Well, we’ve been to the Pine Bush UFO Fair before, years ago, but I don’t remember it being this heavy in content this time around. Back then, it was mostly, I’d say, very cheesy stuff. Sure, there were talks by people who specialized in the field and by people who’ve actually seen UFOs, but the fair was mostly dominated by people in costumes, ET balloons, arts and crafts, local brews and delicacies, and pop culture (as Nick Pope would say) with nothing, I’d say, particularly groundbreaking when it came to the subject of UFOs.

Nick Pope

This time, though, Nick Pope was there. His (paid) talk was not until 7 PM that night, but perhaps having nothing else better to do than sit in his hotel room, he graced the morning and afternoon by hanging around in the main gazebo for people to take selfies with him and ask him questions. And, man, you have to love the guy. Nice and honest, forthcoming and kind, somewhat smallish in stature, he engaged everyone who came. His path to fame, I guess, before he became all famous and ubiquitous in just about every UFO documentary on TV and the History Channel on cable – and he would always include this in his introduction – is he worked for the “UK Ministry of Defense”, America’s equivalent of “DoD”, investigating UAPs. But – and perhaps out of humility he would always add with some emphasis – he was a “civilian contractor”. He was not an “employee”. So don’t picture him in a brass military uniform in your head just in case I think he’s trying to say.

Samuel A. Sjaastad: Repeated UFO sightings

I guess I came up with the right question when, after being hawked into his booth with a, “Check out my art show!” and looking at his drawings, I asked, “What inspired you?” And immediately, Samuel A. Sjaastad, a Brooklyn man with repeated UFO sightings, pointed to his drawing of a spacecraft with 8 beings inside looking out the window. I wasn’t expecting that. He was in a ferris wheel with his wife in Maryland, he said, when they saw the UFO which then just “disappeared”. Everything about his body language, his facial expression, his questioning of his own experience, and, yes, emotion as if reliving something that just happened moments ago instead of 5 years ago, was authentic as far as I can tell. It “messed” him up, he’d always say. Speaking with someone who’ve actually seen living UFO occupants, a “close encounter of the third kind”, is an experience I never thought of having.

Billy Meier

Then there was a booth with lots of UFO photos taken by Billy Meier, a UFO contactee in Switzerland whose story I read about in a book nearly 40 years ago. Meier’s alien contacts (there was more than one) would tell him where to show up and when with his camera so he could take tack-sharp photos of metallic disk objects floating in the sky. He is now a prophet with a shrine in Switzerland that people can visit. At 88 years of age, he is still very active both physically and mentally. His message, according to the booth attendants, is, “There should be peace on earth because the last thing we want is [for] the world to be destroyed. We don’t want no nuclear war.”

Amazing, indeed, is all I can say about this year’s UFO Fair in Pine Bush. It was in the past perhaps cheesy because not too long ago one cannot have a serious discussion once “UFO” is dropped in the conversation. But, now, especially with the Pentagon releasing the Tic Tac UFO video, UFOs—or UAPs to better phrase the phenomenon—have become accepted in the mainstream. There is something out there—and because my wife and I have seen one ourselves, I can say—that no amount of searching in humankind’s collective mental database of everyday objects would ever come close to making a full and final revelation.

Short hike to an expansive view.

There are two ways of getting to the overlook at Fuller Mountain Preserve in Warwick, NY.

There’s the easy, nearly level, 0.9 mile trail (1.8 miles round trip) of uniform scenery—the woods—with an elevation gain of only 162 feet.

And there’s the slightly more challenging but more varied 1.3-mile trail (2.6 miles round trip) that includes a ravine and a stream and with more twists and turns and ups and downs for a total elevation gain of 265 feet.

But you need not pick one trail over the other. Although the two trails—one labeled “green” and the other “orange”—are mostly parallel to one another, where hikers on either trail are occasionally within sight from the other, the two trails join near the endpoints—the trailhead and the overlook—and so can be hiked as a loop. You can take one trail out and the other trail back.

Either path you take, however way you get there, the overlook will offer an expansive view of the valley below from 1,800 feet high, a welcome culmination after just a 20-minute invigorating walk in the woods surrounded by nothing but Nature.

Perks and perils on the trail.

My unofficial maximum hiking distance is two miles. (Or four miles round trip.) But that’s not because of the difficulty involved. Rather, it’s all the time I have. At the human walking pace of about 20 (I’d estimate 30 on uneven terrain) minutes per mile, that translates to about two hours of hiking round trip on mountainous terrain.

So whenever I learn of a shortcut, in particular the shortcut to Gobbler’s Knob in Otisville, NY featured in this video, I feel beckoned and compelled to do it.

And, let’s be honest, wouldn’t you take the shortcut, too, if you knew about it? You will get there in no time with less to little effort.

