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There was very little that interested me at school.

I used to think that all I wanted to be was a scientist, even when I had no idea what that meant, and that school was nearly 12 years of distraction.

As I got older and the various branches of science were brought to my attention, I started to think it was going to be too hard.

Botany, biology, chemistry, physics, and then each again part of something else, or a name that loosely held together a lot of other branches.

I was not interested in trees, animals, or humans.  I didn’t like the idea of exploring elements or minerals.   I wanted something big that few had seriously studied, that might have potential for a groundbreaking discovery.

Then I went to the space exhibition at the Smithsonian, and I was sold.

Like a great many others, I watched all the science fiction television shows like Star Trek or Star Gate, read books, and pondered over the possibility of there being other people out there in an endless universe.

After all, only so much could be conjured up by the writer’s imagination, and I spent a lot of time and effort investigating what was possibly right and what was definitely wrong.

That research managed to disprove a lot of the imaginary parts but left a few that might have the distinct possibility of being true, and in one instance, a large number of writers went back to a single piece of so-called evidence.

A place in a mountain range in Peru where there were caves with drawings that could be detected as actual sciences and their spaceships, and over the years, the number of sightings of UFOs.

According to some, it was a meeting place because most sightings were of multiple sets of lights.  Of course, there were photographs, but the thing with photography was that they could be faked.

I was going to have to see it for myself.

Hiking camping and living in rough terrain was second nature.  I was an outdoors person and a lot of the research required going to remote and sometimes dangerous places.  Aliens, it seemed, didn’t like urban areas.

I was going by myself, but in conversations with a fellow UFO enthusiast, one of the sceptics I often butted heads with, in internet forums, asked if she could come along for the ride.

Her reason was to provide a counterbalanced view.  She didn’t believe in UFOs or aliens.

I thought about it.  The fact I disagreed with her views, and we argued might have made it sticky at times, we had a strange sort of rapport in everything other than aliens.  I did say it was not for the faint-hearted, but she took that to mean not for girls and simply made her more determined.

She was going whether I liked it or not.

I shrugged.  That last video meeting, up till now the only way we’d met. was almost a fight.  I guess when I ended the call, I was going to finally meet her in person.

That was three days later at Lima’s Jorge Chavez International Airport.  I arrived the day before and had arranged accommodation, and then went to the airport to greet her.

I was not sure what to expect.  I’d seen her face over time, but that was about it, and being hopeless with faces was worried I might not recognise her.  It didn’t matter, she recognised me.  As it turned out, she was almost nothing like what I imagined.

“Peter Jacobson, I presume?”

It had to be the same day some football team was arriving back home, the waiting area was packed with fans, and it was going to be impossible to find her.  And, typically, they came out first, and the crowd went wild.  It was inevitable that I would miss her.

“Jennifer?”

“The same.”  She saw me looking at the crowd, now chanting.  “I would have to pick the same plane as the national football team.  It’s nice to meet you in person. You seem less professor-ish.”

I took that as a compliment, though with her I could never be quite sure.  What I could see was she was a hugger, which wasn’t a bad thing.

Given the nature of my studies and work, I didn’t have a lot of time for a relationship, and although I had girls as friends, there had never been one I could call a girlfriend.  Jennifer was the one I’d known off and on the longest.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”  I was practical because the next few days were going to be difficult, and seeing her, she seemed to me to be more accustomed to less vigorous pursuits.

She had labelled me as sexist once or twice for reasons I couldn’t understand, but now I think I could, and realised it the moment she frowned at me.

“Tell you what.  When we get back to the hotel, we’ll square off and see who wins.  I know who I’m betting on.”  Her tone had an edge to it, not the best way to start an expedition.

I shrugged.  This girl was going to change my attitude and a lot more before we were done.  “I’m sorry.  I guess there’s a bit too much of my father in me.  It’s no excuse, though.  I’ll try harder to be less of a moron.”  I held out my hand.

She took it.  “We make a great pair.  I’m overly prickly, taking offence about everything.  Most men think I’m a model, and the rest hit on me. You’re the only one so far who hasn’t.”

I could see even now that she was attracting attention.

“I’m hoping that’s a compliment.”

She smiled.  “It’s going to be fun.”

I thought it was going to be anything but fun.

…

Jennifer, I soon discovered was one of those people who was easy to get along with, and in another sense, it was easy to misinterpret the easy-going and almost flirty manner as something else  She was one of those touchy-feely types, and I was, to a certain extent, uncomfortable with.

I didn’t want to be misinterpreted but knew eventually I would because it was inevitable.  I was to a certain extent a standoffish and reserved sort, or so I had been told.  I tried to explain this and became tongue-tied, something that had never happened to me before.

She thought it amusing.

It was when I finally realised she was also very beautiful, and when we went out to dinner, she attracted a lot more attention, something she didn’t seem to notice or perhaps deliberately ignored.

It was just something else that concerned me, but it would not be for very long.  Where we were going, she would be completely wrapped up, and no one would be able to tell who or what she was.

