Saucer Exhibitionism and Close Encounters
by Manuel Carballal
It had happened again. Upon reaching the small village of
Lestedo, scant kilometers from Compostela, I ran once more into what I've come
to term as "UFO exhibitionism". The recent landing case of a
supposedly unidentified craft posed a scenario I had already seen in many
similar cases, only that on this occasion it was positively shameless. Now we
were dealing with a "flying saucer", described by the female witness
as a "large disk with borders filled with yellow lights, having a slightly
larger and reddish light in its middle..."
Dunia Sinde, a delightful eight-year old girl, was home
alone on that October night. Her parents were busy running the cafeteria they
own in Santiago. At around two in the morning, Dunia was startled by a strange
sound like that of "a felt tip pen while drawing on a piece of
paper." A strange yellow glow poured into her room from the exterior. She
got out of bed and headed to the window. That's when she saw it. Right in front
of her. Some 80 meters away. Almost touching the ground but without contacting
it: it was a "flying saucer."
When I reached the landing site a few days later, both Dunia
and her father, Alejandro Sinde, patiently answered my questions, allowed me to
tale soil samples, take photographs and make video recordings. What they could
not explain was why that object--whatever it was--should have chosen that site
to "show itself off."
The Sinde family's home is discreetly isolated. Right in
back of the house, where Dunia's bedroom "happens" to be located,
there is a 150 meter long lawn surrounded by eucalyptus trees. This expanse is
cut down the middle by a bushy row of trees. Why did this object choose to land
precisely next to the house? Why didn't it land at the other side of the trees,
which would have made it completely invisible to prying eyes? From an aerial
perspective, this situation is clearly visible. If a pilot--alien or human--
wanted to land without being seen, it would do so on the left hand side of the
expanse, beyond the trees. However, the object chose to land a few meters to
the right, on the other side of the trees--just enough to be seen by the
witness. It landed, allowed Dunia to look at it for a few seconds, and then
"started making the felt tip pen sound again before leaving and vanishing
from site..."
UFO Exhibitionism
Regardless of how much information they may amass, the
reports they may file, or how much data they feed into their computers, those
ufologists who do not engage in field work will never be able to understand
certain facets of the UFO phenomenon: aspects, sensations, intuitions or even
events that only become apparent while burning shoe leather and beating the
same roads, trails and highways where the slippery saucers have allowed
themselves to be seen. The contempt expressed by certain self-appointed
"scientific ufologists" like Ricardo Campo against what they term
"picnic ufology" leads them to miss out on certain aspects of the
phenomenon, which are indispensable for its comprehension.
Hoofing it to the geographic sites where close encounters
have occurred gives us precisely this perspective. That's why when I reached
the remote village of Mansilla in the province of Burgos, I felt that sensation
yet again. I was accompanied by Carmen, a young graduate in Geography and
History who had gone through an uncanny experience precisely at the same place
where we stood.
Carmen was returning to her home in Burgos in the fading
hours of the afternoon. While driving along the road between the villages of
Mansilla and Arroyal, she was surprised by a luminous object that swooped down
on her car...
I managed to find burned shrubs and strange prints at the
exact location of the "encounter". While taking samples which would
later be analyzed by Reia Lab Scan, S.A., it suddenly dawned on me that the
object had "landed" only 30 meters from a discreet hollow where it
could have remained invisible to any indiscreet glances from Carmen or anyone
else driving along that road.
Carmen agreed to undergo all manner of tests, including two
hypnotic regression sessions--one of which I witnessed-- performed by Dr. José
Andrés Lozano from Burgos. We were unable to extract a reasonable answer to
this evident UFO exhibitionism from her stories, whether awake or under
hypnosis. It is as if the object had been expecting one witness in particular,
at that place and time, and chose to "act" upon him or her...
The cases catalogued by the late J.Allen Hynek as
"close encounters" are often accompanied by this disconcerting
attitude, leading certain researchers, myself included, to believe that the old
ufological theory--so popular in the '60s and '70s--of alien scientists being
caught unawares by indiscreet witnesses is false. Landings and humanoid
encounter cases, or at least a fair share of them, appear suspiciously
"forced". The witness appears to find him/herself at exactly the
right time and place for a UFO or its shameless occupants choose to allow
themselves to be seen. One of the most graphic examples of this UFO
exhibitionism has taken place on a number of Spanish beaches.
