Sucks To Be UFO

My wife was working on the kitchen when I walked in carrying a PA Wilds atlas, a toy Bigfoot, and a camera.

She watched as I set the atlas up, propped to a page that showed a map of Allegheny National Forest. I stood the Bigfoot up in front of it, focused, and snapped a photo. Then I gathered it all up again.

"I just got paid for that," I said, and left.

Break time. I grabbed two slices of pizza and a bottle of Coke, and took the elevator to the third floor of the library. I was wearing my green Area 51 shirt.

On my way into the Gross Room, I opened the little drawer in a table, and pulled out a black pouch. Inside was a pair of binoculars. I took it into the room, spun a chair around to face the big windows, sat down and started looking out at the sky.

Plenty of cloud cover, and no visible UFOs. But you never know.

My name is Lou. I work at the local library in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. I'm also a writer, historian, explorer, and paranormal investigator, mostly. At the moment, I look into cryptids, UFOs, buried treasures, and all sorts of stuff.

But no ghosts. Not right now.

A year of COVID deaths, followed by the death of my little pug dog, had depressed the hell out of me. Not long ago, I'd realized that I couldn't handle any more ghosts for a while. So I'd dropped any upcoming ghosts and haunted houses, which had been damn near all I'd had available anyway during a year of social distancing. 

I ate one slice of pizza while I looked to the west. Then I walked into the lobby with the other slice, checking the northeast, and finished it up while I walked down to the southern window. Then back to the Gross Room, where I finished the Coke.

I put away the binoculars and went back downstairs.

Slow day.

I sat and ate a hamburger overlooking the city of Williamsport. Across the picnic table, Michelle and Paul were eating, too.

"I think I see Bigfoot, Daddy," said Paul. "Wait a minute, no. That was just a rabbit I think."

We were sitting at the Route 15 overlook, having a picnic. Michelle asked me,"Have there really been Bigfoot sightings up here?"

"Oh, sure. A young couple reported Bigfoot attacked their car while they were parked up here."

"What were they doing?"

"Guess."

"Well, it's a nice place for a picnic, anyway."

"Ah, hell. I"m just bored. I mean, I'm glad to be out with the family. But I've had very little to do lately. COVID is keeping people in, I'm not doing ghosts right now, I haven't had many monster reports. It's been slow. If we can spot Bigfoot up here, I'll share my hamburger with him."

"Well, maybe something will happen soon."

"I hope. I'll take anything. A UFO sighting, a buried treasure. Hell, I'd take a gravity hill at the moment."

"You really are bored."

"Told you. Hey, Paul, they have the quarter-operated viewers by the path. You want to check them out?"

I was sitting at my desk, staring out the window. It was raining, just a little, which it had been lately---The weather had been a tease, going back and forth between nice and raining just enough to make things miserable. I pulled out a folder labelled Illegal Aliens and flicked through it.

I tended to save clippings about the paranormal when I found them. You never knew when you might need one. I flipped past a 1952 sighting that had turned out to be a Piper project, and the details of the airing of War of the Worlds in 1938. Then I found some old notes from an article I'd written a few years ago.

Zach came by, straightening the magazines. "What are you up to today?" he asked.

"I'm getting bored," I said. "I'm going to reopen QR-67."

He sighed.

"Oh, god," he said. "Every time things get a little slow around here, you dig into one of your old cases. Out come the maps, you start running around looking for old articles. What's this one about?"

"I need to refresh on the details, but some locals saw UFOs around Queen's Run. Hey, it's been slow lately What the hell else am I gonna do?"

"I mean....Your job?"

"That doesn't sound like me." I rolled my chair over to the card file, and flipped to "Unidentified Flying Objects," which someone in the past had considerately thought to include. There it was, just like I remembered---The Queen's Run sighting in April of 1967.

I got the microfilm and threaded it onto the viewer. After a little fast-forwarding, and some backing up (Missing your correct date and reversing is an important part of the process) I found the article I remembered.

Four friends had gathered at a home in Queen's Run. One lived along the Renovo Road, and the others lived across the river. They'd reported seeing UFOs, which to the best of my knowledge, had never been figured out. The article was really light on details, mostly quoting these four guys.

I read it a couple of times, and then printed off two copies. One went into the file for next time, and the other one I set on my desk, where I would later forget to take it home.

