Sky People (16 page)

“Can you describe the craft?” I asked.

“It looked like a dish turned upside down. There were small lights around the outside showing a complete circle. It lit up the whole village. I remember wondering why no one else was awake. In those years, we never saw lights. We had no electricity. We went to bed when it got dark and woke up when the sun came up.”

“Did the craft land?”

“Yes. When it landed, four men appeared out of nowhere. They walked very strange.” He stood and, although stooped with age, he mimicked their robot-like walk. “Then two more men appeared. One came very close to our hiding place. That’s when we realized that they were not humans. Their skin was blue. They were very tall. Twice as tall as me. They walked to the house across the field and vanished through the walls. They did not use the door. They walked through the walls.” He paused for a moment and stared off toward the house as though reliving the event. “I knew the family that lived there, even though we were forbidden to go there. When the blue men disappeared, my brother and I were frightened, but we had no time to respond. All of a sudden, they emerged from the house with the parents and the two little girls. We sat there absolutely frozen in fear. I wanted to run over there and stop them, but I told my brother we were no match for men who had power to walk through walls.” Mateo translated.

“What did you do at that point?”

“We did nothing. We watched these Sky Men lead the family into their machine and they were gone. The lights from the object flashed on and lighted up the landscape like noonday. It rose above the trees very slowly and shot off into the night like an arrow. My brother and I sat there afraid and speechless. We never talked about what we saw to anyone except Mateo’s father. He was like our brother.” He turned to Mateo. “I miss your father,” Wak Chan said.

“I miss him, too,” Mateo said. Wak Chan removed a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his watery eyes and then continued.

“Often when darkness fell on the village, my brother, José, and Mateo’s father, and I would lie outside and look at the stars and imagine what might have happened to the giant blue men. We knew they were up there and probably kidnapping other families. There were times we wished they would take us. We were curious boys and wanted to find out about them and where they took the family.”

“Do you remember the next time you saw the family after the night of the abductions?” I asked.

“We saw them that afternoon. They appeared normal. We were afraid to ask them about the blue men so we asked Mateo’s father, who was bolder than the two of us, to ask them. He walked over to their house. The two girls were in their fenced-in yard. He asked them if they had seen any giant blue men and they ran in the house screaming.” He paused and laughed. “The missionary father came out of the house and told Hernando, Mateo’s father, to stay away from his daughters. We all had a good laugh about that. We knew their father did not want them playing with us. We were the dirty village kids. He kept them isolated from us. The girls were not even allowed to play with the village girls. They were lonely little girls.”

“Why did they keep them away from the village children? I don’t understand.”

“They were white Mexicans. We were Maya. We were dirty little kids.”

“Did you think of yourself as dirty?” I asked.

“Never. We knew who we were. Hernando said we were of royal blood and that we were descendants of god kings and that when our people were building great cities, the Spanish were living in caves. So despite what everyone said about us, we knew the truth. Mateo’s father was a smart man.”

“Where is your brother and Mateo’s father?” I asked as I looked at the duo.

“My brother, Jaguar Sky, died ten years ago. Hernando passed two years ago. We were close until the end.” He paused and spoke directly to Mateo and then Mateo addressed me.

“Wak Chan wants to know if you have heard of other families being kidnapped by blue men.”

“Please tell him that I have heard stories of abductions, but I have heard only one story where witnesses reported seeing an abduction. However the space men did not walk through walls. This makes his story unique.” Mateo smiled and nodded.

“Does the family still live in the village?”

“No. They are gone. They only lived here for a short time. Their father was a missionary. He came to teach us about Jesus but, although we liked the stories about Jesus, in those days, we had our own ways. If there was such a person as Jesus, he was not looking out for us. The missionary was called Ralph Lopez. He was the little girls’ father. I can’t remember the name of his church, but one day the men of the village told Ralph he should move to another village and he packed his things and left.” I saw a smile cross his face as he remembered the evangelist who lived among them. “Mateo’s father and I talked about the day. We talked about the fear on the missionary’s face. He was afraid of the village men.”

