It was late dusk as Jeff and Al went about setting up, only glimmering traces of any light remained, but they could tell from the sound of the thunder the storm was not far away and heading in their direction. Jeff stopped a moment and looked toward the rumbling beast of Mother Nature in the distance, the jagged streaks of lightning shooting out in all directions. A big storm, the wind was picking up and swirling in all directions as they hurried back to Jeff’s Ford Explorer, a four-wheel drive necessity, used to get into fields and other tight places. He had a custom roll-back, sky-top window installed, so in the roll-back position, he could stand up to the outside, allowing him to take pictures without fear of being hit by lightning.
As Jeff undid the roll-back and stood up, he urged Janet to do the same, a tight fit but not uncomfortable, neither seeming to mind having their bodies pressed against each other. Jeff said, “Once it starts to rain we’ll duck back inside, but for now we can watch the show from here. You can tell the storm is coming from the south from the sounds of the thunder. I think it’ll be here in five to ten minutes.”
At first Janet enjoyed what was happening. The warm air was blowing directly into her face as she watch the sky light up in the distance. Mother Nature was the movie and she was getting a show with surround-sound better than any Sony digital theater could possibly provide. In the distance, lightning lighted up the sky every few seconds. She could clearly see some streaks of lightning going from one cloud to another as if two warriors throwing spears at one another. Other warriors too were ganging up on the Earth, with multiple strikes to the ground thrown to different areas all in a matter of seconds. During these bursts of energy, the sky would clearly light up, revealing the outline of these tremendous black clouds. A few seconds later the sounds of the battle were heard, as large rumbling noises reached the vehicle. Sometimes the battle would stop for a few seconds and everything returned to ghostly silence and blackness, only to be broken again with a bright streak across the sky and a much louder roar.
Janet watched the awesome display as Jeff snapped pictures and Al sat in the back seat of the Explorer watching and waiting his turn, the metering device for measuring lightning strikes wired from the field to a monitor in his hand. One needle indicated the building up of static electricity, while another registered the power of a lightning strike, if lucky enough to get one.
Jeff knew this baby was getting close. The sounds of the thunder were almost instantly heard with a large crack that made one instinctively duck for cover. With the clouds even closer now, each strike seemed to illuminate the entire sky. As the battle moved closer, the magical eye-of-the-storm was upon them. The wind calmed and the lightning seemed to stop. It was during this calm period that Janet’s cell phone rang. Hoping not to miss any of the excitement, she quickly ducked down into the Explorer, grabbed the phone from her purse and stuck her head back up. It was Harry at OIA, “Janet we just got another damned dot alarm about thirty seconds ago and it’s not far from the airport. I repeat, not far from the airport.”
“I’m going to put Jeff on so you can give him the location, we’ll head over there right away.”
Jeff took the phone and listened to Harry explain that the dot came on the screen only for a second, but they got the coordinates and estimated it to be ten miles due east and a few miles south of the airport. “Oh my, god! Harry, that’s where we are!” Jeff replied and hung up.
Just as he yelled to Janet and Al, “We have to get out of here, now!” A tremendous streak of lightning jumping from one cloud to another totally illuminated the sky. They all instinctively looked up and saw it, the answer to the mystery of the dots that showed up on Harry’s screen, the probable answer to the devastation they had witnessed in the past two days. It was a huge 300-foot-plus disk-shaped object approximately a mile away and only a few thousand feet above ground level, seemingly floating along with the storm. The base was flat as a pie pan, the sides made up of a fifty-foot or so wall completely around it. The top was domed shaped, with protruding rods of various lengths and widths and covering the entire upper surface. It looked like the back of a porcupine with its needles fully extended. When the next lightning strike flashed and illuminated the sky, it was obvious the lightning energy had hit one of the protruding rods then dissipated into blackness.
