All Reported UFO Sightings in Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia

Full Report Text:

It was the middle of the week. My cousin knew what he was doing. On a clear, comfortably cool late September afternoon, he'd arranged for all four to meet at my store, at around 5:00 p.

m. Knowing that schools were in session and that families that spent summers at Smith Mountain Lake had left until the next spring, we were excited by the prospect of having the lake all to ourselves. We were eager for the camaraderie and fun that would follow.

In a very real sense, the rest of us trusted him to make that happen. He had the big car, his dad's hand-me-down Oldsmobile, a luxury car in every respect. He also had the key to his dad's boat, a zippy outboard that had plenty of room for all of us and our usually useless fishing poles.

On similar excursions, we'd used the same gear. On that clear, cool late afternoon, we welcomed the chance to feel the fresh lake air as we zoomed through it. But that wasn't all.

My cousin also had the key to his parents' lake house. In fact, the boat was waiting for us at his family's dock. From the house, the back yard sloped down to the dock; it jutted out about fourteen feet into the small cove.

When my cousin slowed to turn right onto a black top that would wind down to the front of his parents' home, we saw no others cars were there. My cousin hurried into the house, turned on the lights, and grabbed the keys to the boat as the rest of us walked down to the waiting topless craft. We took our seats.

A minute later, my cousin untied the boat and hopped in; he slipped into the captain's seat and started the outboard. Carefully, without a wake, he guided us out of the quiet cove and onto the lake. To our left, on the western side of the lake, we spotted a few homes; they were no where close to us.

Beyond the bank of the lake, we saw what we knew to be the outskirts of Roanoke, VA, about fifty miles away. The evening sky was that clear. We didn't talk much; the outboard engine made anything less than a scream impossible to hear.

But we weren't on the lake to chat and reminisce. That would come later, after we'd returned the boat to its dock. After fishing, my cousin announced it was time to raid the fridge.

As he led us there, he tossed the boat keys into a dish atop a buffet next to what was a casual space that was part dining room and part kitchen. Waiting for us was a table big enough for six. Although the other three men wanted to sit and and schmooze about the lake and our fishing and whatever gossip that needed discussing, I wanted to see more of the night sky and the dark, glassy lake.

They didn't seem to notice that I reached for the sliding glass door just behind the chair at the head of the table. It was that close; the door opened onto a small balcony, no bigger than four by seven feet. I sat with my back against the sliding glass door.

Now and then, I'd stand. Behind me were muffled sounds of laughter; I preferred the less noisy evening and its clear black sky. No one seemed to miss me.

On that peaceful night, the lights of distant Roanoke were easy to see. In fact, as I scanned the horizon, then looked up at the myriad of stars, I was struck by something I could not explain. That's why I stared for a while, perhaps eight to ten minutes, at a dot of light that seemed out of place.

When I looked at the lights of Roanoke to compare it, I noticed it didn't have the same soft radiance. Also, it was much higher than the city's lights. Looking up at the stars, I saw that it was too low to be a star; it didn't shine like a star's light.

It was constant, almost like the dot from an off-white laser beam. Puzzled as I was, I wasn't alarmed. Indeed, I couldn't tell whether it was moving.

But it must have been moving, I reasoned. Otherwise, why did I not see it when I first studied the sky? It had come into view out of nowhere. At the time, I didn't know why.

Now I do. IT WAS MOVING THAT FAST, TOO FAST FOR ME TO SEE IT. So I just sat there as I watched and waited.

Although it seemed stationery, I believed there was an explanation that I hadn't discovered. Not wanting to disturb the other three guys inside, I sat alone, completely focused on the beam. Whatever they were discussing inside couldn't have been as fascinating.

As much as I believed that, I couldn't have and didn't anticipate what happened next because I had not understood the reason why I noticed it in the first place. IT WAS TRAVELING AT A SPEED BEYOND ANYTHING I HAD EVER SEEN. Well beyond Roanoke, the dot seemed to shake.

In less than a second, I saw what it was. As I mentioned, in less than a second, it transformed from a mere dot to a dot that moved to a recognizable object. That object never made a sound.

It never displayed any exhaust; they was no indication of propulsion that blew against the surface of the lake or that stirred the trees. LESS THAN A HUNDRED AND FIFTY FEET AWAY FROM ME, I SAW A FLYING SAUCER! IT HAD STOPPED INSTANTLY AT A SPOT ABOUT 75 FEET IN THE AIR! Alarms went off inside me; I was absolutely afraid and absolutely amazed at the same time. For a few moments, I could not move.

