UFO’s

            I don’t generally write columns at someone’s request, but a high-ranking local official has been bugging me to write about UFO’s. I am a bit of a coward so I don’t want to cross this person in the event something comes up where I might need the person’s official help.

            This same official has assured me that there have been no recent sightings reported of any Unidentified Flying Objects over our environs. Still, the official is part of the ruling class, and who trusts the government these days anyway? As Shakespeare wrote, I suspect the official “… doth protest too much …” and may have an ulterior motive behind the denial.

            Has the official seen a UFO and is afraid to admit it? We may never know.

            Anyway, the official told me that an inquiring reporter from Texas was informed that the town had no official position about tornados, though one wag with a funny, tin-foil hat stopped me in front of the Town Hall and suggested that last summer’s whirlwind tornado was, in fact, caused by a UFO taking off from the elusive Wolf Island. Just kidding. I made the tin foil hat part up.

            Ever curious, I consulted a reliable source of knowledge, my old friend ChatGPT, the artificial-intelligence app that knew so much about dogs in Mattapoisett.

            It said, “As sure as the sun sets over Ned’s Point Lighthouse, residents and visitors have reported sightings of strange lights and objects dancing across the sky … lights that hover, dart and disappear without warning,” and that old timers suspect that these”otherworldly beings are drawn to the allure of the bay.” Well, there you go.

            I’m not surprised by the official subterfuge, even our leaders in Washington have buried UFO information for decades. But fear not, light is finally being shone on the Unidentified Flying Objects mystery. The Defense Department recently unveiled a website, which will reveal all available previously classified records about Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, or UAP’s. In true government fashion, they had to rename UFO’s so as not to confuse the public.

            They have even gone so far as to allow a former U.S. intelligence official and UFO … er UAP expert — is that an oxymoron? — to admit there have been “non-human biologics” found at the crash sights of UAP’s. The nation’s UAP experts report that there have been 366 new reports of activity since 2021, and about half of these have been drones. Heck, I have seen plenty of drones over our harbor. Do you mean they are not UFO’s … er UAP’s?

            Well, am I to doubt my own experience? In the spirit of transparency, I once saw an Unidentified Flying Object … well it was an unidentified hovering object, a UHO. But who’s quibbling?

            It was when I was in college during the famous blackout of November 1965. The whole Northeast was dark. People were running around the streets of Boston hysterically. Many thought it was an alien invasion.

            After wandering around for a while and seeing no little green men, I returned to my apartment. I was looking out my window when there in the dark sky was an immense disc the size of a football field quietly hovering over our building. I called over my roommates, but by the time they got to the window the disc had vanished.

            So that’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

            Editor’s note: Mattapoisett resident Dick Morgado is an artist and retired newspaper columnist whose musings are, after some years, back in The Wanderer under the subtitle “Thoughts on ….” Morgado’s opinions have also appeared for many years in daily newspapers around Boston.

Thoughts on…

By Dick Morgado