Strangers on the Beach
I found fresh evidence of UFO exhibitionism when I travelled
to Punta Hidalgo on the island of Tenerife [one of the Canary Islands--Ed.] to
research some notable UFO sightings which had occurred there over the preceding
months. However, none of them had been seen closely as the case experienced by
Olga and José, a married couple, scant weeks before my visit. Olga and José
were inside their vehicle, admiring the spectacular night sky as seen from
Punta Hidalgo as well as from many other spots on Tenerife. Although they did confess
that their visit to the area was prompted by constant stories of UFOs in the
area.
The couple suddenly noticed a strange, luminous,
semi-spherical object approaching the coast. Motionless, the couple witnessed
the uncanny event from their car seats: some strange, tall entities, with long
hair and completely human-looking, had "landed" on the sands of Punta
Hidalgo before their very eyes...What ufologist could even dream that some
"alien scientists" wishing to remain anonymous would exit their craft
on a beach, right in front of the only car parked in the entire area?
The fact is that Spanish beaches have been the stage--and I
underline the "stage" part-- of an infinity of UFO incidents. Can
there be a less suitable place, and more devoid of shelter, for protection
against curious glances than a beach?
Having reached this point, it is inevitable to mention the
Conil case, without a doubt one of the most famous and controversial UFO cases
of the past years. When the TASS news agency stunned the world in 1989 with
news of a UFO landing in the Russian city of Voronezh, it eclipsed all
subsequent UFO stories. For this reason, the media paid no heed whatsoever when
a new UFO incident took place 2 days following the events at Voronezh, this
time in the town of Conil near Cádiz in southern Spain.
Dozens of researchers made the pilgrimage to Conil in search
of new information on the elusive saucer phenomenon. The witnesses endured,
with saintly patience, the questions of a thousand and one ufologists, and
retold their experiences on the beach at Conil an equal number of times--a case
involving two strange humanoids that allegedly emerged from a UFO. I took the
trouble to climb the hill located on the right-hand end of the beach to take
some general photos of the "encounter". A glance at these photos will
suffice to show that beach features much more discreet locations than the
point, which is right in front of the town center and several hotels and small
businesses, where the supposed aliens were "accidentally" seen.
This behavior has remained a constant in similar cases.
Months after the Conil case, a new "humanoid landing" took place on
another Spanish beach. A case hitherto unknown, as so many others. But on this
occasion we must travel to the other end of the country, more than 1000
kilometers away.
Much like the Conil case, this new incident, which was
shared by multiple witnesses, took place in the town of Sada (La Coruña). And I
use the word "shared" because as at Conil, a group of witnesses
observed strange lights in the sky--"UFOs"--shortly before other
witnesses noticed the strange humanoids on the beach.
On that night, right at midnight, D. José Francisco García,
director of the Radio Oleiros station, was driving in his car accompanied by
his wife and in-laws, bordering the beach at Sada. The four witnesses managed
to see the strange luminous, cigar-shaped object "completely surrounded by
light bulbs" as it crossed the sky. Their observation lasted some 5 to 6
minutes, as they would later tall me. Upon visiting the area, I learned that
another couple had an even more surprising experience on the same beach. As
Juan (a witnesses who demands the utmost anonymity) would tell me, he and his
wife were on the beach that night a few hours after José García and his family
witnessed the strange aerial object. They suddenly ran into two strange
humanoids who appeared to emerge from the sea. Both of them, as in the Conil
case, were dressed in long tunics and carried a kind of bag "into which
something was being poured." My investigations in the area show that it is
probable that other people witnessed the manifestation of the entities from a
greater distance, but why in that precise area of the beach and not by the
cliffs, which is much less conspicuous? One could honestly believe that the two
entities were there, and at that moment, for the benefit of Juan and his wife.
The Transcendent Experience
This "UFO exhibitionism" -- as if the phenomenon
were choosing precisely the right time and witness to appear -- leads us to a
further question: the fact that encounters that UFOs and their alleged
"occupants" go far beyond representing a casual incident in a
witness's life. Without arguing if these experiences are real or a sort of
mystical experience, I can still state that these experiences are more than an
"accidental" and isolated event, at least in most cases. Certain
authors, largely from the U.S.A., believe that encounters with alleged aliens
forms part of a follow-up in the witnesses' lives, thus implying that new UFO
incidents will occur over time.
