Sky People (17 page)

“Their eyes glowed. Their heads were bigger than humans’,” Eme said.

“They were bigger on top and smaller on bottom,” Ixchel said.

“They wore belts of some kind, too,” Eme said, “but I didn’t see a weapon. I don’t remember that they carried anything.”

“Their weapon was their minds,” Itzel said.

“That’s true,” Akna said. “They were playing with our minds. I don’t really know how to explain it. But for just a moment, they made me think they were Enrique, Juan, Arturo, and Santiago.”

“Who are they?” I asked.

“They are local boys. They like us.” All of the girls giggled and blushed.

“Can you tell me how they played with your minds?” I asked.

“I thought I heard our friends’ voices calling to me. They said, ‘Let’s go for a walk. Let’s dance’—things like that. For a moment, I thought they were our friends, but I know it was the aliens. They have power over your mind,” Akna said.

“That’s strange, because for a moment, I thought the four aliens looked like our friends. I remember thinking it was strange they were hiding from us,” said Eme.

“Do you think they were controlling our brains?” Ixchel asked.

“You tell me,” I responded.

“I think they were trying to control us. Maybe our screaming broke that control, because once we screamed they let us go,” Eme said.

“Did you tell anyone about your experience?” I asked.

“Shortly after the UFO flew away, we met our brother coming down the road toward us. We told him what happened. He had seen the UFO so he walked us home, [and] told us to stay inside and lock the door,” Eme replied.

“We told Mama and Papa what happened to us. We talked to our aunties and our uncles. They told us not to worry about it,” Ixchel added. “Our papa had seen UFOs several times over the past twenty years. I think he was worried, but he tried not to let us see his worries. After we went to bed, I heard him slip out of the house. I looked out the window and he had called some of the neighbor men and they stayed up all night watching the houses. I think he was afraid they would return.”

“I didn’t tell anyone except my mama,” Akna said. “But then the whole village knew about it anyway. Nothing is ever a secret for long in the village.”

I spent the evening talking to the girls. Despite a variety of questions intended to challenge their memory of the night, their stories never varied. They only confirmed the seriousness of the event that occurred that night.

I
have kept in touch with the four young women over the past few years. Three of them have completed the university and have realized their dreams of being teachers. I have met with the three sisters twice since our first visit. We have talked about their lives, their careers, and their dreams for the future over long lunches and during hot, humid evenings in the plaza. The three sisters continue to live with their parents, including the twins who married brothers the day after their graduation. As of the last account, Ixchel was dating an American archaeologist working in Guatemala, and talked of marriage and moving to the States with him. She was nervous about the move. She wondered if she would be able to teach in the USA and if she would fit in within a university environment. I regularly receive e-mails from them telling me stories of their adventures and asking advice about teaching reluctant learners. None of them have reported another encounter
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L
ike many other indigenous peoples of the Americas, the traditional Maya recognized in their staple crop, maize, a vital force of life. This is clearly shown by their mythological traditions. According to their creation stories, man himself was created from corn. Many Maya paintings testified to the existence of a rich mythology centered around maize
.

In this chapter, you will meet a Maya farmer who encountered a strange little man who also had an interest in maize
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After spending several hours listening to the girls tell me about their encounter with the aliens, talking about their dreams and answering their questions about the USA, Mateo’s sister, Maria, suggested we spend the night. “A local farmer delivers fresh vegetables every morning to our house. He had an encounter that is quite amazing. If you stay over, I will introduce you and suggest that he tell you his story.” I gladly accepted her invitation and was shown to a room with a hand-carved mahogany bed and a private bathroom. “Papa built this part of the house for his mother, but Grandmama died before it was finished. You are our first guest in this room,” Eme told me as the four girls joined me on the huge, homemade bed. For the next hour, I was questioned about fashion, dating, and American boys. When Maria knocked on the door and told the girls that it was time for bed, they reluctantly left the room.

