I never intended to share this here (or anywhere, really), but here goes. I have put this in Ask/Tell to encourage any questions by the community, and also so I can keep somewhat sane and only type out the parts that people have interest in.

Background
I was born in 1964 in Washington DC, and have always lived within a few miles of the District. I have two older brothers and a younger sister. I've always had an interest in the subject of UFOs since I first saw the film Chariots of the Gods and The UFO Incident (about the Barney and Betty Hill incident) in the early 70s, and later Close Encounters.

The Long Version
During the 70s, I saw on a number of occassions what I thought were UFOs.

When I was about 12, my brother, his friend, my father, and I saw a very unusual sight in the sky, that looked like a ferris-wheel rolling around. My father put us into the car, and we followed it for a couple of miles until it got too high to see. Each of the four of us remember this night.

In the 80s, I started to obsess a bit about UFOS, and was reading Communion and Missing Time. I was also having very strange dreams about being abducted, but I was sure they were only dreams. One in particular is still very clear in my mind to this day.

My girlfriend and I had a couple of very strange weeks when we were waking up in the middle of the night hearing very strange sounds, then falling back to sleep. One night there were extremely loud "fluttery" noises outside, and very strong light coming in both of our bedroom windows. We both saw and heard the same thing, but we strangely just fell back asleep. There is much more to this, but I'll save it for now.

I became convinced that not only had I been abducted, but that the aliens had been keeping close contact with me since I was very young. For the first time in my life, I became afraid of the dark.

Since Strieber (Communion) talked a lot about his interactions with Budd Hopkins, and since I also had the Hopkins book (Missing Time), I looked in the back of the book, and there was a contact address. After putting it off for a couple of months out of fear, I finally wrote to Mr. Hopkins. I was considering hypno-therapy to remember any details of those strange nights.

Hopkins wrote to me and put me in touch with an associate of his that was in the DC area who was willing to come and interview me. We set up a meeting, and he came to my house to ask me about my experiences. After we talked, he asked me if I wanted to have hypnotherapy, and I told him I was considering it, but had to think on it.

On the one hand, I really wanted to know, but on the other hand, finding out something that dark and terrifying really exists is not something I wanted at all. It didn't help to think that another possibility was to discover that I was crazy. I slowly let go of the idea, and decided it was better to live with uncertainty.

So where do I stand today?
The passage of time does some interesting things to your perception. Things you used to be certain of no longer seem clear cut. Today I don't believe very strongly that anything other-worldy was at play, though I do still hold that it's possible. The problem is that I know I was subjected to the iconic black-eyed alien face and typical abduction scenario before I had experienced any of it... this leaves open too far open the door that I may have imagined the bulk of it.

So far as strange things in the sky... yes I've seen them. I don't know what they are, but I've seen them. I don't assume they were a product of alien intelligence, but I don't know for sure that they weren't.

The Short Version
I believe in the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence having visited us. But I also believe that 99% of the information on the subject is bunk, including personal testimony.

One last interesting thought on the subject. I very rarely have nightmares. Even those dreams that might normally scare someone -- monsters, being chased, etc -- don't normally scare me. Most of the dreams that do terrify me have been ones where I am with friends or family, and we look up to see a UFO, suddenly knowing that it's all real. In my dreams, this is terrifying. It probably would be in real life as well.

Feel free to ask me about any of this. I haven't talked much about it in many years.