Friday night fun in Central City, circa 1972, usually started with a high school basketball game and ended with Jackie and me driving around Muhlenberg County looking for adventure—whenever her mom let us borrow her 1968 Chevrolet Nova.
We often ended up at “the strip pits”—a large area that Peabody Coal Company had surface-mined and left looking like the radiation-blasted plains of Mars. But that was more entertaining than watching our equally dull classmates circle the drive-throughs in their parents’ cars, checking out who else was cruising around.
At first, there was nothing special about this one November night. After we reached the pits, we raced up and down the wide roadways designed for the giant, high-capacity dump trucks we called “ukes”—the yellow ones with the oversized 6-foot-high wheels.
It’s hard to believe, but driving at high speeds across the rough, gravely roads in total darkness between deep, water-filled, coal-spoil pits eventually lost its thrill. Before long, we grew bored—and low on gas. So, we started back toward town, planning to loop around Burger King a few times before our midnight curfew.
As we passed by a pit nicknamed Anchor Lake, so called because its shape resembled a ship’s anchor, I noticed something glowing in the water, or rather, under the water.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing.
Jackie slowed from her normal 70 miles an hour—as fast as her mom’s Nova could manage on a level straightaway with a tailwind—to a sedate 45.
“Where?”
“In the lake.”
“Just a reflection, Artie,” she said dismissively.
“No,” I argued. “It’s a light. There’s no moon tonight.”
Jackie eased her foot off the gas, causing the car to sputter and slow from inertia and Muhlenberg County’s weird gravity anomalies. She leaned forward, gazing past me across the surface of the lake that now glittered with a soft yellow aura.
“Maybe someone missed a turn and plunged into the water?” Jackie guessed, suddenly slamming on the brakes and nearly flinging me into the windshield.
We climbed out into the nippy night. The Nova’s hot engine slowly ticked like a nearly wound-down grandfather clock. Nervously, we walked over to the pit. Kentucky’s Fish and Wildlife folks had forced Peabody Coal to stock the heavily polluted pits with fish, so an eye-watering stink of dead sea life filled the air.
As we stood there staring into the black water, the light shifted from yellow to green and then to rose.
“Whoa,” Jackie marveled, “that doesn’t look like submerged headlights.”
“It’s probably too late to rescue anybody, anyway,” I said. “Remember driver’s ed class—you only have about 60 seconds to get out.”
Our breath made puffs of condensation, and sleet stung my cheeks. Ice pellets that missed my face popped against my nylon windbreaker and baseball cap.
“Maybe the lights are from some sort of mining equipment,” Jackie suggested, pulling her parka more tightly around herself.
“Why would Peabody put a piece of equipment underwater?”
“Could be a testing device,” Jackie said. “Like the State sampling the water to see why all of their fish had died.”
That sounded reasonable at first. But why would an automatic sampling doohickey need lights? And how was it powered?
“More likely, someone’s pranking us,” I suggested.
We looked around for the jokester but saw only darkness.
“No one else is out here,” Jackie emphasized.
“Then what’s causing that?” I asked, motioning toward a huge, illuminated circle.
We remained mesmerized by the glowing water for a few more moments before my danger detector started to tingle.
“Let’s drive back to Riley’s Chevron and call the cops.”
“Right. Once they’ve had a laugh, they’ll make us take breathalyzer tests. If Mom found out about that, she’d kill me.”
“You have a better idea?” I asked.
“We could toss rocks into the water and see what happens.”
“Seriously? Why don’t we just shoot at it?”
“Spoken like a true Kentuckian,” Jackie said. “But where’s your gun?”
So, six rocks later, including one near-boulder that Jackie heaved in with an underhanded toss, the pit’s water rippled. But the light remained stationary, quivering through the murky water.
“Well, that was disappointing,” Jackie lamented, a bit out of breath.
Just then, the object not only changed color again, but it nearly doubled in size while moving toward the surface—and us.
“Looks like we got its attention,” I said.
The light now formed a circle maybe 50 feet across, nearly filling the pit. The surrounding rocks reflected its flickering red color. The water’s surface started to boil as a massive, saucer-like metallic object surfaced.
“Let’s get out of here!” Jackie yelled as she raced to the car with me trailing behind.
Luckily, the Nova started right up.
Unlike most supernatural stories, though, that thing—whatever it was—didn’t follow us home. But as we peeled off, we witnessed a reddish-orange spacecraft streak into the sky from among the high walls of the mine, then vanish into the low clouds.
We drove in stunned silence to the police station without incident, Jackie gripping the wheel like a lifeline. We were too terrified to talk.
The cops called our parents to assure them we were okay. But here’s where things get wackier. Their clock read 2 a.m., while my watch indicated midnight. We’d lost two hours of time. Where did they go? What did we do? Neither of us could remember.
After the police had a laugh at our expense, they did investigate but discovered nothing except our tire tracks and footprints. Case closed—for them.
But “the incident” and trying to account for the lost two hours after our sighting stressed us out. Plus, our classmates teased us mercilessly for months, which strained our friendship.
Neither of us returned to the strip pits again. By graduation, Jackie and I had drifted apart.
In college, I’d planned to major in business administration, maybe even go for an MBA, but my interests changed after that night. Instead, I became a college English professor. I read, researched and lectured on many topics, mostly dealing with paranormal phenomena. But I never managed to solve the mystery surrounding our eerie encounter, which radically changed my career trajectory.
Years later, our Alumni News magazine featured Jackie, who’d become one of the first women ordained into the Episcopal priesthood.
Jackie, a priest? Who’d have guessed? She’d excelled at math and science and was planning to study engineering, maybe join NASA and become an astronaut. How did she get from aeronautics to the priesthood?
Probably the same way I got from business into an English classroom—by wanting to make sense of our uncharted experience.
Our encounter was weird in the Old English sense of wyrd—that is, having great occult power, i.e. the power to control “fate, destiny or doom.”
Those lights have never been reported since that night, at least not in Muhlenberg County, although I’m sure teenagers still go looking for them. In fact, most nights before bed, I step outside and study the sky, seeking answers—especially on cold, cloudy November nights.
I’d be willing to bet that after she recites the evening office from The Book of Common Prayer, Jackie steps outside and does the same.
By Marie Mitchell and Mason Smith | Richmond