As quickly as the “eye” had produced calm, it started to rain as the storm and it came ever closer. The water on Jeff’s face jolted him back to reality regarding the object in the sky that defied the laws of gravity and recent events. If this thing was the cause of the devastation, they all were in grave danger. He wanted to grab his cameras from the field to hopefully verify what they just witnessed but knew if the rain had the same corrosive chemicals as Al had described, he would die trying. He decided to take the chance, and yelled to Janet and Al, “Close everything up and start the engine, I’m getting the cameras.”
Janet yelled back, “Forget it, Jeff, let’s just get out of here before we all die.”
Janet’s words were too late, and Jeff was out the door of the Explorer and on the run. He reached the cameras in seconds, quickly grabbed the tape from the digital video recorder from the TV camera and picked up the Sony. As he was heading back a streak of lightning lit up the sky and again he saw the white bolt absorbed by it. By now this floating football field with its protruding rods was almost overhead. Jeff ran as fast as he could toward the Explorer.
Al, too, had now seen the last strike of lightning and the location of the UFO. He gunned the vehicle and spun it around, so when Jeff jumped in, they would be headed away from the monster. As soon as Jeff was safely inside, he buried the gas pedal into the floor and the Explorer responded immediately. Route 15 south was picked up, and as fast as the vehicle could go. Within a few minutes, they were south of the storm and clear of any immediate danger. Al pulled over and asked if everyone was okay.
In a trembling voice, Janet said, “Are you okay, Jeff?”
“Physically, yeah. I didn’t feel any bad rain on me, so I ‘m assuming the corrosive water never reached us. How about you guys?”
“Fine, except for the fact that we just had an encounter of the first kind and someone better do something pretty damn quick before we have UFO acid all over the southeast United States,” Al said.
Always thinking and planning the next move, Janet called Harry. She knew this was not the time to tell him what they saw, but wanted him to call her if any airplane or OIA radar picked up anymore dots.
Harry picked up the phone on the second ring and said, “What’s going on, Janet? Jeff sounded scared to death when I called earlier. You guys okay? Did you see anything?”
“We’re fine. There’s a meeting at my hotel room at noon tomorrow, Room 711 at the Marriott. I’ll explain everything then. In the meantime, please call me if you have anymore alarms.”
Jeff looked at Janet and in a whisper said, “God help us if he calls again. That thing was in a secluded area when we saw it, but ten miles in the direction it was headed was the city of Orlando—population a half million.”
After discussing what should be done next, it was decided to head back to Jeff’s apartment and review the video and pictures he had taken. They felt a little uncomfortable telling the world there was a UFO dropping acid rain over central Florida , so any evidence they could show that would make their story at least more credible would be helpful. Janet was adamant about calling Brad at the FBI. She felt something terrible was happening and wanted to have a higher authority informed on what was going on.
When they reached Jeff’s apartment, Janet called Brad while Jeff and Al started developing the pictures from the two cameras and setup the VCR to watch the video from the TV digital video camera.
Brad was always within reach by some means of communication. It was his job to be informed from around the world of anything that might affect the security of the United States of America. The Federal Bureau of Investigation mission was to know what was going to happen before it happened or at le
ast before the press knew. With this in mind, it was not surprising to Janet that she was put right through to talk to Brad. She told him in detail what had happened and how they were about to review the pictures and video to verify what they saw.
Brad said, “Janet, your word is good enough for me. I’ll forget about sending who I was going to send and, instead, get the two agents briefed who have dealt with the Air Force Blue Files. Expect them at your meeting tomorrow at noon. Hopefully nothing disastrous will happen in the meantime. Try not to let this leak out until they can assess what you have. Only then would I dare go to the president with such information. This is the kind of thing where we can make no error, no false alarm. To do so would mean the end of our careers. I’m sure you understand that. Be in touch soon—”
When Janet got off the phone with Brad, she asked Al where was Jeff. “He’s in his darkroom developing the pictures,” Al replied, without looking up from finishing the setup of the VCR in the den.