The next morning, I was awakened by Akna, who was dressed in a white blouse and navy blue skirt. “My school uniform,” she explained. “We hate it, but it makes everybody the same. No
rich or poor. No difference. Breakfast will be served in ten minutes,” she said as she offered me a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. “I am your wakeup call, as they say in the USA.” I crawled out of bed and dressed within minutes. I was finishing my breakfast of fresh fruit and boiled eggs when the farmer, named Hector, knocked on the kitchen door. Following introductions, he sat at the kitchen table and politely accepted the coffee set before him. Maria and the girls lined up to say goodbye to Mateo and me as they headed out of the house for school. Mateo brought a plate of tortillas and eggs to the table and offered them to Hector. He smiled and filled a tortilla with eggs and a salsa mix with beans and ate heartily. He was a small man. He wore a straw hat and cut-off trousers, revealing sandals. A home-spun shirt with a hole for his head fell near his knees.

“Maria tells me that you had an encounter with an alien,” I began as he finished his tortilla. Mateo translated in Mayan. He looked at me and nodded. “It happened about two years ago. I was working with my brother in the fields. At about 2 p.m. we decided to end our work and go home. I remember it was hot, hotter than normal. As we gathered our things to begin the walk home, my brother noticed a strange object at tree-top level which was moving straight down, breaking limbs and trees.” He paused, allowing time for Mateo to translate. “The object never set down on the ground, but hung in the air above the ground. We had never seen anything like that before,” Hector said.

“Can you describe the object?” I asked.

“It was round like two plates turned upside down together. It was brown—dull, dark brown, like rusted metal.”

“Did you see any beings?” Again, Mateo translated.

He nodded. “A strange little man came out of the object. He floated to the ground. He walked very stiff with short steps. I thought he must be a demon.” He paused again and ate another tortilla.

“Can you describe his physical description?” I asked.

“He wore a one-piece suit. It was brown, and his head was covered with the same material. His hands were covered and his
shoes were a part of his suit and the same color, too. I knew he was not from around here. No one dresses like that around here.”

“Did the strange man see you?” I asked.

“Not at first. He walked into our corn field. He checked the ears and took several of them.” I asked Mateo to clarify what he had said to make sure I understood.

“He says that the alien went into the corn field and took samples of his corn. He put them in a bag that was a part of his suit,” Mateo said.

“What did you think when you saw him taking samples of your corn?” I asked. Mateo offered Hector another tortilla as he translated. Hector accepted and did not speak again until he had finished the food.

“I did not understand what he was doing. If he wanted our corn, he should have asked. We would have given it to him.”

“Did he communicate with you in any way?”

“No. He didn’t look at us. I don’t think he saw us. But then, my brother jumped up and tried to scare him away. When he didn’t move, my brother walked toward him, and that’s when the stranger floated toward the brown object above the trees. My brother chased him, but the stranger floated upward. The object took off, moving straight upward, and I saw the door at the bottom close.”

“Was your brother okay?” I asked.

“At first we were paralyzed. We couldn’t move. It took an hour more before we had the strength to walk home. The next day we both stayed in bed. We were too weak to sit up. I threw up several times and could not eat. My brother was very bad. He had a rash on his face and neck. It stayed there for days and then the healer fixed it. We made a pact. We will never again touch strange men from the sky. They are poison.”

“Can you remember anything else?” I asked.

“They walked funny. Stiff—like their feet hurt all the time, but then I think I know why,” he said.

“Why?” I asked.

“They had round feet.”

“Round feet?”

“Their feet were too big for their small bodies. They looked round. My brother and I talked about that. If they had round feet they cannot be from around here. They must have come from another place.” Mateo refilled his coffee cup and translated.

“How tall was the stranger?” I asked. He stood and measured his size on his body. From his description, I estimated that the being would have been around 3 1/2 feet tall. “Could you make out anything about his face?” I asked. Again, Mateo translated.

“He wore some kind of covering over his face. I could not see his face to describe it.”

