Thank you all for the thought-provoking replies and suggestions. Sometime this coming weekend I plan to sit and type into a reply to you all whatever comes to mind for an hour or so. I am working in my office today, shouldn't be doing this, but I wanted to respond briefly to some of your thoughts. If I get the time I am planning for this weekend, I should be able to expand on what I will say here...
For Andy - I have never to this day been able to again find the place I was during the encounter - neither the right-hand rurve, nor the 5-way intersection. For close to a month after the occurence, I felt absolutely driven to return to that spot and take it all in again. But after no fewer than three 2-3 hour expedtitions into the area in which I was riding, I was totally unsucessful in even finding any plce that looked close to the site. I enlisted the help of my son and his male cousin (they were about 17 at the time) who as teenagers have driven all the back roads in our area, but none of us were able to locate the spot. Interestingly enough, my nephew (long since estranged through the divorce of my first wife) had mentioned "I think I've seen that building before" when I sketched it for him. I have always just chalked that comment up to a teen male wanting to spark some attention for himself, as pressing him further for details led to some grinning and red-faced "I don't remember" replies.
My wife and I spent a few hours at least twice on subsequent Sunday afternoons driving around looking for the spot, but again to no avail.
Andy, your suggestion of the building "rising up" from underground is something I had never thought of or heard expressed before. Although I am an avid UFO "enthusiast", I must admit to having a limited exposure to many ideas other than the plain vanilla sightings you read about and see accounts of on TV. To answer your question, however, I remember no dirt on the object, no open ground or obvious breaking of the earth around the base of it. In addition, being a resident of the rural areas all of my life, I have a keen recognition of the smell of freshly-turned soil, as when farmers first plow their fields. I didn't smell anything like that, however, just sitting here contemplating the olfactory angle, I seem to recall the smell of ozone in the air. The reason I say this is the smell of ozone during an approaching thunderstorm has always had a euphoric effect for me. (Of course there is a possibility that I am connecting the euphoria I felt seeing the object with how I feel during a thunderstorm, and the ozone smell self-suggests into that thought process).
In conclusion, Andy, I don't have the feeling that this object arose from the earth, in fact, its pristine, immaculate conditions was one of the more striking things about the encounter....thank you for your thoughts and keep thinking! And with regard to the abductee group, coount me as totally interested and I definitely am going to make those contacts, but again I need to squeeze out enough personal time to make a proper go of it before I start burning up other people's time with my queries. Things are normalizing somewhat with my business now, and I hope to be able to do this very soon, say, in the next few weeks.
For Samsara - yes, I can say this encounter was indeed almost a spiritual event for me! The euphoria that I experienced was total and complete, for probably 30 seconds I felt that all was right and well with the world, and I was reveling in my existence therein. I believe that had I not been riding a motorcycle, I could easily have fallen into a dream state or other deep meditative condition. It probably is a good thing that I was not driving a car, I think the motorcycle commanding constant control input and sharp focus to begin with actually may have saved me from crashing into the trees on the other side of the road.
The experience obviously still affects me, recall my account of the euphoria returning (albeit not as strong) when I was creating the renderings of the image earlier this week.
The reason(s) for my decision to post this story now are not so cut and dried, actually, it was just a case of deciding that I would finally take the time to sit down and search out a place to talk about it with others who are not judgmental and who are knowledgeable about the entire paranormal realm. I can't really put my finger on what actually made me chose a couple of weeks ago as "the" time, but I have some suppositions along those lines, as follows.
My wife and I have always been believers in extraterrestrial life, visits, abductions, the entire gamut. However, in 1995, we were not yet online, and as a working professional couple, we had very little time to devote to tracking down any answers. In the mid-90's, we were pretty well limited to what we happened to catch on TV or read about in paperbacks (such as "Communion" and others.) There were really no easy, ready avenues for searching out answers 12 years ago like there are today. Add to that the ridicule I had been subjected to by friends and acquaintences I had tried to discuss the sighting with, and I think you can see why the desire to do anything any further just sort of lay in the back of my mind. I have always WANTED to seek out answers, but precious little personal time and a lack of sources kept me from doing so.
With the advent of Google, and a huge increase in online activity for us both professionally and for pleasure, it bercame just a simple matter of one day, when I had 15 minutes to spare, saying to my wife "I think I'm going to see if I can find a message board or forum to start researching "the building thing"..." and thus, here I am. No particular reason would be the answet then, Samsara, other than the time just seemed right...
I do not recall the specific date the sighting took place, but I can narrow it down considerably...it was definitely in July 1995. It was after the Independence Day weekend, because we always took a few extra days around that time and went camping. I would not have blown off an afternoon at work if it were before the 4th, due to having to get things ready to go on vacation at my place of employment. That was always a week-long push to be able to be away from the office for more than just a weekend. SO this means it was in the last 3 (or 4) weeks of July (I haven't consulted a 1995 calender yet). Also, it was obviously a weekday - I never worked on Saturday or Sunday at that point in my career. So, I suppse than narrows it to one of what? 15 to 20 days in July 1995. To narrow it further, my habits surrounding leaving the office early make it probably a Wednesday, a Thursday, or a Friday...I generally became bored with work from about mid-week on through Friday. Other than that, I would have to saay I am not sure what the exact date was.
For aleksman71 - I spent an hour or so on Google Earth surveying the area I remember being in. Two things - I was unsuccessful in finding any 5-way intersection, other than the one I am familiar with (which is definitely not the correct location). I believe I have it narrowed down to an area approximately 8 miles square based on the type of terrain I was riding in, but as yet I have been unable to find a road configuration that fits. Of course, that is a 64 square mile box, so it will take me some time to view every part of it in any detail.
At this time, I don't wish to pinpoint the area publicly, at least not yet. I am still considering and debating with myself exaclty how public I wish to become about my experience. I am not ruling it out, but at least for the next little while, I would just want to divulge that it is in an area slightly north and several miles east of Kalamazoo, Michigan, north yet of Battle Creek, Michigan. Part of the reason I don't want to let this out yet is that the location of my sighting is most likely within 20-25 miles of our home. I am sure you can understand my reluctance to be any more forthcoming, at least just now. I have nothing to hide, but I am not sure I want to be responsible for creating any stir in our area, should that occur.
For Nephilim (love the screen name, by the way! Obviously you have turned a Bible page or two)...
You are very observant with regard to my reasons for wanting to leave the ofice that day, and you are thinking in the same realm as me when you wonder if I was somehow being "drawn" to the area! I don't recall this as being just a normal "playing hooky" episode. I had done plenty of those. I do love the outdoors and especially the warmth and sun of summer in Michigan. And I am a long-time motorcycle enthusiast, I can safely say I would rather be riding my motorcycle than to be doing most anything else. But my memory is that that day was somehow different...I recall that while riding in to the office just before 9:00, I was already thinking that this would be a great day to leave early. The most telling thing, however, is that my normal "hooky day" riding area was in a totally opposite direction from the area of the sighting. When wanting to get away, I rarely if ever rode back in a direction toward my home, in fact, I would consciously want to ride as far from home as time would allow. And in that particular case, I had well over 4 hours of time to wander. It stands to reason that I would have ridden to some point at least 2 hours from my house, not 20 minutes as I did that day.
I also remember not being so productive that morning - I am a highly driven individual, and have a strong work ethic...I normally really give it all I've got...but that day, I remember being very pre-occupied with wanting to leave the office - almost to the point of saying "I'm pretty well useless here, I may as well leave".
If I can find the place again at some point, I will definitely conduct a through search of the area. Out of characters ...
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