UFO's in Placencia, Belize?

So, a funny thing happened to me the other night….. WAIT! Please don’t stop reading! I know all lame, boring comedy routines start with that phrase. But this is no comedy routine, and it really happened to me.

I should start by clearly stating that I don’t believe in creatures from another planet, aliens from outer space, or any of that “sci-fi” crap you see in movies. But just the other night, I saw a UFO! It was hovering over our neighbor’s house in all its enormous and terrifying grandeur, basking in the sinister blackness of night, its horrifying red and green lights blinking like glittering eyes of evilness.

Let me start at the beginning. In case you weren’t aware, I love my little dogs and would do anything for my tiny doxies, Kitti and Bunni.  And every evening they have to go outside, in the dark, to go potty before we go to bed. And they won’t go downstairs by themselves, at least not in the dark. So I decided to take them down for one last potty break, in the dark, while the hubby snoozed on the couch.  

Did I point out it was dark?  And, have I forgotten to mention that I am scared—really more like petrified--of the dark? I don’t just mean just that childlike, ”I’m scared of the dark, get me my teddy-bear” kind of scared. I mean the “I am PETRIFIED something’s gonna kill & eat me--in a Stephen King-horror-story-way” kind of scared of the dark. And it gets really dark in Belize in the evening. VERY dark.

So, as I’m walking down the stairs, flashlight in hand, my terror of the darkness simmering just below the surface, I see a large, square-shaped object hovering just across the canal, its red and green lights illuminating the skyline, thin vapors of smoke trailing out of its backside. I know it’s not an airplane because it’s way too low. And it’s square.  Besides, airplanes aren’t allowed to fly after dark in Belize! I must have stared, unblinking, for a good minute, trying to make sense of this unrecognizable “thing” in my mind. Then I suddenly I realized—Oh My God--It’s a flying saucer! It’s a goddamn SQUARE UFO!!

I was frozen on the bottom step. I couldn’t move.  Sheer panic rose in my throat. Visions of aliens hauling me away for unimaginable acts or harvesting of my organs flitted quickly through my stunned brain. But wait, we are in Belize--not the middle of the Nevada desert! This is not Area 51! There is NO such thing as UFO’s!  But I know in my heart and my soul that THAT is an EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL SPACECRAFT! It's a UFO! I have never been so certain of anything in my life. I was seeing it with my very own eyes. My paralysis finally broke. Screaming in terror, I ran back up the stairs, hollering at the hubby “OH Jesus God, Get up, you bastard! Get the (bleep) UP!!! RIGHT NOW! Come and LOOK!!” I drag him off the couch and down the stairs. “What in the HELL IS THAT? Is that a UFO?!”

Some call it a "Crow's Nest"

I call it a Widow's Walk

As the hubby shambles down the stairs and takes a good look through his sleepy eyes, not hearing the urgency or sheer terror in my voice, he quietly says, “Yeah, I heard some rumors about UFO sightings in Belize lately. But honey, that’s just the neighbors, putting up their Christmas lights around the railing on their widow’s walk…. And they seem to be grilling out.”    

My friends tell me that even though we call it a “widow’s walk," the proper term for it is a “crow’s nest” or an “observation deck.” It’s a simple structure commonly built at the rooftop level on many houses in Placencia, meant to allow for catching a cool breeze or watching the sunrise or sunset over the water. But in my “Stephen King-horror-story-terrified” frame of mind, I looked across the canal in the black of night and saw a UFO. And probably always will. At least until Christmas is over and the neighbors take their lights down.