“Why did the village men ask the family to leave?”

“We are a traditional people,” he said. “We had our own gods. We didn’t need any more.”

We spent most of the morning with Wak Chan. When noontime approached, his granddaughter appeared with food; we ate tortillas filled with beans and chicken. Before we left, I gifted Wak Chan with several packages of green tobacco and a case of his favorite drink, Coca-Cola. He made me promise that the next time I came to Guatemala that I would come to visit him. I promised.

I
often think of Wak Chan. While he never traveled far beyond his village and had no desire to do so, he had witnessed blue giants from another planet who abducted a family and lived to share his experience. He did not regard the visitors as gods, nor did he embrace the white man’s god, because, as he so aptly expressed: He had his own gods and did not need any more
.

A
lthough uncommon, there are records of alien visitors with red eyes. Some researchers have reported giant aliens with lizard-skin and yellow or red cat eyes. In this chapter, you will read about four young women, who encountered four star travelers who may have planned to abduct them, but their screaming caused the aliens to retreat to their spacecraft. The girls insisted the aliens had red eyes
.

I decided to take the next day off after the Quiriguá visit and spend the day relaxing, writing in my journal, and rewriting my notes. In the late afternoon, Mateo called. His sister, who lived in a small village outside of Guatemala City, had invited us to dinner. “She is an English teacher and wants to meet you. She loves talking to English speakers. I told her I would convince you to go.”

“I would love to go.”

“Good. It will give you a chance to eat some home-cooked Guatemalan food and to meet my nieces. They had an encounter recently, and I think you would enjoy listening to them. My sister was reluctant at first to let you speak with them about the event, but I convinced her that you are okay and that it would be good for the girls to meet you.”

I met Mateo’s nieces at dinner. Itzel, Eme, and Ixchel were three sisters. They lived in a small village composed of a few traditional houses, a bodega, a family restaurant, a gas station with a convenience store and outside restaurant, and a small
hardware store that sold everything from denim jeans and home-canned goods to hammers and shovels. Their home, a modern ranch-style adobe, sat next to the school. Mateo’s sister was the English language and Spanish teacher at the high school. Akna, a cousin, who was with the three sisters at the time of their encounter, was living with Mateo’s sister and going to school. The young women ranged in age from seventeen to nineteen. Itzel and Eme were identical twins and they dressed the part, both wearing jeans and tight pink sweaters. Akna was the youngest of the group at seventeen. She had her hair braided in two pigtails. Her perfect skin would have been the envy of any Hollywood movie star. Ixchel was the oldest at nineteen. Her hair was shoulder-length and curled. She had a sophisticated manner about her, announcing that she had moved from adolescence into womanhood, unlike her sisters. All had dreams of becoming teachers. Ixchel was already enrolled in the university, the twins were expected to enroll during the next term, and Akna planned to follow suit in another year.

“Uncle Mateo wants us to go to school. Our mama and papa, too. She does not want us working as maids in hotels or waitresses. She says we need to get an education,” Itzel said as I settled on the floor among pillows the girls had arranged in a circle. “Our mother is a teacher. It is a good profession for a woman in Guatemala. It is an honor to meet a university professor. We have so many questions for you about how classes are taught in the USA. We are so happy that you came to see us.”

“The truth is, Doctora, we want to know about fashion, boys, and makeup, but we will talk about UFOs first,” Eme said. The four girls laughed nervously, but I recognized the truth in her declaration.

“I will talk about anything you want to talk about,” I replied. We sat on the floor in their living room as the girls talked about their culture, their pride in their heritage, and their hopes and prayers of realizing their parents’ dreams. Akna was the most gregarious of the group and, despite her age, she could have passed for twenty-five. Her denim shorts and KISS t-shirt made
her appear as a typical Montana teenager. She confided that her mama did not think she should talk to people about the encounter for fear they would think she was crazy.

