What was it about you?
You seemed normal, just like everybody else. Nobody special – average student – B average.
Never got picked – not you – baseball, football, basketball; even hall monitor – never got first choice or even fourth choice.
You gargled – you used deodorant – changed your socks every day – didn’t even wear the same pants.
You asked – people looked at you. Maybe Mars? Maybe mistaken identity? Maybe a Wanted sign at the Post Office?
And they laughed – thought you were kidding – all in your mind.
You couldn’t quite figure it out. It had to be something. Something that happened that made you terminally odd to the outside world. Made people look at you like you had a major screw loose.
And then you remembered the Essay contest the semester before. The one where you got up in front of the entire student body and read your essay on Flying Saucers.
You believed in them – you were convinced. They were out there. That’s all you talked about – you swore up and down that they were coming, if they weren’t already walking around planet Earth, looking like everybody else. Maybe somebody from another planet was in your class, or working in the Cafeteria.
The essay ran some 20 pages and the student body was trapped, listening to you run down every source of UFO sightings that had happened since the Greeks. You must have rambled on for the better part of an hour – despite pleas from the contest committee and even the school principal to shut up and sit down. No. You were on a roll. That was your one chance to make a case for Flying Saucers and you were going to prove it, beyond any doubt.
When it was over the entire student body fell dead silent for what seemed like a day or two. And the then audience, almost in unison. jumped up and made a break for the exits.
That’s when everybody started avoiding you – laughed when you told them Flying Saucers were hiding behind clouds; watching us, taking notes, learning the language.
Of course, nobody believed you – not even your girlfriend. She was having big doubts – you had been going for a year and your foray into the world of extraterrestrials was rapidly shaping up to being a deal breaker and she couldn’t wait. She needed her sanity and you needed somebody who was as obsessed with Flying Saucers as she was.
So, yeah – nobody took you seriously – friends made excuses and found something else to do. Even your teachers were wondering if you were maybe watching too much television. All you had was your room – a wall of books about Flying Saucers – every Science Fiction magazine in circulation – even your bedside radio was in the shape of a rocket ship with the antenna poking out of the nosecone.
And your typical after-school activity was reading the latest copy of Galaxy Magazine, tune the nosecone to KRLA – pop in your earphones and wait for the Mothership.
Because you knew it was coming – any day now – and you wanted to be ready.
Here’s 44 minutes of Dave Hull at KRLA from May 9, 1965