D. Manuel Castro is an airport operator. He has spent a
considerable part of his life linked to the world of aeronautics, performing
maintenance on airplanes. It is for this reason that he has never been able to
identify the strange artifact that he saw land in a Galician town in the summer
of 1958. Out of this object--completely atypical in UFO lore--there emerged
three humanoids dressed in tight-fitting outfits that then proceeded to collect
soil samples. This amazing and "casual" encounter with the humanoids
appeared to be an isolated experience in his life until he had a repeat UFO
experience in the Nineties. One of them, which took place in the heart of the
city, was so impressive that it led him to immortalize his experience on
canvas. D. Manuel's painting, which depicts the UFO that surprised him in the
middle of the night, is impregnated with the full emotional burden that a UFO
witness can convey.
It is precisely this emotional factor, the trembling in the
voice, the beads of sweat on the witness's forehead, which cannot be captured
by any questionnaire submitted by mail from a ufologist. It is all too often
that so-called "analysts" or "armchair researchers" miss
out on this dimension of the phenomenon. A dimension that is of the greatest
importance, to my understanding.
The emotional burden in many cases constitutes an invitation
to reflection. As well as the disquieting coincidence of details in witness
accounts, separated by hundreds of kilometers or dozens of years. These
coincidences, not only in the shape of the objects but in the description of
the devices, are perceived by the field researcher even in the use of language,
in the comparisons made by the witness, or in the emotion arising from the
retelling of the experience. Could these similes be attributable to chance?
Perhaps, if the experience being described was archetypical, in other words, a
story involving a "flying saucer" brimming over with macrocephalic
little green men, which have been made commonplace by the media or films. But,
what if the witnesses are describing the same phenomenon, completely different
from the psychosocial influence of the cinema? When Manuel Castro, for example,
drew in my field notebook strange phone-booth shaped UFO one from which three
"astronauts" in tight-fitting coveralls emerged, I found it absurd. I
had to traverse the nearly 950 kilometers separating Galicia from Seville to
find a "twin" case, only better documented.
Miguel Fernández Carrasco's experience should occupy a privileged
position in European ufological history: on the night of January 28, 1978,
Miguel, who was then 24 years old, had dropped off his girlfriend, Carmen
Alvarado Sáenz, age 20, at her house around midnight, and returned home from
Sanlúcar la Mayor to Benacazón, some four kilometers away.
According to his report, he noticed a "shooting
star" around twelve-thirty a.m. A few minutes later, the "star"
turned in to an unidentified craft which landed some five meters away from the
witness. The object had a parallelepipedal configuration, much like a telephone
booth "but much larger" (some two meters wide by three and a half
meters tall)--similar to the one described by Manuel Castro in Galicia, having
a sort of dome on its upper section which issued read and white flashes. Near
the upper edge of the vehicle's "trunk" were two appendages shaped
like fins. A kind of door in the shape of a half-archway opened, spinning on
hypothetical hinges. At that moment, a blinding light issued from the inside of
the ship, and a ramp projected toward the floor.
According to the young man's story, he was frozen in terror
as two humanoid beings standing some two meters tall emerged from the craft.
They wore tight-fitting coveralls "like a frogman's wet suit",
according to Miguel, and a thick belt whose buckle emitted soft, rhythmic red
flashes. Despite his terror, Miguel managed to control his panic and broke into
a run. The humanoids promptly returned to the object and it "took
off". Looking behind him as he ran, the witness claims that the UFO rose
in a great puff of smoke, heading toward him--which only served to increase his
panic. The craft soon overtook him, and Miguel felt that he was hit with
"a burning exhaust or emanation" from the UFO. The young man remembers
nothing more until he appeared at the entrance to his house.
He was taken to the emergency room of Seville's Hospital San
Lázaro where he underwent extensive tests. According to the report I found at
said institution, he was found to have strange burns and ocular irritation
"similar to having been exposed to a very powerful light". The most
surprising fact about the case is that a Seville judge called Miguel to
testify, giving place to the only court action ever taken in a case of UFO
aggression in Europe. A legal action which, I might add, was lost in the
shuffle of paperwork and took me many days to obtain, involving an adventure
which touches the limits of the unimaginable. This legal action constitutes,
without a doubt, one of the most extraordinary documents in European UFO
history, and the strange premature aging of the witness over the past years
should also be cause for reflection on the matter.