I got out of the car at Queen's Run, and looked around. I walked up the road, jumping over the guardrail, and stopped in the street in front of the two visible houses. It was just Queen's Run, hell, there wasn't going to be any traffic.

I turned, examined the scenery, and then went back to the car. Michelle asked,"You find anything?"

"Almost had to have been spotted over there," I said. "Across the river, above the Renovo Road. The article didn't specify a lot, and as it was sixty years ago, there's nobody I can ask now. They said they saw a UFO 'over the mountain', which could be a lot of places, but on a practical level, pretty much had to be across the river looking south."

"And they saw aliens?" 

"Well, aliens would be stretching it. They saw what was described as a white light with green around the edges. They watched for a while as these things moved around, and then vanished, leaving smoke that stayed for about an hour."

"White light with green edges...." Paul mused in the back, thinking it over.

"The thing is, this one doesn't really lend itself to any obvious guesses," I said. "Sometimes you can think of some possible explanations---Aircraft, military testing, weather patterns. But this one....I'm hard pressed to come up with anything that really explains much of it."

"White light with green edges," Paul said again.

"White light with green edges," I agreed.

"Bigfoot patrol," the woman read from the patch on my jacket. "Aren't you on the wrong side of the country for that?"

I was sitting at the picnic table in Riverview Park, petting her dogs; she was with a guy walking the path. Tif sat next to me, with Rosie tethered to the bench; Michelle was walking the path, too, and Paul was running around on the playground.

"We've had a few sightings here, too," I said. "Admittedly, the real Bigfoot country is out in Washington, Oregon, but we get a few out here. I was just looking into Bigfoot at Bald Eagle State Park."

"Really?" the guy said. "We moved here from Idaho. You get some monsters around here?"

"Oh, sure. We have the Susquehanna Seal, a water monster, and the Giwoggle up to the northwest. I give tours, do some writing about local history."

"I read an article about Jimmy Carter visiting," he said.

"Yeah," I said. "That was one of mine."

As they walked away, Tif said,"The new outfit's doing wonders for promotion."

"I still miss the tactical vest, though."

"So tell me about this new UFO case you're working on."

"QR-67 happened sixty years ago just up the river. Witnesses saw a white light with green edges over the Renovo Road, then disappeared and left smoke that lasted for like an hour. I'm not sure that lends itself to any easy explanations."

"Military testing?"

"Over the Renovo Road? Why the hell would the military be testing in that location?"

"Didn't they once try to bomb Renovo?"

"Well, it wasn't downtown Renovo. It was halfway up the road. It took me a while to figure out the locations; the witnesses lived almost across the river from each other. Military testing doesn't make sense."

"Why would aliens from another planet come to Renovo?"

"A lot of them already live there. Have you seen some of those people?"

Tif laughed. "Is this something new you just found out?"

"Nah, I've seen the article before. I decided to crack this one open again because I'm bored. Things have been a little slow lately; I haven't had any good cryptid sightings. I dug this one out to keep myself busy."

"Is it working?" 

"Well enough. For now. This one has always kind of bugged me, though."

"How so?"

"Like I said, this one doesn't lend itself easily to explanation. It may not have a solution, and I hate that. I mean, I could wind up writing it off as 'aliens, maybe,' but I'd rather know for sure. And I may not end up with an answer this time."

"I'm going out to lunch, and I won't be back for the day," New Boss told me. "I'm covering at Beech Creek."

"Gotcha. Have fun," I said. An entire afternoon unsupervised.

I actually did some stuff that passed for work, and then went to dig into QR-67. I started by scrolling through the microfilm, beginning with the original article and working my way a week forward, checking one day at a time to see if there had been any follow-up. Or any sudden discoveries that could have explained the sighting----"Meteor Falls In Bucktail Area," maybe.

There was nothing. I mean, there was plenty of news going on, but nothing that I could imagine tying into the UFO thing. I rewound the film and put it away. Time to check into the witnesses.

The spokesperson for the whole bunch seemed to have been the guy who lived on the Renovo Road; his name was Larry. He'd been the one to contact the papers and given all the quotes. The other three were relatives or friends---His brother-in-law, his nephew, and a friend. They'd all gotten together at the home of Larry's mother, in Queen's Run.

