What Did I Just See Kathy Polich

WHAT DIDIJUSTSEE?

By Kathy Polich

I don't spook easily. I think I'm pretty tough. However, living in Northwest New Mexico, the majority of my life has afforded me a few opportunities of being unnerved to my core! My grandma always told us there are no such things as ghosts. Growing up on a ranch outside of Grants, her tough ranch mom always encouraged her brood to investigate anything that seemed eerie. Grandma would tell me if you see a figure in the shadows, don't run away, take a look. It will turn out to be a branch or something harmless. I always thought that sounded a bit crazy, what if it was the boogie man? Maybe not a mistake you want to make. Well, following in the legacy of my fearless foremothers, I'd say 90 percent of the time that has proven to be reliable. The remainder of my encounters, I haven't been able to resolve. After you read the following episodes, I'll let you figure out which one I solved and which two still slip into my dreams on occasion.

Ghost Road

I think it was around 1986 or 1987. It was already dark outside when my dogs started barking. I knew my friend Nicole was in front of my house to pick me up when I heard her rev the engine on her Suzuki DR 100 dirt bike. That was our form of communication before we had cell phones. There was no way she was going to knock on my door. Not with Jumper, my blue heeler, keeping watch. I jumped on the back of her bike and asked her what we were going to do. She said we were going to meet some of the neighbor boys for a game of chicken, but we had a bit of time to get some practice in first. Our version of chicken is different from what you might be thinking. There was a road in our neighborhood that only had two houses, one on each end. Each house had a porch light. Other than that, the gravel road was pitch dark. One of the houses had Doberman watchdogs. If you drove by, they would chase you the length of their owner's property. Our chicken game consisted of approaching from the opposite end of the street and driving as slowly as possible. Winning the game was easy. All you had to do was drive the furthest slowly while the attack dogs approached. The first one to accelerate and get the heck out of there was chicken. Looking back, this was dumb, and I get why the poor owner hated us. I even forgive him for sneaking up on the opposite side of the road and trying to hit us with a broom one time! Dear neighbor, my 12-year-old self apologizes! It was a crisp fall night. We stopped at the end of the road and discussed our strategy. Nicole started creeping up the street. We could hear the dogs approaching, but couldn't see them. We were both looking off to the left, which was the side the house was on. For some reason, something caught my attention, and I turned to the right. There was a figure running right next to us. I tapped Nicole on the shoulder to get her attention and screamed a few expletives. She saw it too and started to accelerate. For a few seconds, the specter ran beside us. Just as suddenly, it veered off the road and into the dark sagebrush field. Nicole hammered that bike, and we didn't slow down until we got a half a mile up the main road. We were shaking and almost crying. We didn't even know how to put into words what we had seen. We called the game of chicken off that night. From then on, we referred to that area as Ghost Road. Every once in awhile, when I run into my dear childhood friend, we talk about that night on Ghost Road. That night we will never forget! I could tell you many more stories from my childhood on the west side of Gallup, but for now, I will fast forward about twenty years and switch locations to the south of Gallup.

UFO OMG!

One evening in 2008, my boys and I got home after an afternoon of shooting guns with the Red Rock 4H shooting team. My son was in kindergarten and was so excited to have shot his very own Cricket Rifle. He was chatting non-stop the entire way home and never stopped until he had bathed and settled down in front of a movie with his little brother in tow. As I finished up a few odds and ends for the day, it occurred to me I had left a to-go box from Garcia's Sunset Grill in my pick -up. Not wanting to let that gold go to waste, I ran out to my truck to collect my flauta plate. I went out the sliding glass door and didn't bother to put shoes on. I walked down the deck and onto the cement walkway. When I got to the end of it, I did a sort of awkward walk dance thing, not wanting to put all my weight on the gravel the last few steps. I grabbed the styrofoam container, shut the cab door, and turned around to make the same trek back. Right about the final tricky step before I hit the cement, I noticed something in the sky. I stepped down hard on a gray gravel rock and cussed a little. I

jumped to the cement and turned my focus to the horizon. It was late evening, the sun was down, but the sky was still bright and full of fall colors, you know, those colors that have no hues attached, but we all know as merely the color sunset. I saw this object, and it was moving parallel to the skyline. It was humongous and moving very fast. I couldn't wrap my mind around it. I started running down the path back to the door. It was propelling with me. Ordinary objects in the sky, like a plane, wouldn't do that. When you watch an airplane, for example, it will take several minutes to pass overhead and out of your line of view. Also, an aircraft moving overhead is small, like maybe a staple size. The orb was the size of my fist and was moving fast. For a few seconds, I just gazed at it in disbelief.

