Since most elected officials in Washington are on their traditional August vacation, I thought it might be fun to explore a tangential topic that’s making some headlines during the dog days of summer. And that would be the presence of aliens among us. No, not thousands streaming across our southern border every month, but the creatures that might be visiting us in, well, flying saucers from worlds other than our own.

Just recently, for example, there was a report from an Ivy League university professor claiming he may have found evidence of alien life in the universe. I’m not sure how his measurements were taken, but apparently he was able to examine droplets that fell off an object traveling much, much faster than other objects near it that had “material strength” that was tougher than most rocks. The professor said this object didn’t seem to be a “typical meteorite” and that he was looking into the possibility that there was some type of “propulsion” involved. Which, if true, could suggest we are not alone in the universe.

Cool, huh?

Alas, there was no mention of signs of little green men or any other kind of lifeform on this object. But perhaps you heard about a former Pentagon employee who recently told Congress that UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) are real, and that the U.S. government has known this for almost 100 years. And it seems as if NASA is going to release its own report on the same subject in the coming weeks.

To date, no one has any verified firsthand knowledge of interplanetary visitors. But the discussion has moved away from people in tinfoil hats to reports from credible individuals such as veteran pilots, intelligence officers, and others.

It doesn’t take much research to find a very long list of reported UFO sightings dating back for centuries. By the way, the official government new terminology is now UAPs (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena). I’m pretty sure somebody went Thesaurus-happy on that one.)

Anyway, way back in 76 BC, Roman author and general bon vivant Pliny the Elder (he wrote the encyclopedic Naturalis Historia) recorded that a spark fell from a falling star and then ascended back into the heavens.

Within the last millennium, there were sightings in various locations. Back in the 1500s, residents of Nuremberg purportedly saw an aerial battle featuring a plethora of spheres, cylinders, and other objects. And in the 1600s, folks in Korea reported seeing UFOs.

As reporting got more commonplace in later centuries, sightings of strange airships and shiny objects of unknown origin picked up considerably from all over the world. Although, there do seem to be a lot of UFO events in the United States. One from Missouri in 1941 involved a local Reverend who had administered last rites to the dying crew of a crashed flying saucer. The Roswell incident in 1947 (the purported capture of a flying saucer) has provided fodder for science fiction stories ever since the Air Force announced it was simply a crashed weather balloon. And multiple commercial airline pilots have told tales of seeing streaking unknown objects zipping past their aircrafts.

I just happen to have my own eerie story too. Many moons ago, in the ancient world before mobile phones, I was driving alone across the wonderful state of Kansas. I had decided to get off the Interstate to look at the fruited plains a little more up-close and personal. It was in the late winter, so the sun set relatively early. Before long, the number of cars on the two-lane road I’d chosen dwindled appreciably. So much so that I was aware of no other vehicles behind me and none coming from the other direction.

Suddenly, I heard a rhythmic beeping sound emanating from nowhere I could locate. It didn’t stop, and so I peered out my window into the ink-black sky to see if I might not be alone. I must admit a small bit of panic set in . . . until I realized the brand-new watch I had purchased and put in my luggage in the backseat had an alarm on it. So, I pressed the STOP button on the watch, and encountered nothing more than slight embarrassment. I made it to my destination without further trepidation. In full disclosure, my imagination might have been a bit overactive from having just recently seen the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Are we alone? Who knows? But ponder this: Does it seem at all odd to you that most politicians are simultaneously out of D.C. every August? Do you suppose they all go back to their home galaxies this time of year?

©MMXXIII. William J. Lewis, III – Freelance Writer