UFO

Yesterday, I saw a UFO. Yes, I know! I was coming around a corner at about three o´clock in the morning, crossing a parking lot, when I reacted to something unexpected in the upper left area of my field of vision: three bright lights, evenly spaced out, as if three Venuses  had decided to form a slightly over-size Orion´s belt, at a slight angle, as if Orion had bent over to smell the roses (if he had been that kind of guy). I stopped and looked up, and one after another, the lights went out. Very odd, indeed. Just between the constellations of Cassiopea and Pegasus.

I am sure there is a natural explanation for it, I just don´t know what. When I was a kid, hugely fascinated by these things (what kid is not?), I was a member of UFO Sverige and read their magazine about close encounters of all kinds, hoping desperately to have one myself. They seem a lot more level-headed these days, or perhaps it´s more about me having changed.

One thing I realized was how much the sky is part of the way I take in my over-all environment. I will meet people in the mornings: dogwalkers, the occasional dopey, people going to work, and we often exchange a word or two. I will sometimes say something about what´s going on in the sky, perhaps a meteorite shower, a planet being very visible, or a particularly fine moon or aurora. Often they seem surprised and unaware, some have even said they never look up and have no idea what is going on in the sky. Karin Mamma Andersson, the artist, said once in a talk she gave that when she had her studio high up in a suburban apartment building, she used to observe people walking by, and how they never raised their heads. Some people even complain that it is hard to do, as their bodies seem not to allow that kind of movement. I suppose we become rigid and unflexible within the bounds that we map out for ourselves, a bit like that story about how fleas kept in a jar learn how high they can jump without banging their heads against the lid, and then don´t jump out even when the lid comes off.

I haven´t seen anything in the media about strange lights in the sky, so I guess it goes into my X-file...