Does this extraordinary pursuit by an unknown craft
represent a unique case in Spanish ufology? Not at all. I would now have to
travel to Barcelona to research a case disconcertingly similar to Miguel's.
This case involved Juan Soler Cintas, a resident of Manresa,
who lived through a chase quite similar to Miguel's. The protagonists of the
event were a cigar-shaped object and humanoids dressed like
"astronauts". Could three men from Galicia, Cataluña and Andalucía
have invented such similar characters while having no contact between them?
These coincidences, these significant "chance
events" in UFO stories can only become visible in the field researchers
logbook, when he or she has had the opportunity to interview the witnesses in
very similar cases, even though these may be separated in space and/or time. It
is said that an image is worth more than a thousand words, and when three
witnesses separated by time and space draw an apparently identical phenomenon
in my logbook, it is hard to attribute this coincidence to "chance".
In 1996, I visited the community of Proaza in Asturias to
investigate a series of close encounter events. One of them was experienced by
Monserrat and Camilo Rivera. It was 21:35 hours when the young couple observed
an enormous white light descending over the trees near their house. The
luminous sphere stopped 50 meters from the house at treetop level. Once again,
the phenomenon chose to appear within full view of the witnesses and not in the
concealment offered by the nearby woods. It had a kind of "door" in
its middle and suddenly projected a sort of "multicolored ramp of
lights". According to the witnesses, the enormous sphere terrified them.
In fact, Monserrat was the first one to run into the house to protect her
children from "a thing that wasn't of this world". When Camilo Rivera
drew what he had seen in my logbook, I was left dumbfounded. The humble
Asturian farmer had drawn an object suspiciously similar to the one described
by the witnesses of the UFO landing at Galdar (Las Palmas, Canary Islands) many
years earlier. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
A new landing would take place long afterwards, this time in
remote spot called Ferreiras, in the municipality of Friol, and that's where I
was headed. José Manuel Castro, an illiterate worker, was the main protagonist
of this incident. According to his story, an enormous, spherical object
resembling the full moon descended over the treetops scant meters from his
home. Gripped by panic, Jose Manuel ran into his home; peeping through the
window and shielded by a pane of glass, he noticed how the gargantuan sphere
had stopped over the trees and projected a halo of light "like a
rainbow".
The description made by José Manuel Castro in Friol was
astoundingly similar to the one made by Camilo Rivera regarding the sphere that
had hovered over the trees at his home in Proaza, 250 kilometers from
Ferrerías. But there's more. When Jose Manuel Castro looked out the window and
saw the "ramp of light looking like a rainbow", he could also see a
group of three or four small humanoids descending along it, while an equal
number of 2 or 3 meter tall beings remained on board. Even more surprising is
that after analyzing the terrain on which the object had supposedly landed, we
found the prints of--landing gear?--forming a triangle measuring 8 x 8 x 10
meters and some completely unidentifiable "footprints". We managed to
make plaster casts of the prints, which could not be attributed to any known
animal after analysis at Universidad de Santiago and by zoologists in the city
of Lugo.
What is boggles the mind is that this utterly illiterate
farmer had drawn several "giants" within the sphere, suspiciously
similar to a classic UFO incident which took place thousands of miles away and
twenty years earlier. When we visited Galdar on the island of Grand Canary, we
managed to secure the exact same description of an object much too similar in
appearance and behavior to the one in Ferrerias or Proaza to be
"coincidental".
The Thousand and One Faces of a Myth
Antonio Meilán López is a normal man leading a normal life.
He owns a small store, is a devoted family man, and a football fan...like so
many other normal men. As a teenager, he witnessed a completely amazing
phenomenon: while returning home one afternoon in a small Galician town, he ran
into a group of small beings wearing tunics. Steeped in Galician popular
culture, Antonio Meilán identified those strange creatures with the Santa
Compaña his elders had told him so much about. Like Antonio, many Galicians who
have encountered strange entities in the night have identified them with the
Compaña. When similar tunicked creatures have been seen in any city in Castille
or Cataluña, or on a beach in Conil, they have been identified as
"aliens". Only after having a "classic" UFO experience a
few months ago (our reason for interviewing him) did he take an interest in
ufology, and after reading a few books and articles on the phenomenon, he
rethought his opinion about the creatures, believing them to be more closely
related to outer space than to folklore.