As most of them had been adults at the time, half a century ago, it was a fair bet that they'd since died. I checked the file; no obits on any of them. Dammit. I pulled the 1967 city directory in the hopes that these guys might be listed in there, and to my surprise, they were.

Larry lived up along the Renovo Road, and worked for Hammermill, the paper company. Same place the Jersey Devil had been seen in 1909, not that there was any connection here. The brother-in-law, James, lived in Queen's Run, and worked for American Aniline.

Now, that was interesting.

American Aniline was a chemical and dye company that had existed in Lock Haven---My neighborhood, specifically.

I walked back to Tracey in the back room.

"I just found a connection between a UFO sighting and American Aniline," I said. "The company made dyes and chemicals, and manufactured smoke bombs for the military during World War II."

"Hmm," said Tracey, almost as if she had better things to do than listen.

"So, worth looking into. The guy who worked at a place that made bright exploding stuff saw bright lights in the sky? Pretty big coincidence."

This time, she laughed. 

"So how do you proceed now?"

"I guess I need to look into American Aniline."

The sun was going down as I biked up the hill on Park Street. A woman watched from her driveway as I rode up. She called,"You need a motor on that!"

"I've considered it," I said, which was actually a lie. 

I pulled up in front of the gates to the former American Aniline building---Closed and locked. Someone was taking care of the place, mowing and cleaning up, but otherwise it appeared out of business. There had been a big Superfund cleanup here around twenty-five years ago, clearing out all the chemicals that had been dumped into the ground. I wasn't sure when it had closed.

I looked it over. The gates were closed to prevent trespassers, though there was a big gap underneath them that could easily be crawled under. Two buildings, one clearly offices, and one obviously factory. The factory one had a side door that let out directly into a parking area.

It wouldn't have been too hard to slip some chemicals out back in 1967, when people were more trusting. Hell, even now I could break in there easy enough if I wanted. How much magnesium would it take to make that kind of flare? Not more than a pocketful.

I took off my pack and hung it on my handlebars. Then I walked cautiously over to the fence. I didn't see any security cameras. which wasn't entirely surprising---American Aniline even in its prime hadn't been on the busiest end of town. I saw a lot of Trump flags on this street; I was more concerned about getting shot than arrested.

I crouched down and slipped under the gate. In ten seconds I was on the other side, hoping people would assume I was there legally. I walked into the tree line beside the factory building, trying to stay concealed.

Trespassing in a chemical plant to study a UFO. Well, at least things have livened up a little.

I walked to the door of the office building. I could see in through the windows. There was no security booth, nothing to suggest workers had been checked. It would have been easy to slip out some magnesium or something while leaving work.

Which might make a white light with green edges.

It was raining outside Tif's window as Paul watched TV. I said,"I think I figured out that UFO sighting."

"Well, that was fast."
"I pulled the city directory and checked on the witnesses. Turns out one of them lived right across the river from where the UFO was sighted, and one worked at American Aniline."
"American Aniline....Chemicals?"
"You got it."

Tif grinned. "Burning chemicals. You solved a UFO sighting with a city directory."

I nodded. "American Aniline manufactured flares and smoke bombs during World War II. It would have been nothing for one guy to slip out with a pocket full of magnesium or something, and if he was experienced, he could set it up as a flare on a timer on the other guy's property. Then, at the right moment....All four witness the UFO and contact the newspapers."

"Now, that makes sense."

"Does, doesn't it?" I looked out the window at the rain, then turned and gave Paul a hug. "Well, I gotta get to work. You two have a fun day."

Gwen

"Hey, Lou, I almost forgot to tell you," said Jim. "That ghost detector you put out? It moved."
I looked up from the table in the library's lobby, where I was doing my shift. "The trigger object I stuck there in July? I forgot all about that."

"Well, I was at my desk, and it moved. Startled the hell out of me."

 "When did this happen?"

"You got here, what? Noon? About one."

I grinned. "I'll stop down and check it out, take a couple of readings. Keep me posted."

"I don't want to keep you posted," said Jim.

It had been a year since the first COVID lockdowns, back when we'd thought this would only last a couple of weeks. At the time, I'd investigated the library a bit. I'd checked out more of the history of my own home, and concentrated on finding little mysteries within a few blocks. A year of wearing masks. A year of not really having the adventures I wanted to, because it was a risk to my loved ones.

