When I was 13, I witnessed a UFO
The brief story of how I became a writer
One sunny Sunday afternoon, I rode my ten-speed home from my best friend’s house. A typical August day in Contra Costa County, California. Except for the wind.
When I arrived in front of our house, a glimmer in the sky caught my eye. Above the church, behind our property. Two shiny metallic spheres, connected by a tube, shaped like a dumbbell.
It struck me as a ship. A spacecraft.
Wind shook the trees on my left. The spacecraft didn’t move. I was all curiosity, no fear.
Time disappeared. I felt calm and peaceful. I looked away a few times to check the trees. The spacecraft remained stationary in the wind. I stared at it for about 45 minutes until boredom set in.
I retreated to my bedroom, grabbed a notepad and pen, and started to write. A story came through me about a teenager named Jason Stewart who met the spacecraft up in the hills. It took him to a world called Erona and landed in the city of Stonitania. Jason joined their society and learned their ways. He befriended an extraterrestrial being who told Jason why he came to Erona, and how one day they would meet again on Earth to fulfill an important mission. A mission that would free humanity from the darkness that enveloped our collective soul. Then the spacecraft returned Jason to Earth to fulfill his new destiny.
On that day, I discovered my destiny. I continued writing. The story evolved. Jason became a wealthy and famous man, what we’d call a spacefaring billionaire today. He organized Earth’s first interstellar mission to a new world. The purpose of the mission: to return his extraterrestrial friend, born into human form, to homeworld. Once home, his friend would reactivate an ancient technology that would end the darkness and usher in a new destiny for humanity.
A previous article chronicles my journey through Hollywood. My enculturation told me that was the way to express my story. It didn’t work out. I took the binder in a fire pit at the park. As the pages burned, I hoped the ritual would release me from the calling to tell this story.
That didn’t work out either. The story evolved as I emerged into adulthood. Yes, I spent years avoiding the calling. And years trying to express it. Other stories emerged. I developed a body of work and vast storyworlds that I knew would take years to write once I found the right way to express them. And I continued the long, slow journey to embody my inner artist, to reclaim the parts of my soul that went up in flames in that fire pit.
Finally, decades later, after years of ideation, I wrote the first draft of a novel that tells Jason’s story. The story born on that August day at age 13. My present-day artist reconnected with my inner teen. We travelled with Jason in that dumbbell-shaped spacecraft to the planet Erona and back again.
He may never tell you the secret, but now you know. Council-in-training is Jason Stewart. He’s going to change the world. Follow his article series, “They called me Council-in-training,” as Jason integrates his otherworldly experiences and follows his path to a new destiny.
