We're not alone

Being an otherwise sane person, I believe in extraterrestrial beings, though I've never seen one, nor even a UFO.

I believe in them because of Jeannie E. And now, my belief is reinforced by former Apollo 14 astronaut and moonwalker Edgar Mitchell. Back to Jeannie in a bit -- but here's Mitchell in an interview with Irene Klotz of the Discovery Channel:

"My major knowledge comes from what I call the old-timers, people who were at Roswell and subsequent who wanted to clear the things up and tell somebody credible even though they were under severe threats and things -- this was back in the Roswell days. Having gone to the moon and being a local citizen out in the Roswell area some of them thought I would be a safe choice to tell their story to, which they did. Even though the government put real clamps on everybody, it got out anyhow.

"Subsequent to that, I did take my story to the Pentagon -- not NASA, but the Pentagon -- and asked for a meeting with the Intelligence Committee of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and got it. And told them my story and what I know and eventually had that confirmed by the admiral that I spoke with, that indeed what I was saying was true."

Read the whole thing.

Back to Jeannie. Jeannie is a woman I knew while living in central Virginia for a time. Her husband, Dean, was a laborer. She worked in a textile factory. Together, they scraped up enough money to buy the mobile home of their dreams, not to be placed in some park, but on 2 acres of beautiful forest near my home. Dean was a happy-go-lucky, nothing-bothers-me kind of guy, but Jeannie was strictly no-nonsense. She believed in a hard day's work, mandatory attendance in church on Sunday, and the one vice of her favorite soap opera, which she taped to watch at home after the chores were done.

I once tried to engage her in a conversation about evolution, but she was adamant. The world began just as the Bible said, some 6,000 years ago, and that's that. She didn't know anything about "those black hole things," and didn't want to know. The world existed in strictly defined boundaries, and that was fine with Jeannie.

One evening, she came by my house. This in itself was surprising, as she always called ahead to announce the rare visits she ever made to anyone. Unflappable Jeannie was clearly rattled.

"I just saw ..... something," she said. "What was it?" I asked. "I dunno," she said.

By my using gentle extracting questions, she was eventually able to tell me she was driving home (it was dark already, being November) when something "huge, silver and bright" hovered over her car. There was no one else on the road, so she quickly swerved off onto the shoulder.

The object was cigar-shaped, and the size of "maybe two football fields." There were no markings, nor additional lights -- the object itself emitted a bright light that illuminated it. It continued to hover over Jeannie's car, just ahead of it, and then "it just disappeared."

"It flew away?" I asked. "No," she said. "Just disappeared."

I remember feeling elated and jealous at the same time. I'd longed all my life to see something similar, if nothing else to prove they existed, as I'd half hoped, half believed. Jeannie cemented it for me once and for all.

I knew her for quite some years. Believe me, this is a woman who wouldn't believe in anything outside a very narrow mindset. Never did she exhibit any quirk or off-the-wall remark that would lead me to suspect otherwise. And so, I was, and remain, convinced.

I've read about, and seen footage of, Roswell residents who witnessed the crash (or came upon the debris) back in 1947. Their stories are compelling. I do not get the sense they were making things up for sensation. Still, though, for years I doubted. After Jeannie -- and now, after Mitchell -- I don't.

What they are, who they are, we may never know. But they're there.

(link via boingboing.net)