“Our mama doesn’t tell us not to talk about it. She said we should not broadcast it. We told her that we wanted to tell you about the experience because Uncle Mateo said it was okay. He said you did not know us and would not identify us,” Eme said.

“I promise that no one will ever know who you are. That will be our secret.”

“I don’t really care if people think I’m weird,” Eme said. “I know what happened to us. We didn’t imagine it. It happened and people should know that aliens are real.”

“I agree,” Itzel said. “If people know these things are happening, they will not be so surprised when aliens land and make themselves known.”

As the girls debated the issue of publicly talking about their experience and the limited number of people they had told about the event, it was clear that their parents and family members were concerned that the young women not be regarded as mentally unstable or, even worst,
brujas
(witches). After a somewhat lengthy discussion of the pros and cons of telling their story, the group became quiet and looked at Akna.

“It happened three weeks ago,” Akna began. “We had gone to the plaza with our family. We like to dance,” she explained.

“It was a Saturday night,” Eme interjected.

“We stayed until about midnight,” Akna continued.

“It happened about a few blocks from here,” Eme said.

“I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye,” said Ixchel, “and I told Akna.”

“That’s when I saw them. There were four of them,” Akna said.

“I thought it was the local boys playing a trick on us,” Eme said. “I yelled at them and asked them to identify themselves, but they did not respond.”

“When no one answered, we began to move on. All of a sudden, Eme let out a scream and I thought someone was attacking
her and I was trying to get to her, but I couldn’t move,” Akna said. I noticed how her voice had become more animated as she remembered the event.

“I was trying to get to her, too,” Ixchel said, “But I couldn’t move.”

“I yelled, ‘Come out and show yourself,’” Akna said.

“That’s when we saw them clearly. It was obvious they were not human,” said Ixchel.

“Well, they were like humans. There were four of them. They were small, skinny men, with long, bony arms,” added Eme.

“They were not like the local boys who have muscles,” Itzel laughed.

“They had red eyes.” Akna looked at the others and they all nodded in agreement. “When I saw those red eyes, I thought they were devils and I screamed as loud as I could.”

“Then we all screamed at the same time. We were trying to attract attention. That’s when they released us. I ran to Eme and pulled her to her feet,” Akna said.

“Then we ran,” Itzel said. “I thought if we hesitated, we might not get away.”

“That’s when we saw the spacecraft,” Akna said. “I could make out a circular object. It had white lights around the bottom outlining a circle. It moved over us and then descended again, above the road, and stayed in front of us.”

“Then suddenly it shot upward and was gone within seconds,” Eme added.

“When it was gone, we hugged each other and screamed and began running toward home,” Itzel said.

“I kept thinking that if something happened to us, what would our mama do? She couldn’t deal with losing three daughters,” Eme added.

“And a cousin,” Akna interjected. They all giggled in agreement.

“What else can you tell me about your encounter, other than the fact that you felt like they were trying to abduct one or all of you?”

“I think the scariest part was being paralyzed,” Ixchel added.

“I was really afraid,” Eme said. “I was afraid they were going to take me away from my family. I saw a TV program on alien abductions and I was afraid.”

“Do you think having seen the TV program in any way influenced your memory of what happened to you?” I asked.

“If you mean, did we just get scared and imagine it, no. That is not what happened. They were real. They were not human. They had red eyes. I’ve never seen a human with red eyes,” replied Eme.

“Obviously, you cannot grow up in this society without seeing movies about UFOs and aliens,” Ixchel said. “But this was not a movie and it was not imagination. I am still haunted by those red eyes. I can close my eyes and see them as though they were standing right in front of me.”

“Do you remember anything else about them?” I asked.

“They were all dressed alike. When they came into the light, their suits sparkled. They were shiny. A light, shiny blue. In the dark, the suits did not sparkle. Only when they came into the light. They tried to stay in the shadows. They did not want anyone to see them. That is what I think. Anyone who saw them would know they were not from here,” Akna responded.