Antonio Meilán's experience should lead us to ponder.
Anthropology and Sociology texts are laden with alleged "folklore"
cases which undoubtedly conceal genuine "close encounters with
humanoids" which could engross the files of any ufologist.
Serafín Pena Tejeiro, for example, is a young resident of
Cospeito (Lugo) who was catapulted to national prominence in the national media
after recounting his encounter with two strange flying beings. As he told us
upon visiting his home--a humble farm--Serafín had left home before dawn to
reach the spot where a friend would pick him up every day to go to work. No
sooner had he left his doorstep than he witnessed an amazing sight: over the
treetops he could see a sort of "luminous stand" upon which two
humanoid figures were walking. They reminded young Serafín of the Blessed
Virgin that can be seen in the town chapel, and who else could it be? The
unspecialized media dubbed the story "The Virgin Appears at
Cospeito". However, any student of Marian phenomena would notice that
Serafín's encounter lacked any of the elements which characterize Marian
events. There were neither messages nor mystical phenomena; the witness was not
a clairvoyant; there were no healings, and the apparition never repeated
itself. Serafín employed a simile that matched his cultural context to describe
what he had seen--just like thousands of other witnesses. To identify the
nature of the phenomenon by means of what the witness transmits to the
researcher is very daring and often incorrect.
In very few cases can we illustrate this concept more
clearly than in the series of "apparitions" which occurred in the
gypsy neighborhood of Penamoa (La Coruña) in the mid-'80s: over days, if not
weeks, the residents of Penamoa and some researchers who joined them, patrolled
the surroundings of the town, armed with rifles and handguns in an attempt to
hunt down the strange humanoid that had been seen in the vicinity. The
discovery of some animals slain under mysterious circumstances, plus the
strange lights in the sky that accompanied the manifestations of the humanoid,
were overlooked by non-specialized chroniclers. To the gypsy
community--strongly influenced by evangelical churches--the apparition had to
be demonic, and the services of a group of Pentecostal exorcists were recruited
in an effort to banish the entity through prayer.
As had occurred in similar cases, such as the apparitions of
humanoids in Vega de Coria or Santander following repeated sightings, the
humanoid disappeared along with the enigmatic lights in the sky. Was it a
diabolic apparition, as the Protestant pastors claimed, or a new UFO humanoid
incident?
Beyond all the anthropological, religious, folkloric or even
ufological explanations that can be put forth, we have the eyewitnesses' own
testimonies. Accounts which may coincide despite the effect of time or distance
and which often point to an incomprehensible exhibitionism on the phenomenon's
part; accounts of phenomena which will be identified by the witness according
to his or her cultural context. However, aside from all our conjectures and
speculations, "they" remain out there--lurking in the shadows for the
right place and time so that one of us, perhaps even you, becomes an
involuntary witness to the absurd phenomenon known as UFO.
Fear of the Unknown: The Ultimate Evidence
In 1997, the overwhelming UFO wave in Galicia caused us to
wander some 2000 kms. from one town to another in the Spanish northeast. Each
investigated sighting bore rumors of a new case in another town, and the car's
front end immediately pointed in that direction. Finally, after collecting
testimonies from several witnesses on the border between Galicia and Asturias,
a powerful snowstorm trapped my car, lacking chains for the tires, on a
mountain pass where the interviewees had warned me of the presence of wild
bears. Such are the hazards of field research.
Shivering from the cold -- the Lada Niva lacked a heater --
and mindful of any noise in the surrounding forest, I remained there for a few
endless hours awaiting the arrival of the tow truck I'd requested through my
cellular phone. Hopefully it would reach me before the bears did. The mechanic
found me huddled in the seat, defending myself with a ridiculously small knife.
I must have been a sight when he knocked on the windshield and made me jump out
of my body. "I can see you weren't exaggerating over the phone,
boss," the fellow in the blue coveralls remarked, "you were pretty
scared, huh?" He was right. I wasn't lying when I phoned the nearest shop
and said I was in an emergency; the fact is that real, sincere and spontaneous
fear is one of humanity's most eloquent elements, including the UFO phenomenon.
