A man once told me he saw a space craft hovering over Marlfield Lake outside Clonmel.
This is a true story as told to me and I believe he believes it. I wasn’t there.
It was a nice fresh morning in the late 1990’s, the sort day where you know will it be warm
when the early morning fog burns off. As he turned off the the N24 Primary Road towards
the lake he was glad of the extra peace and quiet and he could now hear the birds singing
more clearly free from the noise of trucks with their little beacons of headlights blazing
through the fog on the main road.
Presently he was walking swiftly, breathing in the wonderful fresh morning air as he
passed by the lake. He could see the fog like a calming blanket over the lake. He could
hear the birds chirping their morn song. He could feel the solid earth under his feet and
the fresh air on his face and hear a gentle breeze blowing through trees. His was the
peace of a morning walk by the lake.
Suddenly, there was a strange ‘beeping’ sound. He was a little spooked at first. Was it a
unusual bird song he wondered aloud to himself? He had not heard that bird sound before.
He let it go walked on.
There was that ‘beep’ again. He thought he would have to ask his friend John, who was an
avid bird watcher, and knew much more about birds than he did, about this. And there it
was again interrupting his thoughts once more. The early morning trance of relaxation was
beginning to fade. He was becoming alert. It was when he scanned the sky for birds he
saw the light twinkling and seeming to move. Thinking it was a star he stopped to look.
Stars didn’t move, did they? He squinted and was amazed to see this one did. And it was
getting closer. And here was that ‘beeping’ sound again getting louder as the ‘star’ got
closer.
His heart began to beat faster. He could feel a sweat on his brow. He had read about
strange lights in skies which had allegedly turned out to be space craft which abducted
people and did experiments on them. He did not want to experiment.
He took out a small pair of binoculars he carried to watch birds on the lake. He could now
see it was a circular shape with a red light on what appeared to be the top. It was just
hovering in the sky. There were no wings or blades as you might see on an aircraft. It was
just hanging over the centre of the lake. He guessed it was 150 feet up, about the same
height you would see the rescue helicopter over Tramore. But this was no helicopter.
There were no rotors and no wings. Just a circular object defying gravity
As the ‘beeping’ got louder a dazzlingly bright light lit up in what he supposed was the
bottom of the object. This became brighter and brighter and extended down to the water
passing over the foggy lake like a narrow searchlight and all the while this ‘beeping’ sound
continued. The water appeared to glow underneath the searchlight. After one or two
passes it withdrew the beam and the white light at bottom of the craft went out.
Then the strange object suddenly launched into movement. It went up and down and
across, almost like a cross pattern, almost like a blessing he thought, and finally vanished
in a trail of light and a reducing ‘beeping’ sound
For what must have been ten minutes he stared at the now empty part of the sky where
the object had been. He was transfixed. Stunned. Non Plussed. He came to and suddenly
realised there was complete silence. Not a sound of any bird song or chirp or the breeze
in the trees.
And then the fog had suddenly cleared. The birds began to sing. The breeze sang its
song in the trees.
He reached for a cigarette. He was trying to quit but needed something to steady his
nerves. He was glad to get back on the N24 with its loud trucks and headlights.