The UFO Incident

You can find anything on the Internet. Anything. I’m not going to go into whether this is a blessing or a curse (I lean slightly toward the latter view), but man am I happy we got us them interwebs.

I found something I never thought I’d see again.

First, some background.

The scene: One chilly November night, maybe fifteen years ago. My bachelor pad, ah, my unique, cozy, cocoon of character, my solitary abode after a full day of dealing with … people. True, it had no working heaters, so it was cold. But it was mine, so to speak. It was cheap, low-maintenance, and I had all I ever wanted in a domicile: a place for my books, a big teevee with a VCR, a massive desk to support my computer, a comfy tub to bathe in, a cavernous storage room for my dirty laundry and recyclables.

I remember I had the whole night stretched out in front of me. I had a six pack of Busch and a pack of Marlboro Lights with exactly six cigarettes left. One to enjoy with each beer. Okay. I found myself standing in my tiny kitchenette, leaning through the open window over the bar that worked as my table, watching the big teevee on wheels in the living room. Over the course of the night I consumed my beer and my butts in this position as I watched a pair of movies.

Simple, if somewhat misguided, pleasures.

The latter movie was The UFO Incident. This 70s gem was actually a teevee movie starring Estelle Parsons and James Earl Jones as Betty and Barney Hill. In September of 1961, the Hills claimed to have been accosted by a flying saucer while driving on a highway through the mountains of New Hampshire. Initially they had no memory of their encounter, but after nightmares and day-time flashbacks became too traumatic, they sought professional psychiatric help. Under hypnosis, the “true” story of their ordeal came to light.

They are the first (American) widely-known case of alien abduction.

I was glued to the set as Barney’s nightmares drove him to the edge of insanity. I was riveted during the spooky flashback scenes. I was creeped out by how realistic it all seemed to gullible ol’ me – despite the inherent cheesiness of the thing.

It may sound weird, crazy, or downright sad, but I am hard-pressed to retrieve memories of a better time I had all by my lonesome. I’m a loner; I like being alone; I’m comfortable with it. And this night one point five decades ago, a lot of things aligned to make it wonderful. No health problems, no money problems, no demands on my time, a nice buzz without getting trashed, and some weird, crazy, and downright eerie stuff on the tube to completely draw me in.

Again, simple, if somewhat misguided, pleasures.

As the years went by, I found myself thinking about The UFO Incident every now and then, maybe a couple times a year. I searched for the DVD, in stores and online, only to be saddened to learn it was never released in that format. So, I relegated it to the “Someday” file, sadly.

Then I found it – on youtube. Some dude posted it in ten nine-minute segments. Joy of joys! I have found you, UFO Incident! And though I cannot enjoy you under the same circumstances, I can enjoy you nonetheless. Yesterday, unable to sleep at 4:00 am, I tiptoed downstairs and watched the first three segments on my PC. I was immediately rewarded with a juicy glimpse of creepiness as the Hills are driving, passing a car with a flat on the road, and Betty hallucinates the stranded passengers are the Greys! Spooooooo-key!

So, you can find anything on the Internet. It could be a good thing (reunited with a long-lost memory) or it could be a bad thing (a tremendous waste of 90 minutes of precious life). Google at your own risk!