FICTION: UFO by Jerry Guarino

July 26, 1969 – East Orange, N.J. – The huge cylindrical object hovered above the high school while dozens of people stood and watched. Tony Ramirez was on his bike next to the baseball field. “Is that a spaceship?” he said to himself. His friends had left a while ago. It reminded Tony that last Monday, NASA landed the first manned spacecraft on the moon. The spinning ship continued to hover, for what seemed like an hour, although in reality it had only been three minutes. Then the ship floated upwards, turned 180 degrees and disappeared in an instant beyond his view.

“I saw a spaceship at the school today.” His father gave him a puzzled look. “Son, there are no such things as spaceships.” Tony knew he couldn’t prove what he saw. “But Pop, I saw it hanging above the school.” His mom tried to be supportive. “Maybe you saw some sort of cloud storm.” Tony insisted. “It was real, lots of people were there.” His parents now looked at each other with concern. “Who else was there Tony?” Realizing he had come straight home but should have talked to someone there, Tony gave up. “Never mind.”

Tony looked in the paper the next day hoping to see a story that would verify his account. Nothing. He went down to the school to see if he could find someone who had been there. No luck. He even asked his classmates. That was a mistake. “So, you saw a flying saucer Tony.” From that day on, his life at school was tainted by what others saw as bizarre or at the least, odd behavior. Even though Tony stopped talking about the UFO, his reputation was already finished. Being a social outcast in high school seriously limits your potential. Tony would spend the rest of his life trying to get people to listen to him.

Summer, 2019 – San Diego, California – Surfers fell off their waves, joggers stopped in mid-stride and cars crashed in the street. Five hundred feet above them, a huge cylindrical object hovered over Mission Bay. Within seconds, people pulled out their electronic devices, taking pictures, recording the spinning craft and sending texts, tweets and emails to the Internet and points outward. News people were on the scene in minutes. They set up a remote broadcast link and handed the microphone to the reporter.



“Fifty years after the first moon landing, we are seeing what appears to be another alien spacecraft hovering over Mission Bay. Even though this has become a regular occurrence recently, people are still fascinated by the crafts, wondering when they will get to see the visitors inside. Once referred to as UFOs and flying saucers, these spacecraft provide proof that Earth is not the only planet with living beings. This is Tony Ramirez reporting from KBAY. We’ll have interviews on the scene right after this.”