I published this story in May, 2013.

I’ve never told this story to anyone but a few close friends. That is because telling this story makes people think I’m bloody nuts. I had a very close encounter of the first kind.

It was 1999. I was a construction manager for a company in Phoenix that expected us to start at 6am. I lived 20 minutes away and I took the fastest route which was the 60 freeway to the 10 freeway.

It was dark outside when I left for work. I hadn’t traversed but a few miles when I saw something strange ahead of me on the left side of the freeway; maybe quarter of a mile ahead of me.

As I was traveling at 60mph, it took only seconds before I was facing the strangest thing I’ve seen in my life. I could make out a shape instantly. It looked like a Korean War helicopter with the big bubble glass encased cockpit. But in this case, all I could see was the bubble. As it approached, it looked crystal clear, but then turned to milky white…and then back to clear glass. I saw a solitary figure inside. This bubble had no wings or helicopter blades or jet engine or propellers. I slowed down to a crawl on a nearly empty freeway. There was no mechanical evidence on what propelled this thing. I came to a full stop. I could not discern any sound other than the quiet ambience of a desert morning.

It appeared to be a bit smaller than the helicopter bubble we associate with a MASH helicopter. The figure inside looked like an average sized man. It moved slowly as if it were observing me and maybe a couple other cars on the freeway…these cars had also come to a near stop.

Suddenly, it dived from the high ground next to the freeway and swooped into traffic. Cars slowing down behind me, that were going no more than 40 mph, swerved to miss it and me. In the moment, it seemed impossible that no fender benders occurred.

The bubble swooped up gracefully and glided to the left side of the freeway once again hovering above the adjacent frontage road. There was a sense that it was toying with the onlooking drivers. I don’t think I breathed through my nose the entire time.

It hovered on that road next to the freeway approximately 10 feet in the air. As I slowed down, I could finally, and clearly, see the figure inside. The glass was only slightly milky, and I could make out specific features of the individual driving this thing. I saw a head and a partial face. I saw a thin body. My instinct was it couldn’t be a military vehicle because the man had no helmet or bulky garb.

I opened the window to listen and there was no sound coming from this hovering object. Nothing. It was deadly quiet. I saw no heat signature being emitted which would identify some sort of propulsion system.

It was still hovering when I saw the figure turning and staring at the freeway. I could no longer chug along at 10mph and had to move on. I strained to look in the rear-view mirror and watched again as it swooped down on to the freeway, scattering the cars behind me. It then doubled back to about 100 yards in front of me. This time, it seemed to be aiming at me in the middle lane of a three-lane freeway. I slammed on the brakes and it just gracefully, and quickly, swooped up to avoid hitting me no more than 20 feet from the front of my car.

I grabbed my cell phone and dialed 911. I was all adrenaline. I told the operator what I saw. “An alien! In an alien spaceship!!” I asked if any of the air force bases were doing testing and I got a curt, “No” on the other end. How did she know? I was just a kook to the operator.

I hit the accelerator to avoid becoming a crash statistic and lost view of the UAP behind me. The vehicles, that barely avoided being rammed into, hit their accelerators to get the hell out of there. I tried to catch up to see if I could get someone to pull over to discuss what happened, but there was a feets-don’t-fail-me-now mentality.

To this day, I have no idea what I saw. Nothing within my scope of knowledge made what I saw identifiable. A bubble with no wings, no jets, no helicopter blades…just a bubble with a man inside. And it did not make a solitary sound as it maneuvered.

I hoped that the other cars would have reported it. I listened to the news all day and checked the newspaper the next morning. Nothing.
Less than two years earlier, Phoenix made worldwide news with ‘The Phoenix Lights.’

Now you can say, “Katman is fucking nuts.” But I know what I saw. I was prompted to share this because I watched a 2024 series on Netflix called “Investigation Alien.”
Check this Wikipedia Article titled “The Phoenix Lights.”

This photo is the closest thing I could find that approximates what I saw:

Categories: CIGAR REVIEWS

Tags: My Close Encounter of the First Kind | Cigar Reviews by the Katman