Bicycle Journey Progress

The journey begins on July 29th and ends on September 11th, 2023

Ride Progress: ABOUT TO START!
Daily summaries:
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quarta-feira, 20 de junho de 2012

Day 63 – 06/04/2012 – Ludlow, CA - Part 3


Part 1: See how this day started.


Part 2: Crossing the hot desert.




PART 3


As soon as we returned to the road we saw it wouldn’t be as easy as we thought, and because of the very strong winds we would not complete the remaining 28 miles in 3 hours. In fact the winds were so strong we were pedaling strong but moving at just five miles per hour. As we moved away from Amboy I looked behind and saw the last lights coming from the city turning off. In the thirty minutes that followed the remaining sunlight vanished and we entered one of the most isolated stretches we had been so far. Because most of the traffic was going through the interstate the last car had passed by us during the morning time. There was no one many miles around. We kept moving forward slowly despite of the intense effort we were putting into it.

About three hours had passed but we had progressed just 14 miles since we had left Amboy. As we inched forward we noticed something odd. Far away from any population we saw a flashing red light, far away on one of the rocky mountains in the desert. Initially we thought it was just an antenna, but soon we noticed that light was moving and flying around. It seemed to go down to the floor on the maintain side and then fly upwards and above the mountain. It would then go down on the other side of the mountain, then return. Its erratic movement caught our attention and we kept observing it while fighting with the wind. At this point we just assumed it was a helicopter, maybe a military exercise.


I then saw another light flash just once as far away as the red one. It was an orange light, very strong and bright. It expanded like a bubble, then collapsed and turned off completely. I didn’t say anything just yet but kept looking at the mountains where it had flashed. A few minutes later, it flashed again. This time, it turned on and moved very quickly. In what I estimate to be less than a second it moved from far away to just about 300 feet from us, then turned off. I immediately told my uncle and he started to observe the desert as well. That didn’t seem anything the military would have, really. It’s sharp and incredibly fast movement was intriguing, at the very least. Then it flashed again. This time it was very close, and both of us saw it. The light expanded like a bubble once more on a very bright orange color. Inside the light we could see some kind of structure, but there wasn’t time to make much sense of it. It flashed just three times and then went dark again.

We started questioning what we had just seen. The proximity was worrying, but really there was nothing we could do about it. There was no place to go back, no way to speed up and no one around. We were trapped on that desert road and there was no place to hide. Our only option was to keep pedaling strong move forward against the wind.

During all this time the red light kept floating around in the distance. Then something really strange happened: the red point of light opened up in a curtain of small red points flying in synchronicity. My uncle saw it too, so I knew I wasn’t hallucinating. It lasted for just a couple of seconds, then all points collapsed into the red light and it kept flying and flashing the same way it had before. At this point fast jets started flying over the area. The military had probably picked up something in the radars and were investigating. Again the orange light flashed then another one flashed in the mountains. The red light kept moving around, and then a sequence of orange lights went out of it following an S-like path. It lasted for about three seconds and then the red light appeared in the other end of the path, and kept floating erratically.

That’s when we saw a very large airplane without a tail, much like a flying wing, flaying over the mountains. The airplane released three flares that alone illuminated the whole mountain. Both that airplane and the jets kept flying over the region, as if searching for the things we had just seen but they were slightly to the East so their flares were not helping much. All lights went quiet until the airplanes had left, and then returned. This time, the red floating light released a series of orange lights in a straight lined path and again appeared in the end of it.

At this point we were very curious and worried about our own safety. There was no place to run to, so despite our concerns we had no option other than move forward.  The airplanes came back, searched with flares again slightly on the wrong spot and, as before, all activity ceased until they were gone. Once they did, we saw a white light on the desert floor, maybe a mile away from us. A red light came out of it, and then an orange light appeared on top forming what seemed to be a triangle. The whole structures dropped sideways, as if laying down on the floor and then several orange lights appeared around it forming a circular shape. Of course we were very concerned with its proximity but that was such an incredible view that we stopped to observe it. The circular object started sliding sideways, and then started to move forwards us. We it approached we quickly jumped into our bikes and started pedaling as fast as we could. Thinking about it later we realized that was really a ridiculous gesture due to the fact we were completely alone and not able to run faster than 5mph. For about then seconds that object kept approaching until we could see it more clearly. It had a stronger, brighter white light on one of its sides and a sequence of orange lights around it, but its core was dark.

That’s when we heard a noise and a light coming behind us. A train! We looked behind and saw the locomotive moving West through the rail that runs side-by-side with that stretch of Route 66. As the train approached the circular object went completely dark and all activity ceased. We were under the impression it had hidden from the train, but we can’t be sure. All we know is that it disappeared.

To be continued...