June Month of Poetry Days #10 and #11

I did actually write the day 10 poem yesterday, but wanted more time to work on it, so I've held it back til today. I think these two make a good pair, anyway! One assumes an extra-terrestrial explanation and one does not, which is intentional counterpointing.

I'll be trying to poem again tomorrow, but I'm away for a long weekend with friends Fri-Sun, so I've decided to pause operations for those three days. I'll resume on Monday.

Day 10's poem is inspired by the Roswell incident. Most people know the outlines of this one, but the bare bones: in 1947, debris from a crashed aerial craft or object was recovered from the desert near Roswell, New Mexico. It later became the basis for conspiracy theories alleging that the United States military recovered a crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft. The military released statements and papers in 1990 asserting that the object was a downed military balloon, intended to detect Soviet nuclear tests in the atmosphere, as part of a Cold War operation dubbed Project Mogul. 

However, this is not universally or even widely accepted as the true or complete answer. There are many people, both cranks and more credible researchers, who still believe there was something strange about what happened near Roswell, and that the full story has yet to come out. By far the most enjoyable fictional treatment of this was done by the X Files, but it has provided many an opportunity for cultural reinterpretation and modern fable-making.

Day 11's poem follows on the same theme but with a less globally known incident that happened very close to where I grew up: the Westall UFO. This is UFO sighting that occurred on 6 April 1966. The object was observed by multiple individuals, including students at Westall High School. It was described as round with a domed top, and white, grey, or silver in colour. The object descended behind a row of trees and into the Grange, an open area south of the school. Some accounts describe the object as being pursued by five unidentified aircraft.

One explanation is a runaway balloon from the HIBAL high-altitude balloon project used to monitor radiation levels after British nuclear tests at Maralinga. HIBAL balloons had a white silver appearance and featured a parachute and gas tube trailing from the top, which is consistent with witness descriptions of the object. There were also reports that after the incident, "men in suits" cautioned witnesses not to discuss details of the secret government exercise, which would align with it being a sensitive topic.

Like Roswell, not everyone accepts the balloon hypothesis, including many of those who witnessed it. Again, absent conclusive evidence, it remains a mystery of history capable of both mundane and extra-normal interpretations - which version people favour seems to say more about them than the inciting incident itself.

Roswell

look -

I still don't know what happened.
we were off-course somehow, dragging behind the fleet
chasing tail-lights through this little golden backwater star system, 
twenty thousand light years and change from the centre 
skipping like a stone across the edge of the third rocky planet
on our way to a slingshot manoeuvre back to the empty
when -

we got grabbed by atmosphere, I suppose
sucked down the gravity well as the ship started screaming
pressure insinuating past our seals as they failed one after the next

pop pop pop

the others dead and into the vapor before we hit the grainy gritty ground
bodies disappearing around me, smoky grey pearls surrendering atoms to the wide open sky
everything is made of the same stuff in the end, alive or dead or never alive to become dead
stars and bodies and ships and planets

but me, I felt it
I felt the pain of it in my mind and in my limbs
in my leaking ligaments all twisted and curled
I heard the ship sing wildly of its death
and fall to silence

and the sting of that bright young sun on my unshielded head
the desolation of unbreathable air, stinking of oxygen
as my vision grew dark and darker
the atmosphere holding me tight in its fist, refusing the gift of my atoms
holding me bonded in form and shape as I died

leaving a wordless shell in the sand
a memory of someone that used to live here
before the tides washed the trembling softness away
bearing my spark into that great ocean, that has no beginning and no end
strung from star to star, like a vast trail of fire
made of all of the light we ever were or ever could be.

Weather Balloon

the object that you saw in the sky was a high-altitude weather balloon.
that it what it was.

its silvered body floating along like a squashed fat ball above you
plaintively croaking out its readings of that blue ceiling of sky
as it flailed and flooped, a beached porpoise about to lose itself 

you saw a balloon.
trailing its bonnet strings over its sad wilted borders
parachute deployed, because falling was, by then, inevitable.
a balloon sent up to see if you are being poisoned
(or at least to say, poisoned at unacceptable levels)
irradiated into sickness and strangeness
by that clear autumn air you breathe in as you look up and point your little fingers and say
what the fuck is that

I've just told you. You have been told, and you'll be told again
the fuck it was, was a balloon.
Sent up into the high atmosphere but then crashing down
but gently, like a leaf floating aimlessly along
because, as aforementioned, it was a balloon
puffy and flimsy and catching the light sideways so that might have seemed to,
I don't know,
glow from inside, or something like that

We'd prefer it if you didn't talk too much about it, this balloon;
there's no need to startle the horses
to get people thinking too hard about bombs in the desert and what that might lead to
(the answer is nothing, because it is perfectly and utterly safe. probably.
although, worth a balloon
just to make assurance doubly sure)

the object that was a balloon did not leave burn marks on the ground, because
(being a balloon)
there was no combustion to ignite the grass. If you think you saw that, you're mistaken
or you're dreaming, or you're participating in some localised Mandela effect
some mass delusion that the ground carried the pawprint of something that could choose how it moved
which is obviously impossible, as it was a balloon

a high-altitude wobbling whale of a balloon
coming to earth in a field near you
you saw it and that's fine
I'm not saying your eyes or your mouths are liars; I just need to stress, again,
that what you saw -

that was a balloon.
just a balloon.
a big, white and silver, gleaming balloon
failing and falling and peeking through at you
as you stared up at the noonday sun.