Since there was no place to hide, I just sat still and stared. The spacecraft hovered without a sound and without moving. Although I felt exposed and completely vulnerable, I calmed myself enough to reach behind me and open the sliding glass door.

Without screaming, I insisted that all of the guys come out and take a look. I tried not to sound terrified. All of them came to see what I had seen.

They were speechless. Probably as fearful as I had been, they didn't say much. It could have been that they didn't want to be noticed.

Chances are they didn't want to believe what they saw. As I watched them, I moved to give them more room. My fear subsided.

Instead of feeling like I had to hide or make myself unseeable, I felt the crisp night air and I studied the silent but hovering saucer. Curiosity had overtaken my fear. DESCRIPTION OF THE FLYING SAUCER When I saw the shape of the saucer, I wasn't as surprised as I might have been.

It wasn't a massive, lumbering craft that was gigantic and overwhelming. It didn't look like a flying city. Instead, it had a form I recognized, one I had seen many times since having first watched the Flintstones.

In the back of my mind, I wondered how it could have been described so accurately IF NO ONE HAD EVER SEEN ONE BEFORE! As it seemed to rest just above the treetops, it seemed to be on a surveillance mission. For a few minutes, it seemed to be sitting and it seemed to be watching us! The flying saucer did look like a saucer with a cup on top of it in the proportion that resembled a coffee cup upside down on its plate. Amazed that it hovered or moved without as much as a whoosh and without any sign of a jet's propulsion, I studied the top of the cup.

It was ringed by what appeared to be square windows filled with alternating red and white light. It was clear that some energy source was radiating that bright light. What puzzled me was why one window of light was white and the next red and the next white and so on.

I had no idea what that pattern meant unless there was some kind of alternating polarity that controlled and balanced and propelled the craft. As I studied it, I found it remarkable that most drawings I'd seen of flying saucers resembled the one that was visiting us. Because time was so different for those who were able to travel at warp speed, I thought about other sightings.

Strange as this may sound, it could be, to the aliens who piloted the space ships, that the Roswell incident had occurred only seconds or minutes before. My mind was in overdrive. Guessing at the dimensions, I figured the bottom of the craft, the saucer, perfectly circular, was about 40-50 feet wide.

The cup on top appeared to be a little more than half that size; it appeared to be about 15 feet tall. The entire ship looked to be absolutely symmetrical. Because the sky was so dark, I couldn't tell the color of the ship.

Although I had assumed it was silvery and metallic, it appeared to be a darker gray. As we watched the saucer seem to watch us, I didn't ask anyone about its color. That didn't seem important then.

For about three minutes, it appeared to allow us to study it. Of course, I wondered whether it was also studying us. If so, I'm sure we looked to be awkward and quite ordinary.

But that night, as I watched the craft, I also felt very special. That's why, when it finally moved, I said "Wow!" It left the same way it had come, without any sign of movement. It didn't shake or rev its engine or send blasts of air that caused it to move.

Rather than any of that, it zipped up, then zagged at a 90 degree angle at a speed that caused it to disappear the same way it had come, in a second, maybe less. By that time, I felt like waving goodbye since I had watched it travel from a great distance to us. Having lost all my fear, I would have thanked its pilots for having made a short visit.

Actually, by that time, I felt as if their visit had been too short. As the other men went through the sliding glass door to return to their seats at the table, I said something to my cousin that seemed most important. "I wish I'd had a pair of binoculars," I said.

"The saucer was so close that I might have been able to look inside its windows." Because I knew my cousin's father was an avid photographer who loved Leica cameras, I wondered whether he might have had a pair of Leica quality binoculars also. He did! Less than a minute later, he handed them to me.

Then he closed the sliding glass door. I slipped the binoculars' strap over my head and returned to my station on the balcony. Although I'd never heard of a flying saucer making a return visit, I wasn't about to leave my perch in case it did.

Of course, I didn't tell the others that I was waiting for it to come back. They had opened a bag of Nachos and were probably trying to make sense of what they'd just seen. Unlike the three of them, I felt like a Civil Air Patrol cadet as I scoured the sky for signs of now familiar aliens.

If I'd been given one wish at that moment in time, it would have been that the flying saucer would return. To my joyful surprise, less than ten minutes later, it did! THE SAUCER'S SECOND VISIT! With the Zeiss binoculars, I knew I could focus on the craft if it returned. I couldn't tell whether the guys inside thought I was crazy to return to the balcony with binoculars.

