The Thing in the Sky

Cool air poured through the open windows of the car as Lisa Becker and her husband pulled through their suburban Chicago neighborhood of Oak Brook one night in 1996.

Nature painted the dusk pink, orange and red, but something dark suddenly smeared the canvas.

“As we approached our subdivision, we saw a large blackness in the air,” Becker said. “It was about eight feet in diameter, about 100 feet away from us, and about 30 feet in the air. It was moving in a straight line.”

Her husband also saw the black figure.

“It had no specific shape and its edges undulated,” she said. “As it flew closer we pulled over to watch it. It was so low that you could have hit it with a rock.”

When they noticed the object, the Beckers later named the “pterodactyl,” it slowly and noiselessly crept through the sky from east to west about 50 yards from the back of their house.

“It moved in a perfectly straight line as if it were on a tightrope,” she said.

The couple watched the object as it sailed about 10 feet past them, 30 feet in the air, and folded in upon itself, disappearing.

“It was not a vehicle,” Becker said. “The best way to describe it would be to say it looked like a very large flat stingray (with) no tail. It moved in a perfectly straight line, and never varied from its path.”

This left the college-educated Beckers wondering what they saw.

“My husband thought it was strange, but didn’t have any particular emotional response to the thing,” Becker said. “Also it didn’t seem to have any sort of depth to it. It was like looking into a very dark spot that could have blotted out anything behind it. It didn’t have any wind or exhaust in its trail. Our best thought, though entirely illogical, was that it was a rip in the space-time continuum.”

Whatever the black, undulating “pterodactyl” was flying over their house, the memory has stayed with the Beckers for 13 years.

“I asked myself at the time, ‘how did the object make me feel?’” she said. “It wasn’t pleasant, maybe even slightly menacing. Not that it was menacing me. It creeped me out a little that it clearly came from the direction of my back yard. So it easily could have crossed over my house.”

The couple, that now lives in Creve Coeur Mo., hasn’t seen the object since.

“My husband and I were amazed. We’re just regular people who saw something strange one day and still can’t reconcile that thing with our logical minds,” Becker said. “This stuff is sort of like UFOs in that there is no one you can talk to or no one to report it to. At least with UFOs there is MUFON. Ever since then I’ve been wondering if anyone else has ever seen something like it.”

Copyright 2009 by Jason Offutt

Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt c/o The Examiner, 410 S. Liberty, Independence, Mo. 64050, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”

Jason’s books on the paranormal, “Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us,” and “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.