An even more eloquent and revealing case came from Sierra de
Outes (La Coruña). We met with the witness, Manolo Javela, in the town's only
bar. When told that we had travelled the distance because of the UFO
experience, he knotted his brow and violently denied all of the rumors that had
reached us: "I made that stuff up, and besides, I didn't see
anything!" Having travelled hundreds of kilometers to interview the man,
we dejectedly finished our coffee and sandwich before leaving. Only when we
made it clear that we weren't journalists and no photos of him would be
published did his attitude change. For Manolo Javela had been through two
traumatic experiences: a close encounter with humanoids and the pitiless
mockery of the press. It had led him to conclude that it was better to be taken
for a joker than a madman (and I invite all "pseudo-skeptics" to
reflect upon this).
On the day of the incident, Manolo had been found by some
neighbors huddled inside his car and shouting for help. When they managed to
get him out of the car, he wouldn't stop screaming that a flying saucer and
some little green men had attacked him. "I never saw a man gripped by such
visible fear," said one of the locals who found him. To the people of
Outes -- putting aside all journalists, armchair ufologists and pseudo-skeptics
-- Manolo's fear was sufficient proof of the honesty of his encounter with the
"little men", because everyone in the town remembered how when a gang
of toughs arrived in town to start a fight, Manolo Javela had faced them all
alone and run them off. Javela is a brave character who isn't afraid to take on
delinquents by himself...but the creatures who descended from above that night
managed to shatter his resolve, turning him into the umpteenth victim of terror
of the unknown. A questionnaire send by mail, fax or e-mail by the armchair
ufologists shall never manage to understand this aspect of the UFO phenomenon.
The Issues Raised by the Phenomenon
Are UFOs alien craft wanting to show off? Not in my opinion.
The problem with applying the ETH (extraterrestrial hypothesis) to the UFO
phenomenon is that it is much too simplistic.
In fact, no serious astronomer discards the possibility of
ET's in the universe. What is untenable is that said ET life should visit us,
since it would involve a technology capable of surpassing the speed of light,
which is unimaginable according to our physics. Let us suppose that there is a
technology capable of neutralizing the increase in ship's mass, proportional to
its acceleration. Or let's imagine that an astronaut is able to break down to
the molecular level, travel at lightspeed, and reassemble himself at the
arrival point. We can imagine a technology capable of flying through black
holes, etc.--these are all science fiction conjectures. But let's suppose such
technology really exists. Would a civilization having such spacecraft use
internal combustion engines? Would it be ignorant about anesthesia? Would it
not have cloaking devices? It is hard to imagine a technology able to surpass
the speed of light leaving burned grass at a landing site, since any
carbonization would we due to an internal combustion engine...not to mention a
ship that toys with black holes needing hydraulic landing gear with
"legs". It is paradoxical that these prodigious machines should
appear on radar screens, when we earthlings have had "invisible
aircraft" since the 1940's. It is galling that during a UFO abduction or
act of aggression a witness should undergo traumatic "tortures", when
our own hospitals have techniques to avoid pain, or to even erase any memory of
said operations.
The conclusion is evident: if UFOs were alien, they should
be much more than vehicles, and if they are vehicles, then they are not alien.
Unless, of course, all the "evidence" of the phenomenon (landing
marks, burned grass, radar detection, scars on witnesses) are a "means of
expression" for the phenomenon, just as the witness might imagine a
"spaceship" to look and behave. In this order of affairs, either
everything is due to a strange physical manifestation of the witnesses' beliefs
and prejudices--according to his cultural background--or what is more
disquieting, a real phenomenon alien to the protagonist him/herself which uses
the archetypes of Western technological civilization to make itself visible
"in the likeness" of what the witness would believe if faced with an
alien craft.
Ultimately, to continue arguing about the extraterrestrial
or non-extraterrestrial provenance of UFOs strikes me as absurd. As our physics
indicates, it is absolutely ridiculous to believe in physical and solid craft
like the ones that appear on radar screens or leave the imprints of their
"legs" on the grass they burn upon landing. We must go beyond the
outward appearance of the phenomenon and venture into its true nature, which
will more than likely have nothing to do with metallic "flying
saucers" filled with small, bigheaded EBEs...
[Translation (c) 1999, 2026 Scott Corrales, IHU with thanks to Manuel Carballal. Originally appeared in Inexplicata #5, Winter 1999]