I remember thinking, "Thank you, God, for letting me see this!" It was beautiful and scary and unexplainable. I started yelling for my mom and my son. By the time they popped out, I was screaming for them to get my phone so I could snap a pic. In the 30 seconds between me first seeing it and them coming outside, it had vanished. Not a trail in the sky, no remnants to prove I wasn't crazy. My usually calm demeanor was gone. My heart was racing, and I was talking in incomplete sentences. I kept yelling at my family, asking if they had seen it. I was babbling about white lights, sphere shapes, etc. I went in and called a few of my neighbors, none of them had seen anything, but all thought I had gone off the deep end. My mom suggested I call one of the news channels to see if anyone else had reported it. Um no, I didn't think I was ready to become the Crazy UFO Lady of Pine Haven, officially!!!! I did not sleep a wink that night, and not well for several in a row. I couldn't grasp what I saw. I couldn't explain it, and neither did my countless hours of research on the internet. Imagine my surprise when about a year later, I saw it again............

I Like Tall Men!

For all of you out there that like to shed (antler) hunt, you know those last few months before the browns hit the ground are hard to wait through. One brisk Saturday morning in February of 2016, I decided to go on an early scouting trip. I knew it was more than a month early, but I thought I might be able to find a few old sheds someone had missed from the year before. I was tired of winter and just wanted to take a hike. One of my sons was off at a baseball camp. I woke my other son up and asked him if he wanted to go. The fourth-grader mumbled something incoherent rolled over and went back to snoring. I let my mom know I was going for a hike. Since it was still technically winter and I was going by myself, I told her exactly where I would be and when I would be back. When I go to the woods, I don't like to go to popular places. I don't go to be social, and I sure as heck don't want to see anyone. But due to the circumstances mentioned above, I decided to stick with a well-known field called Muddy Meadows. There was still snow in some areas, and the rest was damp if not muddy that time of year. I planned to walk the field early while the ground was still frozen. I parked Ruby, my red Ford 4x4 truck on the side of the road, grabbed my backpack containing some water and snacks, and headed off with my 22 pistol holstered on my hip. I headed east in a bit of a downhill fashion. It only took me a few minutes to realize the ground was hard to walk on. The snow that still covered part of the land was very hard. All the moisture had evaporated, and it was ice-like.

I glassed the field with my binoculars and didn't see anything that caught my interest. I headed down a ditch line but realized the spots that didn't have the snow were too muddy. I circled back around and headed back in the general direction of my truck. Every once in awhile, I could see Ruby sparkle in the sun through the trees, so I was using that as my beacon of where I wanted to come out. I decided to take an animal trail that led up the incline to the road. I could tell it was an area that got a lot of animal traffic. Like the meadow below, there were spots of snow and then some patches of dirt. I glanced up and noticed tracks that were going up the hill for at least 50 feet. I stopped and tried to decide what kind of path it was. I noticed that it looked like a two-legged track. The indentions in the snow were larger than a typical boot. At first, I thought it was probably snowshoes. Then I came across a clean imprint. I stared at it, trying to decipher what it was.

My mind would not allow me to conclude what I was thinking. I continued up and found a few more. When I saw how big the gate was between the prints and did a bit of math, it hit me like a ton of bricks. If these tracks were snowshoes, they belonged to a 12-foot tall man! I like tall men, but I don't ever want to run into a fella that big! I took some pictures with my foot as a reference point. Then I got out of there, the tiny hairs on the back of my neck were at attention. I made it back to my truck and made a mental note of where I was parked so I could come back with a better camera and some backup. The tracks weren't fresh, but I knew they wouldn't be there long since the snow was melting off fast. I left McGaffey and headed back towards home. I stopped at Bear Springs to grab a cup of coffee. I'm quite chatty and struck up a conversation with the guy behind me. He asked me where I had been, and I replied that I had been hiking. He then proceeded to ask me if I had heard of any of the recent rumors about some Sasquatch sightings up around Strawberry Canyon. I said no, kept my tracks to myself, and went home. I was unable to go back for a few days, and when I did, I was never able to locate the area. I've spent a lot of time in the woods; if I was going to find evidence of Bigfoot, why would it be so close to where people frequent? Those were the same feelings I had when my son and I found a Chupacabra carcass. Wait, I digress. That's a story for another time........

My grandma was right about one thing: most of the time, logic will explain weird circumstances. Not always though, and those are the times that make for a great adventure!