Dazzling Visitations
(Editor’s note: Heidi Cobblehoff was used as a pen name of anonymity for my cousin Patty Peacock, who would now like to acknowledge that she is the source for this story from “Rising Wind Rock My Soul.”)
The Missoula team for the water collection projects in Afghanistan was ready to fly home from Armenia. Secora Gideon and Tario Cyr would spend fifteen hours in travel time, not counting a four-hour layover in Chicago, but to Secora it felt like forever. During the layover, Tarkio and Gideon were already dozing, and Secora’s eyes were drooping, but suddenly they opened too wide, as a cheerful older woman introduced herself as Heidi Cobblehoff.
Not knowing what to do but smile when the lady sat in the open chair beside her, Secora focused her full attention on the woman, who began regaling her with fascinating stories of UFO’s, clones, and lizard men. Heidi’s eyes sparkled, and her curly white hair glistened, as she opened with an eye-popping account from years ago in Colorado Springs.
“My friend and I were on our way to a ‘goodbye dessert party’ at Fort Carson Military Base, Saturday evening, September second, Labor Day weekend, 1963. It was a social function to honor the GIs heading out to Vietnam on Monday morning. We had driven from Peterson Air Force Base to the south end of the Springs when we became lost. We’d looked for the proper dirt road exit to Fort Carson for about an hour before we pulled over. The clock on the dashboard read 10 p.m.
“Our vehicle was parked facing west, across the street from the northeast corner of the base perimeter wall, near a railroad crossing. I asked my girlfriend to hand me the map and snap on our flashlight. The whole interior of the car lit up, and I remarked how strong that little light was – much stronger than I’d anticipated. She told me in a nervous voice that she hadn’t turned it on.
“I looked up from the map. Across the road, at eye level, just in front of us, was an airborne triangular vehicle hovering 20 yards away, even though it appeared much closer. The vehicle itself was around twenty-five feet long and eight or nine feet tall with a large window that covered most of that expanse.
“Three clones appeared to have identical East Asian facial features, bowl-cut black hair with bangs, and brown-yellow skin. They were wearing dark gray Nehru jackets with short upturned collars as they were seated at control desks with panels, concentrating on their work. I supposed that they controlled the flying triangle. Now, they were looking out the windows of the cockpit at the center of the triangle – at us.
“Between the two clones on the left stood a seven-and-a-half-foot-tall individual, thin, with a praying mantis-like head shaped like a slice of pizza from which the first third had been bitten off. He had brown hair, but I don’t remember much of a mouth or nose. Long arms hung to his knees, and he donned a doctor’s white lab coat complete with a stethoscope. I got the impression he had a cold personality. No empathy.
“To the right of the 7 ½ foot bug stood a six-foot-two-inch-tall man who appeared to display Nordic qualities – extremely pale skin and light blonde hair. He wore a light gray uniform that might have signified an engineer or a commander, with a medallion hung around his neck. He seemed kinder. He then turned his head and talked to the bug man.”
“Well, that’s different,” Secora managed. She could feel Gideon rousing beside her and noticed Tarkio was listening intently.
“That’s nothing.
Next, I felt as if I were somehow mentally transported to the vehicle, and a scan of everything I knew was taken. Later, I realized I was back in my vehicle, and I looked at the dash clock; it read 10:18. I looked across at the ship’s window.
The Nordic in the grey uniform waved and smiled in a friendly manner. I waved back and smiled. It seemed I knew him, had seen him before – not now, but at a different time – earlier that night. We had communicated before this – likely a mind probe. I knew this was goodbye.
“The tall bug individual bent over and looked out the window. I was not surprised that this praying mantis person had no feeling for me. I knew I wasn’t of value. To him, I was worthless. There was no smile or wave. Then he stood up again, and a large screen rolled up, covering the entire window.
“The spotlight turned off, and they sped toward the entrance of the underground facility at Cheyenne Mountain, where they again turned on the light. The window rolled open as they paused to view or scan the thick metal doors of the North American Air Defense Command. The light illuminated a fifty-foot swath above the doors to the entrance and the surrounding concrete road. It felt as if my mind was still captured by the ship even though my body was still in the car. I saw the scene as if I was still in the craft.
“Next, I could see the silver-gray color of the triangular ship, distinguished from the surrounding mountain. Quickly, the vehicle closed its window and turned off the spotlight before rotating upward, then it shot westward. In a flash, it disappeared over the top of Cheyenne Mountain. Gone in a split second – super fast! I lost connection with the ship as it shot over Cheyenne Mountain, and found myself seated in the car again. My car’s engine was no longer running, nor would it restart for some time.
“To say the least, my friend and I did not go on to the goodbye party as planned. We were petrified and went home. She never said she was transported to the vehicle, only that she saw it. But she was so shaken by the events that she would not discuss her feelings with me. She did talk later with her stepfather, who was a master sergeant in the Army. He counseled her never to speak of those events. And she never did as far as I know.”
As an aside, Heidi added, “I checked later to see that I still was a virgin.”
“And?”
She quickly offered that she had taken no drugs or alcohol, just the Coca-Cola and chips they had in the car.
“She was. I later heard on ‘Coast to Coast’ in 2016, or 2017, that a career Army officer stationed at Fort Carson saw triangle-shaped vehicles flying around Fort Carson during the Vietnam War – and ‘out of this world’ technology.” He corroborated what happened, and the poor guy went to Vietnam two days later.
Gideon, who was now looking on sleepily, was skeptical. He said, “Wow, remind me to stay away from that place, Secora.”
The Lizard men
Heidi’s eyes glistened again with excitement. “If you liked that, wait till you hear what happened to us in Arizona!” Not waiting for much of a response, she began.
