She said it softly, a burden shared with a stranger in a museum: “It happened to me.”
She was standing behind me when I overheard this quiet revelation. It rooted me to the spot. The remaining exhibits, I thought, could wait. I would loiter instead and listen to her story. Casually, of course.
OK – eavesdrop, then. Not my finest hour, but we were in the middle of the International UFO Museum and Research Centre in Roswell, New Mexico.
How did I get there? I was on a road trip across America with friends, and it was my must-see detour on that coast-to-coast journey. A pilgrimage of sorts my companions didn’t exactly embrace or understand, but indulged nonetheless.
America was different then. It was a few years before 9/11, before that date became an inflexion point, when the world held its breath and history turned.
Bill Clinton was still in the White House, the US federal budget was comfortably in surplus and the president was on the road to being impeached.
The truth, it seemed, was out there, but it hadn’t yet been splintered into silos.
And I wanted some, even if it was just for a laugh.
Growing up in an outback town meant ABC TV was my entertainment staple. Sure, a local commercial station filled some gaps – hello JR and Bobby – but as a kid it was all Goodies and Time Lord adventures. The absurd and the fantastical – Ecky Thump and giant kittens followed by Egyptian demigods and Daleks. All brought to heel with black pudding or Venusian karate.
The Goodies – Bill Oddie, Tim Brooke
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