I glanced out the window. The snow from last month had turned to rain, and was coming down. My bike was parked on the porch, just out of the rainfall---I'd added a couple of alien decals to it, and a survival kit and a drink holder. I looked at the rain tracking down the windows for a moment.

You know. March. In like a Chupacabra, out like a Squonk.

She walked across the parking lot toward me, hair blowing in the wind. "I've been vaccinated," she said. "That means I'm safe." SaraLee held out her arms, and gave me a hug.

I was glad to see her, this sweet psychic who'd become one of my closest friends. I handed her a small package. "Got you a present."

SaraLee grinned. "An LHPS mask. Can't wait to wear it to work. I have the LHPS badge you gave me on my vest."

"I've seen it in the Facebook photos."

We sat down at the picnic tables outside the library. I was wearing my LHPS hoodie and my black ghost T-shirt.

"How you holding up?" she asked.

I shrugged. "As well as anyone, I guess. Paul's lonely and anxious. We got him a puppy, and that helps."

"That's cute."

"How are you doing?"

"You know, about the same. We're vaccinated now, so that's good."

"I'm glad. I'm gonna be last on the list. Never has it sucked so much to be a healthy middle-aged guy."

"Well, I'm looking forward to getting back into action," said SaraLee. "We need to start up meetings again."

"I'm hoping we can do that once everyone's vaccinated. Maybe over the summer."

"That'd be good. You see anyone?"

"Haven't seen Millie in a year. Paul and I bumped into Ashlin at McDonald's a while ago."

"We can investigate my place, if you like," SaraLee offered. "That might be a good way to start getting back into it."

"That's a really good idea, actually," I said.

We talked for a while, sitting on the bench. It felt good to sit and talk with my psychic friend, discussing haunted houses. Made me almost feel as if things could go back to normal.

"You okay?" SaraLee asked.

"No," I said. "But I will be."

It was four days later.

I was outside with Rosie when Tif showed up to babysit. "Paul's in the backyard," I said. "He's playing in the sand pit."

"How's he doing?" Tif asked.

"Probably better than I am."
She nodded. "I'm sorry to hear about Gwen dying, Daddy," she said.

"It was awful," I said. "This morning, the little pug fell off the bed, and I realized she wasn't moving. We ran her to the vet, but she died in my arms on the way. The vet said it was probably a heart attack."

"She was, what, fourteen?"

"Yeah, but still," I said. "I loved that dog. I'm still not over Kasper, and now Gwen. My heart is breaking."

"How's Paul?"

"He goes back and forth," I said. "He'll be okay for a while, and then he'll cry. He made a wish on a dandelion earlier, and his wish was that I'd never die."

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him I've discovered four different healing springs, and tried them all," I said. "He told me he hoped I could live a million billion years."

"That your plan?"

"Well. I'm trying."

"Hey, Boss." I looked in the door to her new office, right across from my desk. "Welcome to the neighborhood."

She grinned, sitting behind her desk. "Thanks. We wanted to get this done a year ago, but then....COVID."

"Yeah, that screwed up a lot of stuff. As my desk is right outside your door now, I guess that makes me your receptionist."

"I guess so."

"Hypothetically, if I'd seen typos in the newsletter, would it make you happier if I pointed them out, or kept quiet and hoped nobody noticed?"
"The second one."

"Done."

"Okay."

"So, hey....This summer's Summer Reading theme is animals. For our purposes, does the Loch Next Monster count as an animal?"

The Boss thought it over. "Why not? Sure, let's go with that."

"Great. My summer just got a lot more interesting. Has anyone checked your new office for ghosts yet? I can check for ghosts."

"No. If there are ghosts in my office, I don't want to know."
"Everyone's always saying that to me. You know your old office was Annie Halenbake Ross's bedroom?"

"Well, if she's still here, she can have it."

I went back to my desk and sat down. I had two e-mails. One was from a woman who claimed to have demons in her house, and the other was wondering how to get rid of a ghost. I stared at them both for a moment, and then closed them out.

I just....Couldn't.

Not anymore.

Friday night. Family dinner. I looked up at my family across the table and said,"I'm going to get away from ghost hunting for a while."

They all looked up at me as if I'd announced I had cancer. Biz said,"Well, great. We broke Dad."

