|
On
the night of 8-9 March 1993, Erwin Lohre, an artist and
former military pilot, was sleeping at his family home in
Braunschweig, north-central Germany. At around 12:30am,
he suddenly awoke with a stabbing pain in the area of his
spine. “I at once took a painkilling tablet and laid
down again,” he recounted to Dr. Peter Hattwig, a UFO
investigator. “Meanwhile, my wife had also awakened
simultaneously.” Suddenly, we heard a clear humming
sound coming from the sky. After three or four seconds,
this noise, which seemed “metallic” as though
produced by a centrifugal force, grew louder, and then,
through the bedroom window, we saw a bright round shining
object stationary at a height of some 10 metres or so above
the birch trees to the east. There was a full Moon at the
time. But despite that, our bedroom and terrace outside
was lit by something even more powerful than the moonlight
– a bluish-white colour like neon lighting. At the
same time, we both felt a strange metallic sort of taste
on our tongues.
Up
till then, I had scarcely given a moment’s thought
to UFOs, but it was now quite clear to me that I was looking
at an unknown flying object, and I said to my wife: “Look!
See what it is! They are going to land here!” Being
a former fighter pilot myself, I wanted of course to see
what was going on. But when I tried to stand up, I found
that I could not move, and for my wife, it was just the
same. Also our two kittens, which sleep on the foot of the
bed, were both sitting there, both upright, and looking
as though they had turned to stone. Meanwhile, our bedroom
window was being bathed, on and off, in a bright yellow
beam of light apparently coming down from above.
I
didn’t get frightened because I was so completely spellbound.
Indeed, if anything, my feeling was rather one of annoyance
because I was immobilized and unable to get to the window.
But afterwards, my wife had a thorough fit of the shakes.
The eerie apparition lasted altogether about 40 seconds
or so, and then the vivid light ended abruptly. Then, some
30 or 40 seconds later, we saw the UFO fly over our bedroom
window in a westerly direction and vanish. Simultaneously
the paralysis ended for both of us. My wife was too upset
to be able to sleep anymore, and so was I.
Then,
about half an hour later, we heard the same sound again,
coming from the other direction. Our bedroom has windows
on the two sides, and so we got a full view of the UFO for
the first time. From a distance of about 300 metres, we
watched it flying straight towards us. Again, we heard the
same sounds as before, and for about six seconds or so,
we could see its shape absolutely clearly. The craft was
shimmering with all the colours of the rainbow … the
cupola was a bright, shining silver. The underside had three
coloured apertures and a central light.
Then,
just as the disc – which I estimated to be about 10
metres wide – was nearly right over us, something quite
unbelievable happened. It simply dissolved into thin air
– between one-tenth of a second and another –
and it was gone, without any transition!
Lohre
reported the encounter to a local newspaper. “After
the newspaper had published the report,” he said, “25
people contacted me, including one whole bowling team that
had been traveling home at the time. Unfortunately, none
of them was prepared to go public as eyewitnesses.”
Dr Hattwig asked Herr Lohre if he had the impression that
the craft was ‘seeking’ him personally. “Absolutely!”
replied Lohre. “For it was hovering there right beside
my bedroom window, as though they knew exactly where I was.
It is true that my wife and I were both paralyzed, but unlike
me, she felt no pain in the spine.”
AFTERMATH
The
day after the incident, a number of peculiar developments
occurred. “At 4 p.m.,” recounted Lohre, “my
wife and daughter and I – who were all in different
rooms at the time – saw a light like a photo-flash
in front of our TV sets, accompanied by a crackling sound.
Then, an hour later, phenomenal discharges came from the
TV sets downstairs. Furthermore, we found that our computer
had acted up. We never found any reason for that, and it
has never happened again. Then, at about 10 p.m., suddenly
a tremendous banging started up inside our wardrobe, as
though somebody was shut in there. But despite all our efforts
and searching, we could find absolutely no reason for the
noise. And every time we opened the wardrobe, the noise
stopped. On and off, the eerie happenings went on for a
further eight weeks, and disturbed us badly.”
“After
the encounter”- Lohre said – “I had constant
pain in the spine, and, a week later, using a mirror, I
discovered on my spine, at the level of the buttocks, two
red marks, about 2 cm apart. I went to see a doctor, who
then found two black spots below the skin. He applied an
ointment, and he referred me for a CAT scan (Computer tomography),
but before I was able to go there, two little black lens-shaped
things came out of my back. I put them away very carefully,
to show them to the doctor, but by the second day following,
they had simply evaporated.”
Dr.
Hattwig asked Lohre what was his explanation for the little
black things and the latter had none. Dr. Hattwig asked:
“Have you ever heard anything about UFO abductions?”.
Lohre eyed Hattwig with an unbelieving look. As he was to
admit to him later, such an idea was utterly new to him,
and up till then he had never heard of anything of the sort.
But later on, Lohre replied: “I did indeed read about
it later on, and I did play around for a while with the
idea of undergoing hypnosis, but so far, I haven’t
taken that step.” This was a wise decision on Lohre’s
part because regression hypnosis is known to be very unreliable.
|