Janet knocked on the door of what probably was a second bedroom that Jeff had converted into a darkroom. Jeff wanted to know what Balder had to say about the encounter.
She told him everything that was said as she watched Jeff dip some type of paper into a large flat pan and slowly saw a picture start to develop. The large bright lightning strikes were the first thing that became recognizable. Then more details of the cloud formation became clear where the lightning had illuminated the sky. To the far right was a large black object as if someone had put their thumb over the lens as the picture was taken. Janet watched as the chemicals did their work and slowly started filling in the details of the picture. Her hand came up onto Jeff’s arm and the more complete the picture became the tighter her hand gripped his arm. In the far right of the photo was the UFO, the flat bottom and crown of protruding rods. “My god, Jeff! You caught it on film!” Janet said in a trembling voice.
Jeff took the photo from the pan and went across the room to where he had many other photos hanging from a line drying. As he clipped this one onto the line, he said, “I have a few more to develop but as you can see from these other photos, yes, I’d say we caught it on film! Let’s see what the video shows.”
Al had already gone through the entire video sequence and was ready to hit PLAY again as they came into the room. As soon as the video started, Janet asked why the picture had a greenish tint comparable to Harry’s CRT screens. Jeff replied, “I’m using an infrared lens.”
Janet didn’t question his reply and watched with a keen interest, after all, for all they knew, this was the first real sighting of a UFO by earthlings, and they were the chosen three. Everything had been a unique and exciting experience, that is until the phone call from Harry. Then all hell broke loose.
Janet watched what looked like a normal thunderstorm caught on film from a professional TV camera quickly turn abnormal. There among the clouds was a floating football stadium, obviously defying the laws of gravity and staying, about a mile away from the camera lens and floating in the air a couple thousand feet above ground level, moving right along with the storm.
“Jeff, it’s exactly like the others!” Al explained.
“Not exactly, I have pictures of it from the camera without the infrared lens on it and besides, we all saw it with the naked eye!” Jeff stated.
Janet, now standing and clearly hearing her own heart beat, said almost as a shout, “What the hell are you guys talking about!”
4
NEVER ONE WANTING TO BE IN THE MIDDLE OF A friendly squabble, Al took that as his cue to turn in for the evening and said, “Hey, it’s getting late and I want to check on the soil tests. Jeff, good luck filling her in on the details. Call me if you need me later tonight or tomorrow morning. Otherwise, see you at the noon meeting.”
As soon as Al left, Jeff got up, went to the kitchen and poured two glasses of Chardonnay wine. He brought them back to the den and handed one to a very confused lady. “Instead of you asking a bunch of questions, let me tell you the whole story.
“A few months ago, just after we started using the infrared goggles, Al and I were out on a storm chase. We were exhilarated about having the new night vision goggles and commenting on how much easier it was to do our setup using the glasses. Al kept saying how amazing the lens allowed us to see in the dark and that, thank god, we could now avoid those nasty venom injecting fire-ants or the soft squish of stepping in a cow chip. The big draw back was that when a lightning bolt lit up the sky. It also lit up our eyes. We proceeded to do our setup and as we got into the Explorer, we took off the infrared glasses to watch as the storm came in. I took pictures as normal and Al did his monitoring.
“As the storm approached, I was extremely curious about the goggles. I would take pictures, then put on the goggles to see what, if anything, looked different. During one of the ‘calm before the storm’ periods, I had my goggles on and noticed a large dark object way off in the distance. I told Al to grab his goggles and check it out. We both watched this large object in the sky floating along on the backside of the storm. It was a long way off and we didn’t know what to think of it until the storm got closer. Now we were so curious that we gave up our normal routine and kept watching the object. The closer the storm moved toward us, it became obvious that this unknown sphere was approaching with it. I asked Al if he were seeing what I was seeing, and he verified with a thumbs up signal. The storm pasted about a mile from us and I took pictures of the floating pie with the protruding rods as fast as I could. We watched in total amazement as this object the size of a football field quietly floated away with the storm.