There may, however, be caveats. If there’s elevation gain, then that elevation gain is compressed into a short distance resulting in a steep and possibly treacherous incline when going up the side of a mountain. And, as with any shortcut, there may be reasons people don’t take it. Bears, for one, may nest there.

Without giving away spoilers in case you want to watch the video (I hope you do), let me just state what is likely a truism when it comes to shortcuts. (At least according to my elementary school teacher when I was in Grade 3.) In our relentless quest for the quickest way to get where we’re going, a shortcut may have its perks, but, we must not forget, it may have its perils, too.

It could be that I came to hike on a Saturday morning instead of my usual Sunday morning that there were already people at Madam Brett Park even at just after sunrise. Then again, the city the park is in, Beacon, is small and thriving so it probably wouldn’t be surprising to find people there even on Sunday mornings. People out for a stroll, a jog, a change of scenery, a breath of fresh air, or a walk with their dogs to complete their morning routines.

The out-and-back, 2-mile trail isn’t itself wild. (You can go for an additional 3 miles if you hike the loop around the adjacent Dennings Point State Park, a 64-acre peninsula that juts into the Hudson River.) You won’t be hiking in the wilderness with uneven and rocky terrain as in, say, the Catskills or the Shawangunks—the paths are flat some earth some paved and a portion of which with a boardwalk along Fishkill Creek on one side and ruins on the other, while crossing a railroad track and solar farm and passing through a Visitor Center—and you will constantly meet people doing pretty much the same thing as you. But you do get plenty of Nature along the way with a waterfall on one end and the Hudson River on the other.

So don’t expect immersive solitude in Nature away from civilization when you\’re at Madam Brett Park. Instead, expect the surrounding greenery, river, creek, and waterfall as spices to the already delectable stream of greetings, nods, and short conversations along the way when you encounter the warm residents of Beacon.

There are waterfalls in the city of Beacon. But I have not gone there until now.

That’s because Beacon, as far as I can tell, is a trendy little city just 60 miles north of New York City and the buzz of human activity would take away from the peace and tranquility that Nature provides, at least in my mind.

So it was surprising that once I started walking to the falls and then hiked to Melzingah Reservoir a short 0.8 mile away, all adjacent to the city of Beacon, I felt I was deep in the woods. I could have been in the Shawangunks or the Catskills and wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

A recent UK study showed that “every type of natural environment improved both self-esteem and mood, with proximity to water generating the greatest effect.” Additionally, “time spent in more natural areas helped restore depleted emotional and cognitive resources” with coastal areas providing “the biggest benefit, although woodlands, hills and mountains showed comparable effects…the longer people stayed [in natural areas], the better they felt…time spent in natural environments can improve self-discipline in children, help treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, reduce aggression and crime, promote better health in the elderly and delay the impact of Alzheimer’s disease.” (source: “What Nature Does for Britain” [2015] by Tony Juniper)

So there is now a push especially in deprived parts of the UK to redevelop existing low-cost housing projects that have “virtually no gardens” and playgrounds cast in concrete to “incorporate vegetation and ‘green infrastructure’ into their plans”. The payback—reduction in healthcare costs and depletion of crime—can be substantial and these can all be achieved with the simple reintroduction of Nature into their building plans.

There it is. Nature. Beacon’s original settlers—and other early settlers in the surrounding Hudson Valley—were in their right frames of mind when they moved 60 miles north away from the city. To them, the results of today’s studies would likely come as no surprise. They merely put in solid, scientific footing their long-held beliefs that our sustenance and nurturing are well taken care of if we would only keep Mother Nature close at hand always.

I have to be honest and say I’ll pick a hike to a waterfall anytime over a hike with no waterfall at all. A waterfall gives me a clear objective and focus. The hike becomes a mission that needs accomplishing. My mind is set on finding this waterfall and once it’s in sight, especially after a long and difficult hike, I keep my cool but the joy I feel is enough for me to lose my poise.

But not all trails lead to a waterfall. Some, like the trails at Shaupeneak Ridge Park, loop around a pond. Without an objective to focus on like, say, a waterfall, what, then, goes through the mind of a hiker?

Oneness.

And oneness with Nature out deep in the woods without the distraction of having to accomplish a mission brings with it a different kind of joy. A joy that is calm, serene, and respectful. A joy that tells the hiker no matter what trying times one is in all is right with the world and that we are not here on this Earth to rack up accomplishments but rather we are here to be humble in Mother Nature\’s loving fold.

That is one joy that does not and will not ever make me lose my poise…

Harmony in Nature.

Every once in a while, I don’t hike alone. Usually, it’s with Vi. But occasionally, the kids—or in this one instance, a kid, our son, Cody—would come along. And when that happens, I am given the pleasure of experiencing with family the harmony that exists in Nature.