Strange Encounters

Hey, I saw a UFO the other night! No kidding. Finally, after so many years of watching the skies for something weird, something unknown, I actually see something that may finally convince me of the reality of strange lights in the sky, and mysterious craft that people claim to see.

Well, here's what happened. I was lying in my bed, head on my pillow, lights out, just looking out the window at the night sky. That's what I always do when I'm waiting to fall asleep, just watch the trees and sky. Anyway, as I looked out the window I saw a long bright object drifting along behind the trees. It was probably a few miles away, just moving slowly through my field of view.

I tipped my head up to get a better view. The light seemed blurry along the center of the object with two brighter spots at each end. As it passed behind the trees the front light would blink out, then the back would blink out as the front light reappeared on the other side of the obstructing tree trunk. I blinked my eyes to clear my vision, trying to get a better grasp of what I was witnessing. When I sat up and looked out the window I realized what it was.

Unfortunately I was not witnessing the flight of some unidentified flying object, or an extraterrestrial craft. My eyes had tricked me. There wasn't a long object, no fuzzy center light, and actually only one light, not two. The main white light was located at the front of the craft, and upon further examination I noticed the familiar blink of green and red lights as well. It was an airplane.

Originally, as I viewed the object with my head slightly tipped, my brain was tricked into thinking it saw two distinct lights as the object moved slowly beyond the distant tree trunks, but it had separated the information from each eye because at that angle I guess it couldn't resolve a stereoscopic scene. I watched as the headlight, as seen by my right eye, vanished behind a tree trunk while my left eye still saw it. As the light emerged from the other side of the tree my left eye would lose it and my right eye would see it again. My brain put this together, and in continuity it appeared to be one object with two lights passing behind the trees.

My brain imagined a middle fuzzy light while it tried to make sense of what it was seeing. It connected the two lights it thought was there, generated by the optical illusion. Illusions like this, caused by errors in depth perception may be a common explanation for many UFO sightings.

Something to keep in mind.