“We left that night and went directly to my house to develop the pictures. Al kept saying we were going to be famous, not only did we see a UFO but we took pictures and recorded it on a state-of-the-art video camera. We were going to be Pulitzer Prize winners for sure. When we reached my house, I told Al to check the video and I would develop the pictures. When I came out of the darkroom, I knew from the look on Al’s face that he saw what I saw, which was absolutely— Nothing! Not a race of that huge object we saw so clearly with our night vision goggles. We checked and double checked everything, but nothing showed on the pictures or video. For hours that night, we kept going over what had happened and struggled to find an explanation. We knew we couldn’t tell anyone what had happened because what we saw did not show up on film. By taking pictures and video that showed nothing, our story sounded like we had a few too many drinks. There was only one difference in our review of everything and that was the infrared goggles. We saw the object while wearing the infrared, but the camera and video did not. This being the only variable, we decided to get an infrared lens for the camera and the video recorder. This way, if in the next storm chase we saw the object again, it would be caught using all infrared lenses.
“Two weeks later, we were on the scene of a huge thunderstorm. After doing our normal routine, we sat in the Explorer watching with our night vision goggles waiting for something to happen. My camera and TV recorder were now both equipped with infrared. At this point, the storm chase was over and the UFO chase was on. About fifteen minutes into the calm before the storm, it appeared again. Al and I looked at each other and verified we both saw the floating, porcupine-topped football stadium. My heart was beating a mile a minute because now we had visual sighting and I was taking pictures as fast as my finger could push the button. The video camera was rolling and I was saying to myself, “We got you porky! You’re not going to escape this time!”
Al and I couldn’t collect the gear quick enough and headed back to my house. We wanted to see if the infrared lens on the cameras caught what we saw. Again, Al did the video and I developed the pictures. This time as the chemicals did their slow process of developing the pictures I had taken, one by one they all showed mankind was not alone in the universe. As I came out of the darkroom with one of the still wet pictures, Al’s eyes told me it was on video also.
“ ‘Jeff, you’ve got to see this!’ Al said. And sure enou
gh, we got it the whole time, except when the lightning was so bright the infrared lit up the entire picture. ‘Did you get the same on still film?’ ” I remember Al saying.
“ ‘We got it, Al, visual, still film and high tech digital video recording, the whole smear. I don’t think anyone can question what we have here, but I do think a lot of people are going to question what it is,’ ” I remember saying.
“We were both so excited. For two hours we drank beer and like two jocks watching the super bowl, yelled and screamed as we watched a UFO on video move slowly inside the thunderstorm, as if it was our favorite team heading for the winning touchdown. After our emotions calmed, we talked about our next move. Should we go to the newspapers, TV news, government officials or military. As we went over all the possibilities we also questioned everything that had happened. Had we covered the bases, was there something that someone was going to say about this being a hoax, something that we could take care of before it was said, sort of preventive maintenance.
“Finally, with one comment, I popped our big bubble, big time and without a doubt. ‘There’s one catch we didn’t think of. All the pictures from the cameras, the video and our eyewitness account, were taken with infrared lenses. Damnit! We can’t verify seeing this thing without the use of the infrared lenses!’ ” I remembering saying to Al.
“Well, at this point, we were now back to the original, unshakable problem. The first time we saw this thing was with the goggles, but the cameras using an ordinary lens showed nothing. Now we saw and recorded it with all infrared lenses, but never saw it in plain sight. The question would be drilled at us, that we used the infrared to create an image. So again we felt we couldn’t tell anyone until we could prove what we were seeing both with and without infrared.”
Janet, who was quietly sipping her wine and listening to the story with immense curiosity, broke her silence. “Jeff, you’re a well known meteorologist, why didn’t you at least bring it to the attention of the TV station? We’re talking about seeing an alien spacecraft or whatever, didn’t you want to warn someone, take some credit or something.”
BAD RAIN: A SCI-FICTION THRILLER Page 4
