Beneath the Frozen Pond:

Another blistering hot climate change day on the ranch here in Texas. As usual, the power had gone out, yet another power down outage. It had been freakishly hot, even by abrupt climate change standards, and the air was almost combustible, but I don’t suppose air can catch fire can it? Science, as you will see is not one of my strengths.

The point I am struggling to get to is that blackouts now are common. It may come from people all having their ACs on, so that the power station blows a fuse, or whatever it is that goes down. Alternatively, the heat causes massive storms, by a process that my high school science teacher explained, but I have now forgotten, as this is the summer holidays, and who uses their brain in such unliveable, sweltering heat?

Consequently, without charge, soon both my Mac Book and iPhone were flat. Sad, I moped around the front porch, fanning myself with a primitive object, I think it is called a newspaper. Mom eventually came out and suggested that it might break the boredom to put on sunscreen, like say 50 liters of the stuff, and get on the trial bike and go down to the pond. It would take my mind off the heat, and it might be a tad cooler down there. Maybe; but it will probably be dried up.

Thus, I made my preparations and began my journey through the parched landscape. I thought to myself that a few more years of this drought and the ranch will go bankrupt. The place will be like a Martian landscape. A wave of anxiety swept over me, as it does everyone faced with becoming a refugee from their home. It is going to break Mom and Dad’s hearts to lose this place, something they had poured their souls into.

Then I got to the pond. I half expected it to be bone dry. But, to my utter amazement, the pond was frozen! A frozen pond right in the middle of a towering inferno? Surely the laws of physics, and I could not remember which one would be applicable, I needed the internet to work that out, did not cease to exist here? I parked the bike next to a dead tree and almost ran to the frozen pond, but even in the face of a seeming miracle, it was too hot to run.

I touched the surface of the pond. It was not frozen water at all but some substance more like super-hard plastic. It was neither hot nor cold. I looked around for a rock and found one with a sharp edge. I then stabbed at the surface with the rock, and the edge broke. I threw a large rock at the surface, and the rock disintegrated! This alarmed me … is this how things are supposed to work? Freaking out a bit, I got on my trial bike and went home to tell Mom and Dad.

Both Mom and Dad were both highly skeptical of my report, blaming the heat as warping my mind, but I insisted upon what I saw, or thought I saw. Dad said that we would go to the pond in the work jeep which was full of tools, and he would show the pond who was boss! So, loading up with drinking water, off the three of us went. Mom of course packed lunches, complete with her famous southern apple pie, just in case our adventure made us hungry.

So we arrived at the lake. Dad did an inspection, and was puzzled too. But having been a demolition worker before becoming a rancher he was confident he could crack things. When faced with something that might violate the laws of physics, the best course of action is to always to try and destroy it, was Dad’s philosophy.

First, he got to work smashing the surface with a pick. The pointy bit of the pick broke. Must be a dud pick Dad said. Then he got out his jack hammer and started hammering away. To our amazement the jack hammer simply fell apart! This led to Dad cursing and swearing. Mom calmed him down and suggested that it was time for lunch so that we could think about this. Mom was always the clearest thinker.

We ate our picnic lunch, which calmed Dad down. What should we do if anything? Should we report this to the authorities? But which ones? The military? The CIA? What if this is some sort of extra-terrestrial presence? What would the military do to us? Close down the ranch for sure? But what if this upset the UFO beings, would they decide to invade Earth? Had they already?

After much thought, and a beer, Dad and mom, well, mainly mom, decided that we should do nothing about this. If this was out-of-space people, they were not harming us or the ranch, and minding their own business. They obviously, for whatever reason, did not want to be disturbed. That decided, we packed up and started to head back to the house, resolved to forget any of this had ever happened.

But, we had only been driving for a few moments, when the ground shook, and we heard a loud cracking sound. Mom stopped the jeep and we all raced out. There, coming from the pond area was a round object about the size of the pond levitating up from pond. It hovered for a few seconds, then moved in a zig-zag fashion, and disappeared without a sound. It moved faster than anything I had ever seen. Mom agreed, and she was a pilot in the US Airforce before being discharged on medical grounds after an accident, not her fault.

Back at the pond we were astonished to see – nothing! The weird substance that looked like frozen water, was gone. There were no burn marks, no trace of anything, just a hole in the earth where the pond once was. Was the substance we touched part of the outer surface of the space craft? I don’t know.

After a while we got bored looking at the hole and went home. At least this had taken my mind off of the heat. It would soon be dinner. Over dinner we decided not to talk about this event to anyone. If we were believed it would only bring misery upon us, as the ranch would become a tourist mecca for UFO folk. So, I will keep quiet about this little story and tell no-one. I will not get Vocal about it. Oh, I am telling you, but I can trust you with my secret.