One of the Top 5 Most Amazing Things I Experienced

Years ago, when I was in my thirties, I lived in Texas.

Following my first divorce, I owned a modest house in north Dallas, and while trying to recover from that ten year slo-mo train wreck (half my fault, of course), I was making the best I could of myself. 

I found new work, I resolved to eat my meals sitting down at my table with cloth placemats, to keep my house clean and to be kind to a mutt named Guapo I rescued from the animal shelter. I was finding a new sort of peace, was reading a lot of Taoist writings, and all-in-all was OK with myself. None of this has to do with this story but the context allows me to sidle up to the content ... content that is so amazing, even I would find it hard to believe (if I had not been there). 

One Saturday afternoon, after mowing my small lawn on a lovely summer's day, I decided to take a shower and rest for a bit. I finished with the shower and lay down on my bed, thinking I might take a nap — however, I wasn't sleepy. I had closed my mini-blinds to dim the room and had just closed my eyes as well when I began to have a strange physical experience. 

As I lay in bed, beginning with my feet, I felt as though a light or some form of energy was moving up and through my body. The word "scanning" describes it most accurately now, but at that time, years ago, scanners were not the everyday sort of machine they now are. I felt slowly swept by a permeating light. 

The light sweeping me didn't disturb me. Although I had never had this sensation before and had no explanation for what was happening, I wasn't alarmed. As it passed through my head, I had the distinct understanding, for I never heard any audible words or sounds, that something very intelligent had just "studied" me. I knew that somehow this intelligence had just measured or recorded or tapped into ... every bit of information that composed me. Again, if I had had the word "downloaded," I might have thought my info had been completely downloaded. 

This "scan" was over very quickly — maybe thirty seconds or less — but, after the energy had passed, I was aware that this being was still accessible, if not present in the room. I wondered why it had chosen me to study and as the question framed itself in my mind, the being answered, "Because you are receptive."

Now that simply was not an answer I would make up.

As I lay there wondering slightly if I were hallucinating or dreaming or "making this up," I was clear that that answer was not my own. I would have gone for a joke line, "Uh, well we were actually looking for Roger Staubach but got the address wrong," or something sensible like, "Oh, no special reason. We just block out sectors and you fall inside this one." 

As I thought about that response another thought hit me.

"Hey, I have a super intelligent being on the phone here (now I would say online) and I could ask a very important question and possibly get a fantastic anwer!"

Consider what you might have asked in my situation. Here is a being or beings that have the capacity to reach to another part of the cosmos and pinpoint one lower-middle class guy, scan his brain in a few seconds' and talk to him telepathically. They might know anything!

I could have asked for extra-insider info on the stockmarket for instance. Had I queried them about Dell, for instance (a start up at that time), I could have made a fortune investing my small savings in computers. 

However, what came to mind at the time was this: "Is there a cure for heart disease?"

That question was not out of the blue, my dad had (at that time), recently had a heart attack and survived ... but, as you will see soon, it hardly was worth the effort asking. 

The being's answer, as before, came immediately and was surprising. The alien "said" this in my head: "Take a single pure crystal of cobalt dioxide, imbed it in the wall of the heart muscle, and the heart will completely heal."

While I pondered that answer, (again, not one I would have gone with), I became aware that this being was now "gone." The signal had shut down, the beam was off, the dude had split. There was no time for a follow up question. 

As I said, the question was fairly useless, not because it was unimportant but because of the nature of the interchange. Here I had, in my head, potentially one of the great findings of medicine and the healing arts ... the cure for one of the leading killers of humankind ... but — an alien had given me the info. Period. End story. Or nearly so. 

Think of it ... could I now call my folks and tell them what had happened? Should I run around and start knocking on doors, spreading the good news about cobalt dioxide? Why not contact the Dallas Times Herald and get a reporter out to break this headline news? Basically, I was screwed ... like a man trapped on a desert island who comes upon a great chest filled with gold ... I had no place to spend this wealth. People kept dying in the meantime and are dying today from this serious disease. 

There is a follow up to the story, although it doesnt involve a reunion with the alien know-it-alls. I was in a doctor's office a few years ago — no, not a shrink's office — and started thumbing though one of those doctor type magazines. Low and behold I came upon an article about a scientist at a major California University, that rhymes with Blanford, who was working on a cure for heart disease. His focus, and one that had me drop-jawed, was on cobalt as a treatment! I took his name down and resolved that somehow I would contact him. No mention was made of cobalt dioxide, and the man had not found a cure — he was just getting closer to effective treatments as best I could understand. 

I don't remember if I contacted him immediately. Again, what or who was I going to cite as my authority on this "cure," or protocol? But, one day, a few years back, sitting in my college office, I thought ..."What the hell? I contact the dude, tell him my tale and then the ball is in his court."

I even thought maybe the fact that I was a professor would keep him with the story long enough to hear the punch line. (Of course, I am an art professor — which doesn't have the cachet of some of the other fields of research.) So, I Googled him at Blanford and e-mailed him once I had found his contact address. 

I didn't beat around the bush with him. There was a bit of a lead in suggesting that he may find what I had to write amusing and just print off a hardcopy and keep it around for a laugh; but then, I spoke seriously, saying that, whatever he thought or felt about what I had to say, I was an intelligent person who was absolutely convinced that this event had occured as described.

I was not a nutcase, I had no long-term fascination with UFO's or aliens, and had no other "encounters" with anything or anyone unusual. (That last bit was not entirely true, but I added it anyway.) I said that I have no idea what a single pure crystal of cobalt dioxide would be — it didn't sound like an exact measurement to me — but I thought that if this was worth anything, he might give it a try and perhaps solve this problem. Critically, I said I had no interest in notariety relative to this or money or whatever. If he could cure heart disease, that would be great. He could win the prizes, get the money, etc. (I didn't add that, but that was the case.)

So why write this now? I don't have a good answer, but I will use this obliquely related story. I had an art professor in college — a very intelligent man — much more so than I. He was scary smart — a Renaissance man with a knowledge base that was intimidating. He told me once that a day had come when he posed a question to himself. The question was, "Dan (that was his name), why are you painting?" And though he thought and thought he could not come up with a satisfactory reason.

So, he quit painting. Dan did not paint for years until one day he asked himself a second question. This question was, "Dan, why are you not painting?" Again, he could not answer the question and he took up his old craft at once. 

I guess there is no reason to write this at all beyond the fact that it happened to me and was one of the five top amazing events in my life. Perhaps there is a secondary, if unfounded hope, that someone may know someone out there, who can do something with this info. I never heard back from the scientist at Stanford. Not even a comment like, "that was the most ridiculous story I have ever been told." To be honest, that sort of makes me wonder if he is secretly trying it out ...

I almost forgot to add that in the intervening years, as I progressively lose interest with whether or not people think I am crazy, I have told this story to more people and on several occaisions was met by, "Oh, a remote brain scan." Evidently they are fairly common. Those dudes are getting around.