At Emma’s request I just put her out in the backyard – sorry, that’s her whole contribution to this post. Please try to enjoy it anyway.
When I stepped out to set down her water dish my heart shot straight into my throat. Climbing up the western night sky was a gaggle of small glowing spheroids, intertwining and jostling each other.
Twice before in my life I’ve seen something close by in the sky that made me think, Well, that question’s answered: aliens exist, they’re here, and the little buggers have got me.
(Full disclosure: my first thought, especially in the first instance, was actually, Oh, shit. But I thought the other thing really soon thereafter. Really.)
This was the third time. It was also the one I most quickly realized had a conventional explanation.
First I thought they were flares. Then I realized climbing was not a flare-like activity.
But pretty quick I recognized them as a string of balloons – just regular party-type balloons, obviously filled with helium. Probably they escaped or were released from the used car lot over across Fourth Street. The city lights below were bright enough to make them seem self-luminous.
They got up into a wind current and blew east overhead. They streamed out into a more linear formation. They were actually quite pretty.
I’ve seen some striking aerial phenomena, from meteors and the Northern Lights to high-altitude balloons to the F-117 and the YF-12A (interceptor version of the SR-71 Blackbird.) I’ve seen a couple of things which I could identify but not readily account for. And, yes, I’ve several times seen something for which I can find no conventional explanation.