Chances are they were comparing me to a comic book character. If so, I didn't care because there was too much to think about. Overwhelmed by the first observation, I was sloughing off old ideas and creating new ones.

What I pondered most was this concern: who could I talk to about what I had seen? Who could help me understand? Who would know how important it was? What if I could never explain or understand what had happened? In other words, the visit was like a gift that, once unwrapped, brought with it its own problems. Had cell phones been available then, I could have taken a selfie with the flying saucer in the background! But without a picture, who would have believed me? Despite all of those troublesome aspects, I did want to see the craft again. So I waited a little less than ten minutes.

No one from the inside bothered to check on me; there was no tap on the glass door followed by a wave. There was just me and my wishful thinking. When the saucer surprised me by returning, I almost waved hello.

No longer was I afraid or apprehensive. Immediately, I aimed the binoculars at the spacecraft and I saw what I'd wanted to see. Filling up each lens was one of the saucer's windows.

I saw the light streaming out so intensely that it was opaque. I couldn't see into or through the light, not at all. Since it was resting at the exact spot as before, I pulled open the sliding glass door and didn't whisper.

"You gotta see this," I insisted. One by one, they came onto the balcony and looked at the saucer using the binoculars. When they finished, they marched back inside; I could tell the three men were much quieter than the time before.

I was too. What had made the craft return? Had the alien crew decided I was friendly? Did they want to stop and chat? I didn't know what to expect. For a few minutes, I just stared.

At the time, I had no idea how rare a sighting we'd had. As the others went back inside, I took one last look through the binoculars; the windows of the cup part of the ship were so clear and so close as to seem to be within reach. I put down the Zeiss and its powerful lenses.

Although I knew what was coming, I didn't want to see it go before I'd make some kind of contact. Entertaining the thought that I could communicate with the aliens and their craft amused me. Who was I to think I was more to them than a minor blip of energy waves on a monitoring screen? They were the sentient beings; I was just a guy on a tiny balcony dressed in jeans and a t-shirt waving at a craft so powerful yet so slight that it may have come from a different universe.

Awed by that thought, I saluted. Seconds passed. I stood there, no taller than a fragile young pine; I sought to memorize the night and its stillness, uninterrupted by the silent spacecraft, so much more remarkable than any night I'd ever seen.

One last time, it zigged and it zagged as if that signature motion was all that was required to ramp up its speed to much faster than light. In a split second, as it sped away, it disappeared. The first time, its departure had been breathtaking; this time, I was reminded of a friend leaving or of a western movie where a hero rides off toward a distant horizon.

Then, as now, I had no idea where it was going. All that I knew was that I wasn't the one to follow. Reluctantly, I returned to the group inside.

They were ready to leave. I looked back at the balcony, then returned returned the binoculars to my cousin. "Thanks," I said.

Although I didn't add that I was thanking him for a night I'd never forget, I think he sensed that. For years after that, almost until the time he died, we'd reflect on our memories of that night on the lake. Indeed, he was willing to discuss the enormity of our sighting, the profound changes it had brought to our perspectives.

As we talked the last time, I had no idea I'd never again discuss our special night with him. That's why this short book is dedicated to Andy and the memories we shared on Smith Mountain Lake. REFLECTIONS ON THE POSSIBILITY OF A THIRD SIGHTING Playful as our drive to Smith Mountain Lake had been, our trip home was quiet and uneventful.

Although each of us had seen the flying saucer twice, not one of us could explain why. Nor did we have a clue as to what caused it to meet us at Smith Mountain. Were they attempting to connect with or contact us? But if they'd wanted to talk about an upended cosmology, they could have talked to me.

At least that's what I was telling myself. After all, if they were smart enough to pilot a craft all the way from wherever they came from, they were probably able to analyze and translate our language in seconds. I do remember trying to speak to the craft in order to get the beings in it to say hello.

But they didn't respond. Instead, they took off and sped away in an instant without saying goodbye. Of course, I could be wrong about that.

Their first visit could have been their hello. Their second could have been their way of saying goodbye. If so, it's been one that's lasted more than 35 years.

Now that the weather is cooling and children have returned to school, it's time for me to return to the Lake. This time, I'll go by myself, and I'll take a camera. In case anyone asks why, I'll tell them I'm on an adventure.

As for the camera, I'll tell them I never know what I might see, the images I don't want to miss.this time.