A Story For This Sunday

You make the call...

During the years of 1968 and 1969 I belonged to a club called “California Varmint Callers Association”.  The club was established to work in conjunction with the Wool Growers Association and help control the varmint population in the high desert area of the Eastern part of Southern California.

Let me set the scene. Once a month we would have what the club called a “Fun Hunt”. The hunt lasted from Friday night until Sunday morning with the teams meeting at a restaurant in a little town called Adelanto in San Bernardino County, East of Los Angeles to check in the animals they scored that hunt. Each animal had a certain number of points and trophies were awarded at the next monthly meeting.

Back in 68 & 69 there were no concerns about protecting any particular species like today. We hunted Coyotes, Bobcats, Kit Fox, Badgers, and even Mountain Lions. The truck we hunted from had a tape deck with a loud speaker running a call that sounds like (and this is the only way I can describe it) a rabbit being hung upside down by its feet. It’s a sound you never quite forget. 

While one person is driving along, two of you are standing in the bed of the truck running two spotlights (one on each side of the truck) over the ground to spot the reflection of the animal’s eyes as they turn to look toward the sound and light passes above them. 

The one who spots the animal taps the cab of the truck so the driver will stop, the other person in the back gets his rifle, and when he’s ready the light is dropped and the animal becomes visible as if it is in daylight. Then the shot is made. 

On one trip, we were out in the Mojave Desert near Edwards Air Force Base. It was about 2:00am, clear, cold, and so black you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. We had stopped for a cup of coffee to try and keep our eyes open. We had been up since early in the morning because we all had worked that Friday, then met and drove out for the hunt. 

In the distance, and you have no way of knowing how far because distance at night distance is indiscernible, there was a set of three red lights in a triangle shape. The lights would twirl, then stop, then twirl again, then stop again. This went on for quite some time and then with a flash, disappeared.

Could it have been a UFO? Could have, after all we were close to Area 51. We were in the middle of nowhere. If you go out to the Internet there are many stories of UFO encounters in the Mojave Desert. You make the call.

Do you believe in UFO’s? No, let me ask you one question. There are over 400 billion planets out there; do you think we are the only one with intelligent life? 

One  more story to go. It's a killer of a story. 

Mark