving across the desert floor coming closer and closer. It really is cool to watch the rain curtains knowing wherever they are that place is being drenched. Even though I could smell the rain, feel the cool moist air, and see the rain sheets I was laying comfortably on my dirt mound nice and dry.

The last count I had was a five count and I felt quit safe. With a light wind blowing in my face from the distant edge of the storm I had no worries. Until something totally unexpected happened. There was a volley of lightning strikes in rapid sequence and an immediate responding thunder. I had no chance to do anything at all. Seeing that I was already on the ground I just crumpled up in the dirt.

What I saw next is what I've kept a secret all these years. This is my biggest secret. Back in those days (the late '60's) people were saying they saw a lot of things. But a lot of young people were doing drugs and some were said to be kooks. I didn't do drugs at that time nor did I want to be labeled as a doper or a kook. Besides I don't know even now what to think of it. I'll let you decide.

When I opened my eyes after the lightning flash and the concussion from the thunder I jumped up to run home as fast as I could but I couldn't. There were seven balls of white light the size of large grapefruits hovering around me at just about arms length away. They were each exactly the same size and each of them floated about three feet above the ground. They were spaced exactly the same distance from each other making a complete circle around me. When I moved they moved, they wouldn't let me pass.

My heart was racing real fast and I was scared to say the least. I thought maybe I could crawl under them and dropped to my stomach. The lights dropped with me and stopped about six inches off the ground. They kept the same distance away from me but then they began to spin slowly around me. I sat up and they moved with me and rose about another foot off the ground.

Their circular movement began to increase in speed. I jumped up and at the same time through my hand into the air. Now their movement changed again. They began to spin around me in a kind of elliptical manner with the circle going from my chest to about my knees.

I remember thinking to myself that if I can get them to move farther away from me maybe I could get away. I tried to spin around at the same speed they were going and nothing changed. Then I reached out my arms like an airplane and started turning around in the opposite direction they were going. This caused a change by creating a wobble to their movement. After some time I was getting dizzy and had to stop spinning. When I stopped I just fell on the ground and the wobble turned into a rolling arch. I watched them go one by one into the ground and they were gone.

Off into the distance I saw a rather large lightning bolt flash. It was only a couple of seconds and I heard the thunder. The rain was almost on me. I ran home never to tell this story to anyone thinking no one would believe me anyway.

I've had a long time to think about this over the years and to be honest with you I'm no closer now to understanding what happened that day than I was when it happened. I've tried thinking through all the nuances in an effort to have a logical explanation but I have none.

I never sensed any kind of intelligence in the lights. I remember my skin, hair and cloths felt like they had a real heavy static charge on them. And unlike when they appeared with the thunder the lights went into the ground with no sound.

I know what you're thinking. That I made all this up. I suppose if I were you I might think the same thing. I have to admit though it is somewhat of a relief to tell the story I've kept to myself for so long. I am sure that there are many people in the world who have had unexplained experiences similar to mine but haven't told anyone about them ether.

If you have read this far I thank you for hearing me out. Maybe just maybe someday I will have this all explained to me in such a way that it makes sense. I hope that you don't think that I'm a kook for telling you this story. The truth of what happened that day so long ago is of course why this is My Biggest Secret.