The next day, we were heading for Cusco in the mountains where we would be staying with a friend I’d met on the internet and who had told me about the significance of the area.

He dropped us off at the start of the walking track that would take us 2km up into the mountains, to a place where there was a plateau about the size of 12 football pitches, reputed to be a UFO landing site.  We arranged to meet him back at the drop-off point in 4 days.

It took the better part of that first day to Trek up the side of the mountain and reach the edge of the plateau which when first sighted looked as though it could definitely be a landing site for large craft.

Winter was not far away, it was covered in patchy snow but soon it would be completely covered.  It would also be very cold, and I was thankful the real cold had not yet set in.

We set up our tents in a sheltered area at one end.  I had to admit I was surprised when Jennifer had shouldered her pack for the Trek and then made it to the top.  She had stamina and determination.

We cooked dinner and had hot drinks, then rugged up and went to bed.  It was dark early, and the wind had picked up.  The skies were cloudy, but a clear sky was expected the next day.

A rather strange noise woke me, and instead of pitch-black darkness, there was an odd eerie glow that was bright enough to be seen threw the tent material.

I put on the outer layer of clothing and put my head outside the tent flap.  Above us, quite some distance up in the sky was a bright light.  It was too big to be a star or a planet.

I would have said it was the landing lights of a passing plane, but it was too low, there was no sound, and it was not moving.

“You saw it too?” Jennifer put her head out and was looking upwards.

“I saw a light shining through the tent.”

“What do you think it is, without stating the obvious.”  She gave me one of her sceptical looks.

It suddenly moved sideways, slowly, then did a wide circle to come back to the original position.

It could have been anything.  I wanted it to be a UFO,

“Perhaps some local with a large drone with powerful LEDs making it appear that it’s a UFO.”

She smiled.  “I’ll make a sceptic out of you yet.  I mean, if this place had been cited as one where odd events occur, you have to ask why aliens come here all the time and not other places as well.”

The light suddenly went out, and we were shrouded in darkness.

“Well, that was exciting,” she said.

Fully awake now and needing to stretch, I got out of the tent and stood up.  Jennifer joined me.

“Coffee?”

The cold was seeping through the layers and a hot drink would help.  She nodded, looking up at the sky.  It was clear and now the focal point had gone, there were stars.

I lit the camp stove and put the kettle on.

Suddenly there was a humming sound and instinctively looking up I could see where stars had been a blackness.

Something was blotting out the stars.

Then a few seconds later bright lights came on, not the sort that were a single or several searchlights but hundreds in a very large circle, slowly descending a short distance from us.

At a guess, it was an aircraft about the size of a football field. Now visible side on, it was about eight or ten stories tall, with rows of pale light indicating the levels, and the shape more or less a dome.

I looked sideways at Jennifer, and she seemed awestruck.

“Unless the Peruvian government is secretly experimenting with a new form of aircraft, this has to be a UFO,” I said.

“It’s not possible.”

We watched it come down and then settle on the surface about three or four hundred yards from us.  The main lights went out and a new yellow set around the base replaced them giving the whole area an eerie glow.

“And yet something is over there,”

She came over and took my hand in hers.  “We can’t stay.  Who knows what is in that thing.  How do we know it’s friendly or dangerous.  Do you really want to find out?

It seemed we would not have a choice.  I felt a slight tingling sensation and then lost consciousness.   My last thought was, whoever or whatever it was, they didn’t want any witnesses.

…

When I woke I was standing, still holding Jennifer’s hand, but inside a large room with no furniture, windows or anything.  Just walls and doors.

Seconds later a man suddenly materialised in front of us, a man dressed in a sort of outfit ancient monks used to wear.  A man who looked very much like us, though with less refined features.

He looked like he was trying to speak, or marshall his thoughts.

Perhaps overawed or suffering from the effects of whatever they did to us, I went with “You’re obviously not from this place?”

His expression changed, perhaps one of recognition.  “No.  Perhaps not.  Why are you here?”

Odd question.  He or someone else on board had transported us here.  Or did he mean here as in the plateau?

“We were expecting you,” I said. We weren’t but I thought it was a good response.  I could see Jennifer was simply stunned.

“That is not possible.  We had troubles and set down to make fixes.”

“Why here?”

“One of many ports in what you call the universe.”

“You’ve been here before?”

“Many times.  Sorry, the problem is fixed.  We must go.  Perhaps we will meet again.”

He slowly disappeared, we got tingly again, and then nothing.

It was light outside when I woke.  The sun was out, it was quite warm, and there was no sign of the patchy snow.  It was like prewinter had turned into summer.

Jennifer was beside me, slowly waking too.

“What happened?” She asked.  She’d also realised the change from the night before.

Coming up over the ledge was my friend and several others.   When he saw us, he came running.

“Peter, Peter, you’re alive.  We didn’t know what happened to you.”

He hugged me then Jennifer.

“What do you mean.  We were here the whole time.”

‘”No.  You disappeared.  When I came back four days later you were not there.  We came looking for you. Found your camp, and nothing else.  It’s been almost a year.  Where have you been?”

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©  Charles Heath  2024

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