In 2005, I co-authored THE FOG, a book about the Bermuda Triangle with Bruce Gernon. We told Bruce’s story in Aliens in the Backyard, and now as we’re writing the sequel The Synchronicity Highway, I recalled a story Bruce told me that we didn’t use in Aliens. I couldn’t remember all the details, but quickly jotted down the story as best I could, then send Bruce an e-mail with a copy of it and asked him to clarify anything I got wrong.
So here’s what I had written.
On another occasion, Gernon went boating on the ocean with a group of friends near sunset. As the boarded the party boat, Gernon told the owner of the boat that they would see a UFO that evening. The man laughed, thinking that Gernon was joking. But after dark, a bright light appeared in the distance, hovered, then shot off and disappeared. The boat owner told everyone that Gernon had predicted the UFO. “I didn’t believe him and I didn’t believe in UFOs. But thanks to Bruce, I’ve seen the light!”
Bruce called me a few minutes later and reminded me that actually we’d used the story in THE FOG. I’d recalled the gist of it, but left out a lot of details. The UFO had beamed a light down to the ocean, which moved in a slow circle several times as the craft descended lower and lower toward the ocean, then simply disappeared into the sea.
When Bruce called, he was somewhat baffled that I’d written him about this story. In fact, it was fresh in his mind because he had just had lunch with Timothy Bogle, the boat captain, that night, a couple of days earlier and they’d talked about it.
Hey, synchronicity and maybe telepathy as well. Bruce hadn’t seen Bogle for years and I hadn’t talked to Bruce for a few months. Yet it all came together.
The reason he’d gotten together with Bogle was that a History Channel program was considering doing yet another show that would feature his Bermuda Triangle experience and they were looking for a new angle. They wanted to interview the first people he talked to about what happened to him in his now infamous flight from Andros Island to West Palm Beach.
Considering the incident occurred in December 1970, many of those people–including Manson Valentine, then director of the Miami Museum of Science and an avid researcher of mysteries of the unknown–are now dead. But Bogle was still among the living and Bruce remembered telling him about his strange experience the same day he predicted that they would see a UFO when they went out for the planned party at sea.
Bruce told him the production company would also probably ask about the UFO they saw. But 40 years has passed and Bogle, who was a skeptic before he ‘saw the light,’ had slipped back into skeptical mode. He told Bruce it was probably an airplane and besides he was high at the time. Bruce reminded him that the craft had made no sound and they’d remarked that the engine sound of airplanes travels over water for miles. But Bogle just shook his head. He couldn’t go on television and say that he’d seen a UFO.
He no longer saw the light. Too bad. But Bruce sees the light now more than ever. For years, he tried to explain the Bermuda Triangle as an unknown weather condition he refers to as electronic fog. But now in retrospect he’s convinced that the B.T. phenomenon is directly related to UFOs and that the enormous cloud that chased him and surrounded his plane, then literally teleported him 100 miles in an instant, was harboring a UFO. After all, in the aftermath, he had no less than 20 UFO sightings, including one close encounter, and on several occasions he predicted they would appear. Something definitely happened to Bruce that day.
I told him years ago that I felt a UFO was at the heart of his experience, and he finally agrees.
20 ufo sightings since the fog incidence…pretty significant! too bad about bogle but perhaps one day he, too, will see the light…in the meantime, with the amount of people coming forward to report sightings/experiences, hopefully the [current] stigma and/or fears attached will dissipate enough to allow even more to feel free to discuss their own encounters from their backyards…and/or…along those highways…with help from authors such as you all –
Bruce Gernon’s account is featured in the History Channel documentary called Mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle, and also chronicled in Gian Quasar’s comprehensive book Into the Bermuda Triangle, which I can highly recommend. Needless to say, I’m *really* looking forward to Synchronicity Highway, particularly if it deals with more UFO sightings! Rob, you should include the sighting that you had during that flight over the Keys with Martin Caidin back in the 80’s, which you mentioned briefly in an e-mail several years ago. I really want to know more about that one! 🙂
Actually, Trish has already written about Marty Caiden’s psychokinesis experiments that we observed one evening in Gainesville. Like Bruce’s precognitive abilities that developed after his BT/UFO encounters, Marty developed PK after his close encounter. Worth mentioning. But I wasn’t on that plane, I just wrote about it.
Ah, my mistake. I must’ve blurred the details of the incident in the years since I read about it. Interestingly, Caidin’s first Indy novel, Sky Pirates, deals with mysterious flying discs, except they’re not of extraterrestrial origin, but rather are used by a group of international commerce raiders seizing valuable materials (diamonds and gold) to finance their operations. Not the typical Indy adventure, but still quite interesting.
I was watching an old US TV show about the Bermuda Triangle a couple of nights back, on one of the satellite channels, but as usual it didn’t reach any conclusions and really brushed over the UFO angle. Many seem to be reluctant to talk UFOs even after an experience.