Followed by a Light

Dad spent a lot of time on the tractor and this night he came home scared and told us about lights in the sky that followed him around the paddock. We boys laughed at him and said he had too much to drink and was seeing things. He told us to meet him the following night with a drum of fuel and his dinner and we would see the lights for ourselves

I was too young to go out but I hid behind the seat of the ute. We found dad driving around the paddock and we filled up his tractor with fuel and while he had a feed we boys went off down the creek looking for rabbits.

From out of the west two lights in the sky came toward us, we watched as one light went south and the other went straight over dad then disappeared to the east. We watched as it came back and hovered over the top of the tractor, dad didn’t know he had company and didn’t know why we boys were acting strange. The light followed dad for two laps then landed in the corner of the paddock. We were watching all this from a distance. The light looked like it was shimmering through gauze as it pulsated in a forward rolling motion, we could see the light ball flickering as it moved. The light stayed in that position while dad did two more laps. By that time dad has seen the light and decided to drive the tractor toward it. He stopped about 60 yards away, got out and started walking toward it. The engine of the tractor stopped.

Dad stood undecided for a while then continued walking; that’s when the lights went out on the tractor behind him so he decided to get out fast. The tractor started OK and the light went up into the sky and shot off into the distance. Dad quickly turned the tractor around and headed home leaving all the gates open.

The next day an elderly aboriginal man by the name of Mr Smith was scoffing at the whole lot of us, so we invited him along to see the show. Mr Smith sat in his truck with his work dogs while we gave dad the fuel and food and went off again looking for rabbits. Dad did one round of the paddock and sure enough two lights came from the west, one light went south east and the other went over the top of us and descended into the young pines on the Sugarloaf Hill. The light stayed there for a long time so we boys decided to walk to the Sugarloaf to take a look. All of a sudden my brother yelled, “Lookout it’s coming at us!” We looked up and this light was getting bigger and it seemed that the pine trees were being flattened as it got closer to us. We turned and ran for the Ute. Ben* jumped in and locked the doors, Jim* slid on the vegetation and landed under the ute. I was banging on the windows then ran around the other side and got underneath the ute with him. The light shot off into the sky and disappeared.

Mr Smith believed us after that encounter but he had no dogs left in the truck; they had all cleared out and gone home. The lights in the paddock were never seen again by us but they were also never forgotten, a floating balloon from the local Show was enough to unnerve us boys when we were old enough to be the tractor drivers. 
*Aliases - Rural Australia