A frightening experience unexplained 50 years later

Just about everyone around Halloween has a scary story to tell. Here’s mine.

It was March 1966. The media was alive with UFO reports from Michigan. Strange unexplained lights were in the sky. Concerned citizens, including police officers and other credible witnesses, described sightings that had no rational explanations.

In order to calm the public, some scientists tried to describe the phenomena as illusions, mass hysteria or even “swamp gas.”

During that time, I was a student living in the University of the Pacific’s West Hall. It was an unusually quiet Saturday night. A friend and I had been discussing these reported front-page news stories. We finally went our separate ways and hit the hay around 2 a.m.

The next thing I remember, it was early daylight around 6:30 a.m. I was in bed and looking at the ceiling. It was no different than any other day — just trying to wake up and organize my thoughts.

Then, something strange happened. I could feel myself becoming more and more weightless. I literally floated to the ceiling. At first, it seemed really cool — bouncing around on my back like an astronaut in space. But suddenly, reality hit.

“This is not right,” I thought. “Whoever or whatever is doing this, bring me back down!”

Gradually, my weight returned, and I was back in bed. I heard a voice say, “If you want to know the truth, come into the hallway.”

I did, and there was a well-dressed Latino man in a dark-colored suit, flashing a broad smile with perfect snow-white teeth. He gestured for me to follow. But instead of complying, I froze with fear, ran back to my room and slammed the door. This whole thing was just too weird! At that moment, I really didn’t want to know “the truth.”

I don’t recall anything after that until around 9 a.m. when I awoke for a second time. I couldn’t wait to tell my friend, Rob — the guy I had spent the evening with.

What just happened must have been a dream. Yet it was so vivid and real!

I found my buddy sitting in the dining hall, chomping down his favorite breakfast of scrambled eggs and crispy bacon.

“Rob! You won’t believe what just happened to me!” I yelled with excitement.

“Wait!” he replied. “Before you get started, let me tell you what happened to ME!”

My friend proceeded to report the exact same story right down to the Latino man with the snowy white teeth! After I related my experience, we looked at each other with amazement and disbelief.

Rob and I slowly regained our composure. We began to look for logical and rational explanations.

Perhaps we had too much to drink or had engaged in college “pharmaceutical” activities?

No, we had not been drinking or used drugs — the latter was not that common on small private university campuses back in those days.

Maybe we had imagined the whole thing? No, we were here in the flesh and very much in a conscious state.

Had we discussed this experience beforehand, thus setting up thoughts for a common dream state? No, we had not talked about this or anything close to our morning experiences remembered from the previous evening.

Was it connected in some way to the reported UFO phenomena we had been discussing the night before? Who knows? A half-century later, questions still remain unanswered. It’s obviously an experience that is not easily forgotten. Even today, after all this time, it still feels like a surreal story from “The Twilight Zone.”

In the final analysis, I can only conclude one thing: “The truth,” as well as that little man with the shiny white teeth, must still be out there — somewhere. Steve Hansen is a Lodi writer.