Goodreads asked L. Joseph Shosty:

What mystery in your own life could be a plot for a book?

L. Joseph Shosty I thought I saw a UFO once, while living in Topsy, Louisiana. My friends and I were walking to my home one afternoon when one of them noticed what looked like a large, Christmas tree-shaped vessel flying fairly low above our heads. It was moving quietly, too. I would have never known it was there were it not for my friend yelling and pointing skyward. It seemed to glow, and that glow seemed to change colors. To this day, I couldn't tell you what those colors were. We chased it as far as we could, but Topsy is a pretty heavily wooded area, and we lost the ship in the trees.

So, for many years afterward, I truly believed I had had a UFO experience. It wasn't a life-changing moment, but it was always in the back of my mind.

Years later, when I was a senior in high school, one of my younger cousins had checked out a book of experimental aircraft. I had driven him and my mother to the post office. While she was inside, I picked up his book and flipped through it. And lo and behold, there it was. It was an early design I suppose for a stealth bomber. I couldn't tell you what the book said of it. It was such a shock to see the thing a decade or so later that I'm not sure I even read the passage about it.

The way my life has unfolded, if I were to write about such a strange aircraft, I wouldn't make its appearance a major part of the plot. I think there are plenty of strange occurrences in a young boy's life that a glowing aircraft in the afternoon sky is surely among the least.

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