Sometimes they're meteorites and sometimes they're space junk. Sometimes they're plane crashes or balloons, and sometimes they're secret government projects you'll be chased away from. And sometimes they're strictly visual without apparent substance. Still, you know you saw something. But where did it go? What was it?
Dramatic, well-publicized UFO cases often seem impressive, but what about the rural incident which seems so insignificant, a mere blink in the night? When multiplied all over the globe by the thousands, do such events hold a special meaning?
Back in mid-April of 1994, at least four people reported observing something strange over a cornfield in the northern New York community of Oswegatchie. According to Associated Press reports, witnesses reported that something fell out of the sky around 8:15 p.m. -- that the fallen something had one or two rows of bright red lights and "flew over a cornfield" before it dropped straight down into that cornfield.
Observer Steve Ponko, outside, said "There were one or two rows of red lights. . .sort of shaped like a plane. It was coming toward me. . .all of a sudden, it dropped into the field." A border patrol agent and two women in different locations nearby also called police to report the strange sight.
Though dozens of volunteers and an infrared-equipped (for night vision) Army helicopter from nearby Fort Drum were dispatched, searchers found nothing (or so we are told).
"We don't know what it is," explained Kit Smith, district fire coordinator. "From what we were told, it did not resemble any type of conventional aircraft." Smith added that neither Ogdensburg International Airport nor the airport in Burlington, Vermont reported radio transmissions from incoming aircraft at the time.
Something or nothing? Yes, sometimes mysteries pulsate in hues of icy blue, as if cold and calculating, and sometimes they reflect against the evening sky in shades of jade green. At other times, they arrive innocently in sparsely populated areas, dressed informally in rows of crimson, here and then gone, perhaps manipulating time and space to their advantage. To whose advantage? We marvel, then dismiss the little things easily, finding no importance in those brief, yet ubiquitous shining treasures of the night. Why wouldn't we wave them off, if implications for the bigger picture are incapable of personal assessment?
