Feature Stories: Something Terrible In The Skies
Posted on Monday, November 21 @ 08:53:58 CST
Topic: Feature Story
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Something Terrible In The Skies
by: Robert L. Mason
"Skinny Man" gives a factual recount of his unusual encounter while driving in the early morning hours in the Buckeye State.
Tom "Skinny Man" Hyden was hauling rolled steel into northern Ohio, out of Birmingham. Alabama. A native of Oneida. Kentucky, Tom was four or five hours into his run. Paulding, Ohio lay behind him, as he geared down, took Exit 113 off 1-75 and headed due east. With him rode the common freight of
truckers-- thoughts of home, family and hopes for the future.......
It was February, 1995, around 1:00 a.m. Beyond the artificial comfort of the cab, wintry winds hissed plaintively, as twin headlights probed the night. Overhead arched the star-sprinkled infinity of the heavens, shrouded only by occasional tattered remnants of cirrocumulus clouds.
Suddenly, the placidity of the early morning darkness was shattered by an explosion of light, as somewhere beyond the filigree of clouds, the heavens seem to catch afire. Astonished by a pyrotechnic display, the likes of which he had never before witnessed, Tom Hyden slowed his rig and began to pray. His mind casting anxiously about for a rational explanation of this blinding show in the heavens, the only thought that presented itself to Tom was the coming of the Lord.
A minister, Tom had earlier contented himself by listening to tapes of Christian music. Now, with nowhere to pull over and stop, he continued on slowly, giving vent to silent prayers, as the eastern skies before him continued to dance with mysterious fire. For at least a full two minutes the blinding lights displayed themselves above the eastern horizon, at once clearly etched and at other times partially muted by the diaphanous overlay of passing clouds.
When later asked to describe the eerie spectacle, Tom Hyden cast uncertainly for a suitable depiction. What he ultimatly likened to that early-morning light show is one of the most horrific scenes that many of us can imagine. A Viet Nam Veteran, who saw action with the US. Army's 1st and 24th Infantry, Hyden compared the sight to a nightime "Arc Light," B-52 air strike. Any veteran who ever witnessed such a saturation strike, with the jerky surrealistic shock waves dancing throughout the nebulae of fiery explosions, knows what an awesome display it is.
In a Lincoln, Alabama restuarant, several months later, Hyden was recounting his adventure to some fellow truckers. Naturally enough, everyone began to listen in to the conversation. Naturally, too, everyone had his own explanation for the spectacle observed by Hyden. Obviously enough, to many of the Star Trek generation, this incident conjured up images of UFOs and extraterrestrial activity. Hyden, however, was quick to dispel any notion that he had observed a UFO or anything other than an amazing display of light in the eastern skies.
Extraterrestrial activity, of one description or another, is quite another matter. Hyden insists that what he saw was beyond the atmosphere of our world. However, his opinion as to what he saw has subsequently been shaped by something he read in USA TODAY, a few months following the sighting. The latter publication, apparently, carried an article concerning the US Government's destruction of old satelites in space.
This explanation is singularly plausible. The Government's obsession with "Star Wars" technology has been known for quite some time. And, while the Government can't stop a bomb driven up in a rental truck, it only makes sense that it would have the capacity to stop a bomb flying in from space. Moreover, if the Govrnment had such a capacity, it probably wouldn't tell us. It would, however, want to test such a weapon on something.
There are, of course, other possibilities, although exhaustion, intoxication and poor visibility can be categorically dismissed. Hyden was only four hours into his run and feeling fresh. Hyden, again, is a minister. He neither drinks nor uses drugs. His truck was in good shape, and there's no indication that any fumes were seeping into the cab. Visibility, Hyden insists, was excellent.
So what did Tom Hyden See? Was it lightning in the upper atmosphere? Or, was it, as Tom insists, a blinding light from beyond our atmosphere? Was it natural or supernatural? Was it a vision of the coming of the Lord? That was Tom Hyden's first rational conclusion. Could it have been a vision so frightfully realistic, as to leave the visionary convinced of it's reality? Hyden, subsequent to witnessing this phenomenon, has encountered only one other individual who observed those lights in heavens.
Other natural phenomena could account for the eerie spasm of lights Hyden witnessed. A meteoroid shower in the atmosphere can create a fantastic show of lights. Indeed, long before mankind cowered beneath the threat of thermonuclear bombardment from the skies, meteoriod and comet bombardments posed far more real and sinister threats. Several months ago, mankind watched awestricken, as comet fragments slammed into Jupiter. The cataclysmic impacts hurled flames and debris thousands of miles above the Jovian atmosphere, while the resultig fallout blackened an area of the giant planet, larger than the circumference of the earth.
Nor, should anyone dimiss, out of hand, the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Mankind inhabits a single planet in an obscure solar system; yet, this planet hosts an infinite variety of life. There may be trillions of planets orbiting billions of stars in the billions of gallaxies comprising the universe. Accordingly, while the prospects of extraterrestrial visitations of our planet may be remote, the existence of life beyond our planet seeems very likely.
What is an absolute certainty is that earth will be visited whether by natural or supernatural forces. And some generation of mankind, like the dinosaurs before us, will one day lift up fear swollen eyes to behold something terrible in the skies. |
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