I Want to Believe

The subject of UFOs has always been an interest of me.
The thought of intelligent life out in the cosmos visiting our planet is something, like on the poster on Agent Fox Mulders office wall, “I Want To Believe”.
I've read many books on Ufology, even compiled and self-published a book on the subject in the mid nineties, (I be damned if I can find a single copy now) along with spending many hours watching videos on said subject. I have to admit, despite my skepticism, I am fascinated by the whole thing. Being a fan of government conspiracies fuels it even more as the two are intertwined with stories of Area 51, Roswell, Majestic 12 and others.
When I was still in high school, I was at the drive-in theater with several of my friends. Probably watching a low budget sci-fi or horror double feature on a Friday or Saturday night.
These routine weekend evenings were usually spent female free as I and my most of my buddies still found the fairer sex somewhat alien, despite the raging hormonal attraction.
Communication, for me anyway, usually degraded to a form of sub-English stammering whenever I attempted to speak to a girl.
So I, along with my socially challenged buddies, usually ended up on these nights at the drive-in, parked closer to the front row so as not to be thought of as fags, because the back rows were for making out.
Cheap ass Boonesfarm strawberry wine and homegrown cannabis were usually present after pooling our meager capital together for the purchase. (not that I inhaled... ahem) In a stoned haze we would enjoy this much more comfortable environment while watching cinematic classics as “The Incredible Melting Man”, “Death Race 2000”, “Dawn of the Dead”, etc.
Damn, if I haven't digressed from what I was writing about. Ah, sweet nostalgia can do that.
Anyway, on one of those nights, we saw our UFO, or actually UFOs... plural.
Normally one could write off what my buds and I saw to the pot and Boonesfarm, but everyone else at the theater saw it too. Lots of people got out of their cars and stood and watched the lights dancing in the sky.
What we, and everyone else, were seeing was two lights in the distant sky to the left of the movie screen.
Below is a highly detailed artist recreation of the event.
They seemed to do some acrobatic maneuvers, circling around each other. This went on for several minutes before they moved off out of sight.
Sometime later, what appeared to be a military fighter jet flew over the theater in that direction, fueling more excited discussion of what the fuck could be going on.
Despite the foggy state of mind I was in, I can still clearly remember how the lights looked and behaved. For years I held on to that one event as my possible witness to a craft piloted by otherworldly creatures.
Fast forward a quarter century.
Late one night, Judy and I were driving back from her parents house about 90 miles south of The Rocket City.
Judy was sound asleep in the passenger seat next to me, I was lost in thought (unfamiliar territory for me) when off in the distance, I saw the same type of phenomenon that I witnessed roughly 25 years prior.
My first thought was to wake up Judy, fortunately that moment of insanity vaporized as fast as it formed.
We were driving on a very dark highway in the country. There was very little light, no street lights and other lit up shit.
The UFOs were directly ahead of me over the road and I was heading straight for them.
I was as excited as a Teabagger at a cross burning and wishing I had a camera. This was before cell phones and shit, although we may have had one of those bag phones. I really can't recall the exact time period.
Their was no traffic on the road other than our car. This was shaping up to be just like many other experiences I have read about.
Would we experience missing time?
Would we be abducted?
Would the UFOs land like those in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and eject the cosmic Pillsbury Dough-boy?
We grew closer and closer to each other. Our car, and the mysterious flying lights.
I was beside myself with excitement... once again I almost reached over to wake Judy, but once again thought better of it.
Would our car stall out, like they do in the reports?
Would our radio start screeching right before everything quits?
I noticed that I had slowed down to less than 30 mph. I was hardly looking at the road anymore, as I was staring transfixed on the approaching globes of light.
Then we were close enough that they were revealed to me.
Two mother-fucking goddam helicopters.
What a sock in the balls.
As I heard the “chop-chop” as they flew over, the dawning realization that it was probably the same goddam thing we saw years ago at the drive-in theater.
I sighed and cursed quietly to myself and thought if the bastards had flown on over the fucking drive-in and let us identify them back then, it wouldn't have been a 2 and a half decade long misconception of what I saw.
But later I started thinking, I am glad I had that mystery for all those years. It made me wonder and dream.
Don't get me wrong, I am glad it is solved, but there is something to having something to want to believe in, even if you know down inside it is bullshit. Kind of like religion.
I sometimes envy Christians. They believe shit that is much more outrageous than extra-terrestrial aircraft.
Talking snakes, virgin births, magical super beings. Like me with the aliens, most of them know all that is bullshit, even if they don't want to admit it to themselves.
When it comes to UFOs, I am a lot like the Christians. I want to believe. Even though, I know better. Just like those fucking helicopters. If I didn't want to believe so bad, I would have never taken the gigantic leap of faith to the outrageous. I would have simply embraced the most simplistic explanation: they are aircraft with humans flying them.
It was fun while it lasted.
And one part of me still hasn't changed.
I want to believe.