"Why?" asked Tif.

"Right now, I just can't. There's been too much death. We've been dealing with it for a year, and now Gwen, and....I can't right now. I just can't study death the way I usually do."

"How about those new shadow people you discovered?" Tif asked.

"The shadow people will be fine without me for a while. I'm still going to do aliens and cryptids, buried treasures, and fun stuff like that. But ghosts....No. Not right now."

"Are you quitting LHPS?" Tif asked.

"Well, that's convenient, because right now LHPS is suspended due to COVID. I'll ask SaraLee to field any incoming questions. But at the moment, we're not taking any new investigations anyway."

"You go looking for ghosts at work when you get bored," said Biz.

"I'll have to find something else for a while," I said. "Maybe I'll learn there's a Chupacabra in an upstairs closet. We've discovered weirder."

"I'm sorry, Daddy," said Tif.

"This isn't forever, and I'm not going to pretend it is," I said. "I'll get back to it eventually. But for now, I'm going to have to concentrate on other stuff. I'm just not up for ghosts."

We walked down the path to the garden area. I said,"We're going to be quiet, okay? Your school assignment was to listen for nighttime animals." I was wearing my black jacket, with the buttons and patches on it, and my wooly mammoth shirt.

"Okay," said Paul. We were in the nature park in Wayne Township.

"Maybe we'll hear the cicadas," I said. "Maybe a raccoon, too. Bigfoot."

"A Squonk?" asked Paul hopefully.

"Sure, maybe a Squonk."

"If we find a Squonk, I want to hug it and cheer it up. Squonks cry all the time because their feelings are hurt."
"True enough." I was feeling a little like a Squonk myself.

We threw a blanket down on the ground, and sat down. Michelle said,"I'll walk Rosie around. You guys can listen for animals."

"I brought some Play-Doh," said Paul. "If we get lost, we can make a SOS out of it."

My son and I sat in companionable silence for a few minutes. I said,"You hear some animals?"

"I hear bugs."

"Crickets. Couple of birds," I said. "You never know. Bigfoot's been seen over that way, near the pond."

"Bigfoot? The real one?" said Paul. "Not the statue on this trail?"

"No, the real one," I said. "Someone told me last summer. So we might hear him, if we're careful."

"I'd like to see Bigfoot."

"I'd like to see Bigfoot, too. I'm working on that."

We sat and listened for a little while.

"Did Gwen have a spirit?" Paul asked.

"They all do, buddy."

"Are you never going to go ghost hunting again?" Paul asked me.

"No, I will again sometime. I don't know when. I just don't want to for a while."
"We can still do alien patrol?"

"Yeah, we can still go on alien patrol."

"I think I see a Squonk!" Paul said excitedly, looking out into the dark. I couldn't see a damn thing. For all I knew, there really was a Squonk there.

"Cheer it up," I said. "Tell it we love it."

Paul called out,"We love you, Squonks!"

A few days later, we got Gwen's ashes back from the vet. They came in a little wooden box, with a metal name tag included. I sat down to fasten it to the box, the fifth time I'd done this.

Paul watched as I peeled the backing off the tag, and carefully put it on. The tears came to my eyes; I couldn't help it. Paul hugged me. I wrapped my arms around him, and held him in silence for a while.

When I got into work, there was a card on my desk. It was a nice condolence card from Jayne, my new co-worker, and said she was sorry for Gwen. I tucked it into my card file.

I hung up my pack, then pulled out a black packet. I checked inside---It contained a flashlight, binoculars, and a small notebook. I went up to the third floor. I was wearing my T-shirt with nine different cryptids on it.

Walking around up there, I stopped and looked out each large window. One in the lobby area looked northeast, in the Gross Room one looked due west, and just down the hall, one pointed southwest, which gave me almost a 360-degree view of the skyline of Lock Haven.

Which made it perfect for UFO hunting, if I got bored.

Sorry, ghosts. I'll see you later. Paying attention to the aliens for a while.

I slipped the packet into a drawer in the table. Nobody ever looked in there; I could easily ditch a time capsule there and nobody would ever stumble on it. It would hide my UFO stuff.

I turned and looked out the window, looking out over the river at the sky.

A small ray of sunshine was beginning to shine through the clouds.