“What else can you tell me about your experience?” I asked.

“That stranger did something to us. My brother has trouble with rashes even two years later. Someday [sic] I am very tired and cannot move. I think the stranger from the sky was poison for sure.”

As we sat at the table and watched Hector devour two more tortillas, he asked me if I knew of a medicine that might help his brother. When I inquired about seeing a doctor, he told Mateo that he did not trust doctors unless they were the local shaman. When I offered to pay for a doctor, he respectfully declined.

Hector had a simple explanation for the pain that he and his brother suffered: The alien was poison. In UFO circles, his account would likely be rejected, but I think that in his own way, Hector was correct. Whether they suffered from radiation poison or from exposure to unknown chemicals, the brothers’ lives were changed. Despite their physical condition, Hector remained hopeful that his story might be of some good to others who might experience similar encounters. “People should know, if they encounter these strange little men, they should stay away. They are poison.”

I
have talked with Mateo’s sister, Maria, several times since I met Hector. He is still struggling with his health, but that does not prevent him from making his daily deliveries to her house. “He still asks about you,” Maria said. “He calls you a one-hearted woman.” Among the Maya, that means you are one he can trust. I could ask for no greater compliment
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V
arious types of alien creatures reportedly exist. Though many are human-like, others take on animal-like qualities. One of the most common are the reptilian beings who range from five to nine feet in height. They reportedly have scaly skin that is greenish-brown in color, wide lipless mouths, and red eyes. Observers often report they have claws for hands and feet
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In this chapter you will meet Chak Took, a Maya elder, who encountered a reptilian being when he was twelve years old
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We drove down the dusty, unpaved road to the house of an elder who did odd jobs for Mateo’s sister. Cornfields towered above us on each side of the road. At the end of the field, six small, traditional houses appeared in a cluster. We stopped at the first one while Mateo inquired about Chak Took, the elder, who reportedly had an encounter when he was a boy.

We found him eating an orange from his backyard tree. Dressed in tattered brown pants and a frayed, plaid shirt that had been buttoned unevenly, he reminded me of many of the elders I had met fleetingly during my travels. He took off his straw hat, bowed slightly to me, and welcomed us. When he smiled, he had only one front tooth. He proceeded to show me his orange tree and peeled a second orange and offered it to me. Mateo, who spoke to him in the local Mayan dialect, told him the purpose of our visit. The elder looked at me and spoke quietly to Mateo. When I saw the elder nod, I knew that he was willing to talk about his experience. After peeling another orange and
offering it to Mateo, he led us to a bench under a large tree and called for his wife to bring food. After the tortillas and eggs with beans were served, he began his story.

“The first time I saw a UFO was in 1957. I was twelve years old. It was a quiet evening. I was sleeping in the hammock in the backyard. It was a hot night. Darkness had fallen upon our village.” He filled a tortilla with the mixture and waited for Mateo to translate. When Mateo paused, he continued. “Suddenly I saw a bright ball of light the size of the moon drop from the night sky and come to rest in the jungle. I called to my father, who was already sleeping and told him what I had seen. He grabbed his machete. We ran into the cool night in the direction I saw the light come down.” He paused and pointed. “It came down in that direction. I can still see it as it descended into the trees.” Mateo, who had finished a tortilla, translated.

“Did anyone else see it?” I asked.

“No. But we did not go alone in search of the light. As my father and I made our way out of the village, two other men had seen the bright light and joined our hunt. I remember that the evening seemed normal enough, but as we walked deeper into the jungle, there was a strange smell. I had never smelled it before and it made me sick.” He stopped and pointed to his stomach. “Sick, very sick.” I watched as he peeled another orange, offering first to me and then to Mateo, who took it. “One of the men with us suggested it was a falling star from the sky. I had seen falling stars before, so I knew better. I knew it was not a star, but I had been taught to honor our elders, so I did not speak up. You see, when the stars fall, they have long fiery tails. This was not a falling star. It was round and as big as the moon.”