a fear of the sky

This is just a personal recollection from my childhood, but as the images were very vivid I thought it might be worth sharing.

When I was a small child, I used to have a terrible fear of being out at night. I was never afraid of the bogeyman or any creatures like that, but was terrified I'd be abducted if I was out after dark. I had a rather active imagination, and living at the fringe of the desert just north of Phoenix, you could often see many stars and other things out there.

At least three times in my life, I've seen UFOs, though never close up. Even as a kid, I thought they could be military aircraft coming from Luke Air Force Base or missile tests coming from White Sands over in New Mexico, but I didn't look too hard. Two memories stick out when I think about.

As I said, since I was afraid of the night sky I almost never went out after dark save when my parents made me for certain chores. I would take the garbage out, literally running from the house to the curb and back inside as quickly as possible. I'd time myself to make sure I came back inside as fast as could be. When I had to go into the backyard to get what was left back there, I'd be afraid the fence would shut.

I also remember having a recurring dream where I would see a spacecraft emerge from the nighttime sky, coming from nowhere to be right in front of me and then being unable to move. But I never remembered anything beyond that, and I usually would try to hide before anything happened.

I'd occasionally have this dream of all these saucer shaped vessels coming to the Earth and being everywhere in the sky. Oddly enough, I don't remember them attacking, but I remember people disappearing. With all the threads about the 28th, it made me think of these memories.

I'm certainly not claiming I was abducted or anything (though I guess anything is possible), but it took me many years to get over those childhood fears. When I was growing up, it was about the time the move "Fire in the Sky" was popular, and my family used to take trips to a cabin not far from there. Beautiful, lonely, and terrifying.

At this point in my life, I figure the aliens can come get me if that's their goal, and I'd be able to put a decent fight in the physical realm or the ethereal as they like, but I doubt any of this was real. It was a good story though, and I wonder if anyone else was afraid of the sky as well.

reply to post by cassandranova


Very similar to my own childhood experience at about age seven-- 1966-ish.

I had not yet heard of UFO's, but had this real terror of being under the night sky. It came on suddenly and I did not know why-- an irrational fear.

My brother suggested it was because I was afraid of flying saucers, and that was the first I had ever heard of them.

Decades later, I read Communion and speculated there could be a connection to UFO's after all, but dismissed that as simply having no evidence. I did not know what scared me so about the night sky.

I still do not know why that happened.

All these years later, I go back over childhood fears and memories-- trying to locate a source for my life-long PTSD-- but keep deciding that awful fear was merely a symptom.