From a very young age my mother would tell me about all kinds of wondrous things. Astronomy was one of them. She really enjoyed reading and would often tell me about celestial events that were going to occur. When I was only five or six years old she was excited that a comet would be visible in the early morning hours. She, naturally, told me about it. I had only ever seen a comet in drawings, or zipping through a cartoon sky on Saturday morning television. I was very excited about seeing a real comet!
I’m sure one of the reasons I woke up on this particular evening/morning was due to this excitement in part, but apparently I had a habit of getting up after bedtime. My Mother had told me on an earlier occasion, probably at 3am, “If you wake up in the middle of the night, don’t wake me up. Just go back and get in bed.” This night, when I woke up to a completely dark and silent house what my mom had told me was the furthest thing from my mind! 😀
All I could think about was seeing that comet. I don’t recall if it was that morning, or a morning to come that my mom and I were to wake up and drive down to the local elementary to see the comet. We had lots of trees in our yard, so the elementary was the best most public place to go. I walked carefully and quietly to the living room. There was a large unoccupied lot next to our house and the living room windows facing South was where you could see any real amount of the night sky.
As I approached the window I was looking up towards the sky and then I saw the comet! The comet wasn’t anything like what I expected! It was round and white, a very bright white. I was disappointed that it wasn’t shooting across the sky nor did it have a tail. Also I thought it was strange that it was on the road. It was about 400 yards down the road, near the intersection of Mable and Center street. Maybe about 100 feet North of that intersection.
I looked at it for a few seconds, and thought I should tell Mom about this, I mean I knew she wanted to see the comet too. So I walked to my parents room. My Mom slept on the side of the bed furthest from the bedroom door, so as I was walking I stopped to look out their window to see if I could see the comet. I couldn’t, part of the living room stuck out past their bedroom, blocking the view to where the comet landed.
I walked to the edge of the bed, and I could clearly see my Mom’s face, she was sleeping. Then I heard her voice in my head. “If you ever wake up in the middle of the night, don’t wake me up. Just go back and get in bed.” That’s the last thing I remember.
The next morning I got up and quickly got dressed and jumped on my bike. I rode down to where I had seen the comet on the road. I knew that there must be some kind of marks left by it on the road. I looked carefully, and I did see marks on the road, but nothing that I didn’t remember being there the day before. Times were different back then, us kids were ALWAYS in the street playing, or riding our bicycles back and forth to various friends houses to play.
I don’t recall how long it was before I told my Mom about the comet landing on the road. I think it was several days later. She was REALLY upset that I didn’t wake her up as she would have liked to have seen this glowing sphere on our road. It was then that she informed me what I was describing wasn’t a comet at all but a U.F.O.
The U.F.O. was about thirty feet in diameter and as I said, a sphere. It was glowing a very bright white, perhaps even bluish light. I don’t recall the light illuminating the street or things nearby. This would have been in 1965/1966 and was either during the summer time, or on a Saturday because I didn’t have to go to school the next day, nor did I have to go to church. My parents house is just outside of Baytown, Texas in a little community called Lynchburg.
I have always enjoyed paranormal shows, books, and websites, but I am very skeptical of so called evidence or leaps to conclusions that really just guesses, or worse wishful guesses. I have never seen a ghost, or had any paranormal experiences, except one and I didn’t even know it was a paranormal event at the time.
I believe in U.F.O.s because I have seen one.
UPDATE:
I’m not prone to shock, or fear in general, I mean as long as it doesn’t involve manual labor or mowing the yard, but I had a very strange reaction to this when I saw it in the sink.
I stood and looked at this for a few seconds to try and understand why it bothered me to look at it. I couldn’t think of any rational reason. I’m thinking there was more to my “comet on the road” story that I remember.
UPDATE September 2021:
As I mentioned in the story above I was excited to see a comet. I don’t recall which one, my mom was the brains of the outfit. I do recall that until the age of six I was not allowed to ride my bicycle on the street. My recollection is I was 5 or 6 years old and after trying to find a comet for 1965 or 1966 this is the one that came up.
Comet Ikeya-Seki, 1965
This comet was very bright, only detected by September 18th, 1965 and hit it’s epoch on October 7th, 1965. This means I would have most like have been six years old. I believe this gives a date range of when I saw the “comet” on our road. Here are the coordinates of where I saw the comet (UFO). 29.785093493016593, -95.04862373037462