When you see something unusual in the sky, it captures your attention like nothing else. It is at once exciting, scary, exhilarating, dreadful, and awe-inspiring. No matter what you're doing at the time, you focus all your attention on the thing in the sky. You point to it, chase it, shout at others to look at it, and, if you're lucky, fumble for a camera to take a picture of it. You keep asking those around you, "Is it real? Am I really seeing this? Do you see it?" You list logical things it could be: an airplane, a weather balloon, an optical illusion, a military aircraft, a cloud, a reflection, a glare. You frantically snap picture after picture, hoping that just one will be clear enough to show what you are seeing.
As conditions deteriorate--the light or weather changes, the thing in the sky disappears--you are left with a searing memory of something that you still aren't quite sure really took place. You strain to pinpoint details you normally take for granted--what time is it, what day is it, where am I?
And then, if you're REALLY lucky, you remember that there is a way to report such things, and you find the number, and you call the number, and the person on the other end of the line doesn't think you're a crackpot, but calmly and expertly tells you to collect written reports from everyone in your party who witnessed the thing in the sky and send them to the reporting agency.
Then the person on the other end of the line beseeches you to alert the media because reports of this same phenomenon have been coming in from other parts of the country. You promptly seek out your local newspaper and television news outlets, which, you quickly discover, have all been taken over by giant media conglomerates that provide no way to reach a live reporter to report news items of local interest, only a "Contact Us" link on their websites with a dropdown list of general questions or comments from which to choose, none of which includes "I think I saw a FREAKING UFO!"
So you go to your blog, which has an international audience, tell your story, and hope that those who read it also won't think you're a crackpot.
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