Sky People (20 page)

I am in the country of the mountain dwellers. It is a place where Americans are often regarded with suspicion and disdain. Given their experiences with American companies that have exploited them, and a U. S. government that has supported dictators in power, their attitude is understandable. Despite their plight, there is a glimmer of hope for the indigenous people of Guatemala. Women, in particular, have taken up the role of resistance. In this atmosphere I met some of those resilient Maya women, who, like
their counterparts throughout Mesoamerica, have had unique encounters with UFOs. In this chapter you will read their stories
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After visiting the ancient K’iche’ Maya city of Q’umarkaj we returned to the hotel and had lunch. Later Mateo took me on a tour of the city. Chichicastenango is a small, stucco-white town on the crests of mountaintops. The majority of the residents were K’iche’ Maya and they spoke a dialect of the same name. The city, known as Chichi to the locals, is a bustling town of narrow streets surrounding the 400-year-old church of Santo Tomás and the central market square, one of the largest in Guatemala.

“A woman alone, especially a foreigner, can be a target in Guatemala,” Mateo cautioned as we walked the streets. “I am ashamed to say this. I love this country, but Guatemala is a dangerous place. Gangs roam city streets and main highways. There are many robberies and murders. Since your new driver has not arrived, I have decided to stay another night to make sure that he does come. If necessary, I will drive you to Mexico. I cannot allow you to make the trip alone.”

“I appreciate that,” I said, “but I don’t like the idea of putting you at risk.”

“You are family. It is no risk.” I breathed a sigh of relief when Mateo decided to stay the night. It was a three-hour drive to Guatemala City and he could have made it before nightfall, but out of concern for my safety he decided to spend the night.

I joined him later that evening for dinner. He was smiling when I approached his table. “I have a special surprise for you,” he said as I sat down. “I stopped in the bar this afternoon. A lady works here that my wife and I have known for years. She once stayed at our home in Guatemala City when her husband was in the hospital. I told her about you and why we are here. She told me she had an encounter with a UFO. She has agreed to talk with you about the event even though it happened a number of years ago. Before we eat, would you like to go meet her?” There was no need to answer. I picked up my handbag and pushed back my chair. I followed Mateo to his vehicle. “She lives outside the village and works in the kitchen at the restaurant. She comes in a 4 a.m. in the morning and goes home to her children at 4 p.m.”

“That’s a twelve-hour shift,” I replied.

“But one of the better jobs in the community. She supports her family. Her husband is in a very bad way. He has terminal cancer and not long to live.” We drove through the town and, near the outskirts leading to Santa Cruz del Quiché, Mateo parked the vehicle halfway on the sidewalk in front of a corrugated tin and concrete block shack. “According to the directions she gave me, this is where she lives,” Mateo said, as he opened the van door for me. Before he could knock on the door, it swung open, and a young boy about six opened the door. He smiled and showed us into the dimly lit house.

“Angelina,” Mateo said, “this is my friend and traveler from the USA. I told you about her interest in UFOs, and you said you would tell her your story.”

“Come with me.” She led us through the two-room house into a small backyard area. As we passed through the living area, she pointed out her husband, who was lying in a hammock and watching a small black and white TV. Another male sat beside him in a wooden chair. When we entered the backyard, several women sat in a circle talking and eating. “These are my friends and family,” she began. “They have stories, too.” She offered me a chair and I sat. She turned to Mateo. “I have asked Edna to translate. She is an English teacher. Part of the conversation might be inappropriate for a male to hear.” Mateo nodded, explained the situation to me, and disappeared inside the house.

Once Mateo was gone, Angelina was the first to begin. Because they spoke mostly K’iche’ Maya, Edna translated. “I was gathering wood one day with my daughter. We were walking along the edge of the road, picking up small sticks. We saw a long object like a big gasoline tank fall out of the sky and drop to the ground. It did not make a sound. Both my daughter and I were surprised. Then we got scared and hid but we kept watching the tank. Two big men got out of it. They were twice as tall as me.” I looked at Angelina. I would be surprised if she were more than four feet tall. “They saw us or sensed us because they came through the woods and took us.” She paused and emptied a bottle of cerveza and offered one to me.

