As part of our series of new Communion Letters, we present the experiences of “Mike,” who was excited when he saw a UFO as a kid, but fell asleep as an adult, when he noticed gray aliens walking up his driveway.

He writes: I was at my friend Kenny’s house for a sleep over when I was about 12 years old and in 6th or 7th grade. It was around 1974. It was nighttime and we were in an upstairs room, and one of us pointed out the window and said, “What’s that”

We clearly saw something, a craft of some sort. It was shaped like a coffee can with a pencil sticking out of the top. It was larger in the sky than a full moon, and we watched it for about a minute. It was descending near the horizon at a very controlled and slow speed. It was spinning slowly as it moved lower, traveling at an odd angle, and thenit was gone!

Accompanying the big “coffee can” was a tiny blinking light. It was easy to track this light in the night sky as it moved steadily toward the craft. It was when this little light “connected” to the big craft that it vanished. The little blinking light then flew off. This blinking light looked like nothing more than the running lights on an aircraft.

We were really excited. We decided not to talk about it, but instead we ran downstairs and went to the kitchen table and drew it. We both drew the same thing. I remember Ken corrected me and pointed out that the edges of the “coffee can” were slightly beveled.

Kenny also didn’t see the blinking light as it approached the “coffee can”he only noticed it after the thing vanished, and the blinking light trailed off in the night sky.

This sighting left me with the very distinct impression that I was seeing something otherworldly. And ever since then, whenever I read accounts of UFO sightings, I think, “Well, I’ve seen one!”

It was 1975 and a pleasant and clear autumn night in Michigan. I was about 13 years old and in 8th grade. It was Friday night after the local high school football game, and I was walking home after the game ended. It was normal for me to walk the half-mile back to my house. I was with my friend (also named Mike), who was walking the same way. We were close to my home in a neighborhood of small suburban houses on a well lit but quiet street. The scene was completely normal and calm.

Suddenly there was a bold and jarring flash that took up most of the sky. It was a giant blur, and everything up above us was lit bright orange. It was completely silent. As soon as it happened, it was gone. We were surprised and both responded with, “What just happened”

There was nothing to see, since the event was over instantly, but there was something very unsettling about that moment. Was it a meteor Why was it silent and such a bright and saturated orange color I know that I saw something, but there’s an odd skip in my memory.

We continued to my house, I said goodbye and Mike walked home. I was excited to get home and watch a television show I really loved that started at ten o’clock. I remember making an effort to leave the football game in order to get home in plenty of time so I could watch this show. But when I walked in the door, my parents were angry that I was out so late. I was surprised because I was planned to be home at about 9:30, but instead it was well after 11 o’clock. It seemed odd, but I was particularly upset because I missed that cool TV show.

The next Monday a group of friends were all in the cafeteria, along with Mike, and I told everyone that we had seen a bizarre light on Friday night. Mike said, “Yeah, a UFO with lights and everything!” I hadn’t seen anything with lights. Did he see something I didn’t Mike and I never mentioned that night again.

That was 28 years ago, and I have no idea what has happened to him. I’ve always had a memory of this event, but only of the orange light in the night sky, not the fact that I had missing time. It wasn’t until the mid-1990’s that I remembered the lost hour and a half, while watching an interview with Chris Carter, creator of the X-Files, who talked about how he loved the same TV show when he was a kid. Instantly the memories resurfaced, like somebody just flipped a switch in my head.

In January or February of 1993, I was living alone in a small house in rural Maine. My fiancée had just left me, and I was an emotional wreck. The driveway of the house had one of those motion sensitive lights, and it was pretty common for the light to come on when a car drove by or a deer walked through the front yard. The bedroom window faced the driveway.

I was pretty depressed at the time, and sleeping poorly, but I woke up that night because a very bright light was shining in through the window above the bed. I sat up, propping myself up on my elbow, and looked out the window. I saw five of those (now classic) gray aliens with the big black eyes walking toward the house. They were backlit by a singular round bright shape. My response to this frightening image was to calmly lay my head down on the pillow and promptly fall back asleep.

Shouldn’t I have jumped out of bed screaming in terror I felt absolutely empty of emotion, like, “Oh yes, they’re here, let’s just shut everything down and black out.”

I remember seeing the cover of Communion in the mid- eighties. I’m a professional illustrator, and my first reaction was, “Hey, that’s not quite right.”

NOTE: This Insight, previously published on our old site, will have any links removed.