“During spring break in April of 1984, my family and I were returning home to Scottsdale around midnight, from a shopping trip to Tucson. Our five-year-old daughter, Cindy, and our three-year-old son, Tony, were sleeping in the back. We left Tucson about 6-6:30 that evening and headed north on a two-lane road, only to notice we were running out of gas south of Phoenix.”
“We neared the southern end of the South Mountains, which were on our southeast side as we traveled north. We wouldn’t make it very much longer without stopping for fuel. In those days it was nearly impossible to find an open station in the middle of nowhere – at midnight.
“At last, we spotted a gas station with its pump lights off, but the store’s lights were still on. We noticed as we pulled in that six Humvees appeared to have recently filled their tanks at the pumps, so I went in to pay for some gas.
“The sales clerk was very nervous. He asked me why I was there.
“I told him we were out of gas and that he could either let us fill our car tonight or tomorrow morning, since we had coasted in on fumes. He took my twenty-dollar bill, turned on the pump, and told me to leave.
“When I turned around to do so, I saw six clones in a line – reptile men dressed in desert camo uniforms and wearing black wigs. Their oval-shaped bodies looked like horny toads with three-foot-wide shoulders, and they stood five feet eight inches tall. Their hands and fingers were also similar to the claws of a horny toad, and the arms were short.
Their faces had tan skin with 1-1/2-inch-wide by 2-inch-long dark brown overlapping rectangular scales that looked similar to horny toad belly scales or the overlaid shingles on a roof. Their noses and mouths came to rounded points – like the head of an iguana- and the chins were bumps to the neck. No ears were visible, perhaps because the wigs covered them. They looked at me with dark brown eyes.
“I returned to the car where Philip was already pumping gas, and I took over that task. Giving him a dollar, I told him to go and buy some gum. He said he didn’t need gum. I told him to go inside the store and pick out any gum, then pay the clerk. Look at the people in line, and then come back.
“He was shaken when he returned – as shocked as I was. He described the same horny toad men I saw. One of the ‘soldiers’ came over to our car. He was drooling from his slit mouth when he looked at my son, Tony. I said, He is mine – not yours! ‘He is not for you. Go away.’ As he left, I added, ‘Leave him alone!’
“After the lizard-man left, we pulled away from the pumps, then pulled over to the side of the road as if to switch drivers, and pretended to study a map. We waited while the Hummers drove in a convoy directly west, then followed as they chugged down a dirt path toward the SE corner of South Mountain. For our vehicle, that pathway was impassable, so we watched from a distance.
“When they arrived at the South Mountain, a type of garage door opened up in the mountainside and closed behind them.
“The next day, I drove back to the gas station by myself. It turned out that the primitive dirt road was just a cart trail – a path just wide enough for the Humvees, but not passable for cars. I couldn’t see the ‘door’ even with my binoculars, but that wasn’t the end of the story.
“About three days later, Tony came running into the master bedroom at night. He’d seen his first reptile man, ‘closet monster,’ a problem that continued off and on from 1984 until June of 1993, when we moved. My son and daughter had loved to play with horny toads before the event. After the lizard man started visiting him at night in his room. Tony became terrified of horny toads.
“In fact, his fear spread to all living reptiles, even dinosaur skeletons, and mechanical dinos. He’s still afraid of them as a grown man. I heard a similar story on Coast-to-Coast radio that also took place at South Mountain four to five years ago.”
Tarkio observed, “You’re one gutsy lady.”
“You have to stand up for what is yours. I’m hungry. Anyone want something from the vending machine?” The others declined, and she stepped away.
A few minutes later, everyone had taken a bathroom break or gotten a snack from a small café before reconvening at the chairs. Secora noted there was still an hour left to wait if the plane was on time. She felt herself becoming drowsy with boredom again. Gideon returned looking all spruced up and gave her a kiss on the cheek as he sat down.
“Where’s Heidi?”
“I don’t know. She hasn’t gotten back yet.” Almost as if she had heard them, she strolled up smiling, opening a package of cookies, eating them as she sat down. “One more story if you have the time.” “We do,” acknowledged Secora.
Tarkio rubbed his hands together and answered, “I was hoping there was more.” “It was a visit from a ghost grandmother.” She winked.
“I think you’re going to like this one. We moved into our new house in Phoenix, Arizona, on a Thursday, actually Halloween day, 1982. Four nights later, Sunday, November 4th, I was sleeping alone at our home since my husband was away on a trip.
“I woke up at 3:00 a.m. and put on a robe to go to the bathroom. As I returned to the bed, I saw a dark brown or black human-shaped shadow against the gray-black wall.
I panicked, and I asked out loud in a quivering voice, ‘What do you want?’
“She mentally asked me, ‘Where is my family?’
“I responded, ‘Houston.’ Then she evaporated. The next morning my neighbor across the street was outside, so I went over and introduced myself and asked her if anyone had died in my house. She said yes, but she wasn’t supposed to tell me. The previous family’s grandmother had died peacefully in her sleep several years ago, but not in my bedroom, a different room.
“I told her I had seen and spoken with her, and sent her on to Houston. Her phone rang. After answering it, my neighbor handed it to me – it was the former owner. Apparently, Grandma had shown up at their house this morning.
“While the family still lived in Phoenix, her ghost would come and go, and had been away for two weeks before they were transferred and had to move ‘instantly’ according to both the daughter and the neighbor. She must have been looking for them since then.
But now that she had ‘moved on’ to Houston, I never saw the grandmother again.”
Gideon said, “Thanks, Heidi; those stories were fascinating. Made the time fly by.”
“Sounds like she also made Grandma fly by. No small feat!’ laughed Tarkio.
***************
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