At that point, I interrupted and asked Edna to find out what she meant by saying “they came through the woods and took us.” Edna explained to her my concerns and she explained that they lifted them up like dolls and carried them inside the strange tank.

“I was really afraid,” she continued, “but they told me to be calm and they meant me no harm. I remember nothing after that, except we suddenly found ourselves on the side of the road watching the tank lift off the ground and climb to the clouds. We never saw it again. When we got home, we told Alfonzo what we saw but he told us we probably had too much sun and imagined it. I did not imagine it. It is not every day that a gasoline tank with men drop [s] out of the sky.”

I looked at Edna. “Could you ask her to describe the men?” When Edna translated, Angelina looked at me and responded. “They were white, very white. They looked like they had never seen the sun. They were very tall and their suits hurt my body. As I struggled to get away, I grabbed onto the suit and it made needles run through my whole body. I had to give up. I could not stand the pain. If my daughter were here she would tell you the same. They smelled funny too. Their whole tank smelled funny. I think that is the reason that I don’t remember anything. I think the smell knocked me unconscious.” When I asked Edna if she could describe the smell, she told her it was a smell unknown to her, and she had no words to describe it.

“Ask her about their faces,” I said to Edna, “or any other thing she might remember.”

Edna translated. “She said that they wore some kind of covering over their eyes but their faces were white. She remembers nothing else.”

“I saw the same tank,” a woman opposite Angelina spoke up. “I am Gloria. I live in the house two doors down. It has something to do with Q’umarkaj. That’s why they come here. It was the home of the old ones and they come back to take what they left behind. I think they come and take the bones of the old ones home to their place in the sky. People have seen them digging up there. Several times people have come upon open grave sites. My grandfather once told me that he saw them dig up a skeleton,
and that it came back to life and walked onto their machine with them and they flew away to the sky.” I looked at Edna and she sensed my question. She asked Gloria to repeat her grandfather’s story, but it remained the same. “I have been seeing giants visit the site since I was a child. They come and look around, dig, and then leave. They must be looking for someone they have not found. Until they find that skeleton, they will keep returning. My grandfather says that when they take the bones back to the sky, the bones come alive again.”

“What does that mean?” I asked Edna.

“She means that the skeletons become alive again. She believes the aliens have the ability to become reborn.”

“Can you describe them?” I asked.

“They are giants. They are twice as tall as Juan.” She pointed to the other room where the short stout Maya man was watching TV with Angelina’s husband. “They wore silver suits. But I never got close enough to describe them other than that. Maybe their relatives helped King Q’uq’umatz build the city and they have come to take him home. Maybe they don’t die like we do on Earth. Maybe they really are the Gods of Heaven.” I thought about Gloria’s comments. Her suggestions for why the space men kept returning to the area was as plausible as any I could imagine.

“The Star Men took me aboard their space ship,” said Rosalie, the youngest woman of the group. “I was about sixteen at the time. I was with my boyfriend, Geraldo, one night. He was walking me home from the plaza. We saw a round craft hovering over the top of the buildings. Suddenly, we found ourselves being pulled upward. I screamed when my feet left the ground, and even though we twisted and struggled, we could not stop the upward movement. Neither of us remembered much. We were separated and although Geraldo tried to come with me he was forced into another area. I lost consciousness. Two weeks later I discovered I was pregnant, or at least I had all the symptoms of pregnancy. I was sick all the time. My belly grew almost every night, but I had never made love to anyone, and yet I was pregnant.”

“How did Geraldo feel about your pregnancy?” I asked.

