PICKERS SPOT UFO

A few years later, we moved to another house in the country.

Another big family lived near us and we all hung out together, even if it was in the woods, in the fields and in the streams, rather than in the malls of today. My sisters and I have always loved wild strawberries. Every summer we checked the progress daily of the berries we knew and loved. We knew where the biggest and best tasting berries grew. We also knew where the bulls were at any given time.

One summer we were picking wild strawberries in a field about two miles from the nearest other human. We could hike for hours in those days. We would leave the house after breakfast and find something to do till supper time.

Not a cloud in the sky, the sun blazed down on us. It seemed like we had been picking for hours. I think we ate more berries than we saved. We were not hungry anymore. We had a natural spring nearby, so we weren't thirsty, either.

I began to wonder how long we had been out there. I looked up in the sky to see where the sun was. Farm children know these things. The sun was directly over head, leaving us almost shadowless.

From out of nowhere, suddenly, there was another shape in the sky. It was white and saucer shaped. It was not the sun, which was right where it should be. It didn't move. It just hovered in that one spot. I wasn't thinking UFO. I was just thinking, "This is weird."

I got my sisters and friends to look up, too. We all saw it and wondered. We discussed it. Children who spend a lot of time away from the TV actually know how to discuss things.

By now, we were all thinking UFO. We made a pact to never tell anyone. Of course, the minute we got home, we told everyone.

It was our big story. You couldn't shut us up. The adults all said, "It must have been a weather balloon." This was the typical excuse at the time. My sisters who hadn't been there, just thought we were nuts or making it up for attention or imagined it or all three. I'm going on the record, here and now, that whatever it was, we saw it, and we'll never forget it.