This intriguing encounter with high strangeness was shared with me in early 2022. My gratitude and appreciation goes out to Tad for allowing me to publish his experience here and share with you. These types of encounters take on dream-like qualities, are rich in symbolic content, and have the feeling of some grand cosmic theatre in which we are both actors and audience.

“A short story (true) of high strangeness. It provides an inside perspective of co-creation. It starts with beguiling faery lights and ends with military intervention. Unreported for 30 years I recently felt a compulsion to put it into words.” Tad Roades

‘Aiding and Abetting the Phenomenon’

“Perhaps by engaging our psyche they pass the burden of their arrival onto our collective shoulders”
Mac Tonnies

“As was our wont in our younger days, Sarah and I were roaming through the quiet backwaters of Britain. Travelling light with trailbike and tent, we often found landowners who graciously gave us permission to lodge overnight. One such stopover in 1989 found us setting up camp in the center of a recently harvested crop field. Noticing a layer of stubble strewn around a nearby island of trees, we used this to cushion the tent and turn a groundsheet into a divan.

With preparations made for a comfortable night, we set off for Stratford. The aim being to take in a play at the theatre. Luckily, we were able to get tickets for the evening performance of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. Later leaving town, we rode out into our own midsummer night, flying through narrow lanes thick with cool night air.

A final trundle across the farmyard and past outhouses took us down into the fields, and back to base. We made tea and sat on the divan under clears skies, looking out on the countryside patchwork. Bedtime nearing, Sarah began to shut up shop while I did a bit of stargazing. This was when things began to get very weird.

Prone and relaxed my eyes became more adapted to the dark. One, then two new layers of fainter stars revealed themselves. Unexpectedly this effect continued and began to take a grip. I started to successively see and slowly penetrate through deeper and deeper star grids. As this state amplified a slither of my consciousness became located with the new frontier of my awareness, far into space.

Returning to earth, mildly stunned but none the worse for wear, I stood up. The atmosphere surrounding us had changed. Time was passing a beat slower. There was sense of things being more gravid, like the hush and diming of lights in a theatre. My attention was drawn to the nearby island of trees, now beset by growing shadow. Faerie lights blinked between the limbs. Surely not, perhaps these lights were actually away off. We had a ‘Do you see what I see?’ moment, with Sarah confirming she could see them too.

The scintillating display of cobalt, ivory, sienna and crimson jewels, became increasingly fascinating. Time slowed a beat more. Dark nebulous shapes begin to swathe the lights, taking form within the lattice of tree limbs. An impossible something was slowly coalescing and materializing.

Looking back now, a children’s joke comes to mind – Q: “How do elephants hide in the forest?” – A: “They paint their toe-nails red and hide in the cherry trees”

I start debunking avidly, it must be house lights in the distance, just the shadows etc. This doesn’t last long. There is something big gaining solidity behind the trees, but I can’t or won’t take it in. I feel it probing for a gestalt that closer matches its desired shape. Apparently, we need to agree on the direction this manifestation is taking. After a few more negotiations there is a dramatic resolution. Although I now know it to be fully present, I stubbornly refuse to see it, or perhaps I just can’t take it in yet.

Oh!… I can see it. The Cheshire Cat is out of the bag.

A fully formed craft is rising just above the trees. I could hit it with the proverbial rock. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want it to be there. But there it is, a matt-black polyhedron the size of a double decker bus. The flashy lights are incorporated into its outer shell. The final form we agreed on, is a giant D20 Dungeon and Dragons die. Never played the game, go figure. Over yonder fields a troupe of white SUVs are coming our way. The top half of these show above the hedge-line. But no not SUVs, as they zig zag closer, they resolve into smooth domed craft. Each boxy unit hovers close to the ground emitting a slanting beam of light.

Reeling from these outlandish events, it sinks in that this is a UFO encounter. I never imagined it would be like this. It’s like participating in an outdoor theatrical magic-show spectacular. Not like something out of ‘Close Encounters’. Well perhaps a bit like ‘Close Encounters’ if the director was Aleister Crowley. A spooky and indifferent quasi-technological presence has taken the opportunity to pull off an audacious stunt. A vile transgression of the natural order of things, if you ask me.

Getting even busier out there now. Two pearlescent orbs the size of beach-balls traverse the hedgerows, with the moth-like motion of a hunting barn owl. One passes out of sight behind me on the left, then the other on the right. This causes alarm, which I use to mentally recoil from the ongoing mesmerism. Suddenly more aware, feeling like a lab-rat introduced to a cat. From somewhere ancient trite seeming factoids bubble to the surface!

This is the Other
Always been happening like this, just not to you
Best to leave the area if you want to be safe

OK, it’s time to act like a shepherd and get the flock out of here. I turn to Sarah who is in a trance. Shaking her out of this, I ask her to get my lock-knife from the tent. This done, we beat a hasty retreat up the slope towards the outhouses; ending up alongside a corral containing two agitated donkeys. While their whickering fades, we watch the now purposeful antics below.

The pale domed things seem to be executing a reconnaissance mission in yonder field. Taking their own good time, each completes their part of a wide grid search. The orbs are displaying a lot of interest in power lines, particularly the lattice towers. Jumbo D20 is smugly levitating above the island of trees, body panels absorbing light, still pimping its ride with twinkling faery lights.

Thankfully, after a short while this band of cosmic Mummers meander far away. Short-lived relief, as two more craft with flashing lights appear far off in the opposite direction. Once again, I wish this was not happening. This really is too much action for one night. As the two craft speed towards us they start to emit the familiar sound of jet engines. Halleluiah, two fighter jets pass rapidly in front of us and start to converge on the distant D20. On their approach D20 zips upwards at a 35-degree angle, disappearing out of sight in an eye blink, the jets are left in the dust. Without conversation we walk back to camp and get into our sleeping bags.

The following morning, packing down and loading the bike, surprisingly we don’t mention the previous night’s events. At a staging point later in the day we do confer, agreeing we both saw the same strange happenings. Leaving it all behind, we get on with the rest of our trip, and the rest of our lives. Once in a blue moon wondering what were those visitors, where did they come from and what the hell they were doing?

Points of Pure Conjecture
My initial thought was that maybe the stargazing acted like an EPIRB signal. The unfolding events were a search and rescue attempt.

Mike Booth in 2005 saw a pale domed craft in Boreham Down UK. The next day a crop circle appeared at that location. A painting he made could well depict the same type of boxy craft we saw.
Perhaps my stargazing was seized upon and enhanced by opportunistic entities, then used somehow to open a gateway in the fabric of spacetime.”

My deep appreciation goes out to Tad for having the courage to share his encounter with me. Respectful comments are always welcome, and I will pass your words on to witness.