“Geraldo believed me. He said it was a virgin birth like Mother Mary and that we should marry. He would take care of me and the baby. Two months later the UFOs came again. Suddenly I was no longer pregnant. No one ever knew but Geraldo. Now we think I was carrying a space man’s baby. It scared us a lot. When we went to the plaza we always came home with a group of friends or family. Never alone again.” I watched her rub her stomach as she told her story and saw the tears that formed in her eyes. “I know it was not Geraldo’s baby. I was a virgin. After that night, Geraldo and I got married. We tried to have children but we never did. I think they did something to me.”

“Edna, would you ask her if she has any recollection of going onboard a spacecraft the night she lost her baby?” I waited as Edna translated my question.

“I saw the spacecraft in the distance,” she said. “But I do not remember being taken again. Geraldo saw it, too. He was with me.”

“I did not have problems having children,” Carla said, easing the sadness that had descended upon the group, “but they kidnapped me and took me onboard their spacecraft. It happened when I was just newly married. I had walked to town to sell eggs at the market. On my way home it was getting dark, and I saw this ball of light streak across the sky. It frightened me, and I began to run. Suddenly the light circled me, and I could not escape. The light pulled me onboard their craft. I could see my village clearly. I could see my house and garden. I knew my husband would be worried, and I told them they must let me go or my husband would be worried and angry. They just stared at me curiously. Somehow, I understood that if I cooperated they would let me go home. They were monstrous creatures. I let them do their will. They took my blood and samples of my skin and they opened my legs.” She paused and spoke to Angelina in a subdued voice. It was apparent that she was embarrassed by the ordeal. Later Angelina explained that she believed that they had made her pregnant, too. The next day she felt life inside her, and yet she had had her menstrual cycle only days before and knew she was
not pregnant. Two months later, she recalled being taken again, and when she woke, she knew her belly was empty.

“I was not abducted,” Carla, the last of the group to speak, said. “I saw them, though. I was gathering wood one morning, and I came upon a craft like Angelina described. It looked like a gas tank. It was big. I thought it strange that this object was in the woods, and, as I got closer, I saw it lift off the ground and disappear into the sky. I did not see anyone—only the long silver tank. It was huge.”

As the evening wore on, the women added no more details to their stories. They admitted that they rarely shared their stories with others for fear that they may be isolated within their communities. “Our people are superstitious,” Angelina said. “They have little contact with the outside world. Only the market and then they do not talk to strangers. They still believe that a camera steals their souls and refuse to be photographed by tourists, so you must understand where they are coming from.”

“I do appreciate their willingness to talk to me,” I said. “Please thank them for me. I really appreciate their honesty.”

As I started to leave, I asked the women if there was anything I could do for them. Rosalie asked me if I had lipstick. “I have always wanted lipstick,” she said. I opened my bag and deposited lipsticks, sewing kits, fingernail polish, and small mirrors on the table in front of them. Each woman took what they wanted, and, although I offered to leave the unclaimed items, they told Mateo that I had been more than generous and that I should take the remaining items and gift them to others who had stories to tell. As each woman stood to shake my hand, I gave each one of them the equivalent of $50 American dollars. One woman embraced me and cried. The others explained they would use the money for dentists, doctors, or shoes.

On our way back to the hotel, Mateo commented that I had been very generous. “When I travel, I always bring boxes of items that I know women like. I keep them in my bag in case such an event occurs.”

“It is still very generous. I have met researchers who never consider the time that people spend with them. The researchers consider their time valuable, but not the village people’s time.”

“The truth is, those items and the money are just tokens of appreciation. The women who told their stories are the generous ones.”

“You are right, Señora.” We drove the rest of the way to the hotel in silence and had dinner, and as we were planning to meet for breakfast the next morning, Emiliano, the driver I had contracted to drive me across the Mexican border and to San Cristóbal de las Casas, appeared at our table and introduced himself. There was a sadness in leaving Mateo. Over the prior two weeks, we had become more than client and guide; we had become friends who shared some incredible experiences. We agreed to keep in touch.

I
t has been ten years since I first met Mateo and we have kept that promise over the years. On two occasions, I have returned to Guatemala to visit him and his family. Although he is no longer in the tourist business, he often calls me to tell me another story he has heard about the Sky People
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