Last week I wrote a story for the Journal of San Juan Islands, and I think I finally found some fans.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I wrote about a UFO sighting in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. It\u2019s the first UFO story I have ever written and, amazingly, no one is calling demanding I be replaced with a well-dressed mannequin draped in apparent hair. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n I received a call from Jim Dunn late in the day on Jan. 19, while I was sending pages for the Journal. He told me he had a story he wanted to discuss. I told him I was sweating a deadline and asked if we could talk the next day. There was something about the conversation that interested me, and I hoped he would call.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Fortunately, Dunn called back the next day. At first I thought he wanted to talk about a problem in his neighborhood or with some goofball city rule. It took me a moment to get it through my thick fog that he was talking about a UFO sighting.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Dunn said on Jan. 15 at about 6:15 p.m. he saw three orange lights over the main street of Friday Harbor \u2013 Spring Street.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n He thought at first it was a plane making a very low approach to land at the town\u2019s airport, which he thought was odd. Next, he assumed the lights must be a helicopter or a drone, but there was something <\/span>weird about the movements.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cIt was three orange lights moving independently,\u201d Dunn said. \u201cAt first, I rationalized it was a drone, but they were moving too rapidly.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Once I finally realized this was a different kind of story, I had to decide if Dunn was a regular guy, not a wacko like me.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n He came to the office in Friday Harbor and we spent some time talking. He was a very sensible, intelligent man. Dunn is a retired architect and private pilot, which meant he had a pretty good understanding of the way an aircraft would approach the airport.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n That is when the story got interesting. Dunn had contacted air traffic control at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island. The controller told Dunn there was a helicopter listed as being in the area, but it was 45 minutes after the sighting, Dunn said.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Dunn contacted Peter Davenport, director of the National UFO Reporting Center, who suggested he contact the local media (that\u2019s me) to see if anyone else saw the light.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n After The Journal published the story, several people sent emails about the same lights.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Now, I have to admit this is just plain fun. Few stories I do can be described in that manner.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n The intriguing part of the news business is I never know what is coming around the corner. One day someone is calling for my well-groomed scalp, and the next it is an alien doing the moonwalk. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n While driving back from the Islands, I began considering the deep implications of UFOs, aliens, and why I was having so much fun with outer space (fun and me just can\u2019t be right). <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n A ferry ride that probably lasted too long allowed me to imagine a TV world in the not-too-distant future where the top Super Bowl ad might be for the website, \u201cFindYourAlienGirlfriend.com.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cThink you\u2019re a baldy head? Your alien girlfriend knows better. Call 1-800-milky way now. \u201c<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Tell me that won\u2019t cheer up any Super Bowl fan suffering through a deflected pass.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Another interesting point was, that the day Dunn came to the office, CNN published a story about the Air Force UFO files being released. The story stated John Greenewald had put all the documents together and posted it to his website, \u201cProject Blue Book Collection.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n I haven\u2019t had a chance to spend any time on the site, but I plan to, and I intend to keep in touch with Dunn.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n After Super Bowl XLIX, it might be a good time for Seahawk fans to look to the sky for some relief.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Reach Dennis Box, Covington Reporter regional editor, at dbox@maplevalleyreporter.com or 425-432-1209, ext. 5050.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last week I wrote a story for the Journal of San Juan Islands, and I think I finally found some fans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":215,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-21969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21969"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/215"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21969\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21969"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=21969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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