Sky People (9 page)

Once at the hotel in Copán Ruinas, Buddy inspected my room and made sure that my belongings were stowed and safe. We met two hours later for dinner. It was a cool evening, a welcome respite from the heat of the day. The sounds of cars and horns were replaced by the sounds of night birds and frogs. In the restaurant we met a young French couple in need of a ride to Belize. After a few minutes of negotiation, Buddy planned a return trip to Belize with his new clients for the next day. We said goodbye that night as I planned to sleep late the next morning. I would miss Buddy. He had become my friend and protector. He was now a part of my extended family, and I, his. When I returned to my hotel room, I realized that for the first time since my journey began, I was totally alone.

I spent my first two days wandering the village of Copán Ruinas and familiarizing myself with the ancient city of Copán. Unlike in Stephens’s day, who reported a village of a few huts, it was a town of about 10,000 people. The streets within the town were steep and made of cobblestone, but a few blocks away from Parque Central, the town square, were dirt roads, ranches, and small farms. The area was quite mountainous with palm, orange, and banana trees everywhere. The days were hot, the evenings cool. Corn fields dotted the landscape along with horses, chickens, and dogs. Although Copán Ruinas had running water and electricity, there were frequent outages of both. Bottled water sometimes became a luxury so, on the advice of Buddy, I brought my own. There were no street names in Copán Ruinas, but any house could be found with the name of the neighborhood or the landlord. Most of the people spoke Spanish or English. Few of the Chorti Maya spoke their native dialect. A private bilingual school begun by a local teacher attracted young, English-speaking teachers from all over the world. English, Spanish, and Mayan languages were taught at the school.

Mud-brick, thatch-roofed huts and small, cinderblock stores with corrugated metal roofs and signs advertising everything
from Coca-Cola to Bayer Aspirin could be seen. People gathered in the town square in the early evening when the temperatures dropped. Women sold snacks, children played games and chased each other, men sat and discussed farming and female tourists, while teens slipped away into the shadows for stolen kisses.

Because of the size of the town, an outsider, particularly one who stayed more than a day or two, was already known even if never introduced to anyone. What they didn’t know was often made up and added to the local color. Families were close-knit and extended, and news traveled quickly from person to person with gossip being a regular form of entertainment. This made it especially difficult for a researcher. People were reluctant to share for fear that others would learn their secrets. Although many people admitted to me that they had seen lights in the sky and even had encounters, few were willing to share detailed accounts. The majority indicated they had never shared their experiences with close family members, and because everyone knew everyone, they feared ridicule and superstition.

It was difficult for me to leave Copán Ruinas despite those encumbrances. Somewhere between the stray dogs and the temples, the mountains and the butterflies, the bottles of Imperial and the
baleadas
, I fell in love with the town, the ancient site, and its people. It was a place where traditions and superstitions confronted modernity at every turn. It was a place of secrets that were kept secret. Although I found the people in the town and the mountain villages friendly, it was difficult to find someone willing to share detailed stories about their encounters with UFOs. Those who did made me promise I would never reveal their identity and I would disguise them in such a way that they could not be recognized.

Despite the lack of the number of stories collected in Honduras, the three presented in this section are unlike anything that I heard in my travels.

A
nimal mutilations have increased dramatically in Central and South America the past few years. Shepherds from various communities throughout the region report attacks to their herds. Reports vary about the attacker. Most believe it is the action of a natural predator such as wild dogs. In one Honduran village, more than three hundred goats were killed in fifty days, giving rise to questions about the attacker. Some blame a
nahual,
a shape-shifter, as the culprit. According to legend, the nahual changes its human form for a given time to acquire the form of a chosen animal. The nahual can only transmogrify at night, attacking children, women, or animals. It is said that some people can turn into birds and are endowed with the power of flight
.

Some say that they have witnessed animal mutilations in conjunction with UFO sightings. In this chapter, you will read the story of an event that took place on a small cattle ranch near Copán
.

After Buddy drove me to Copán Ruinas, I felt no need at the time to hire a guide as the town, Copán Ruinas, and the ancient city of Copán were basically the only sites I planned to visit. Stephens and Catherwood did the same. Every day, after spending the morning at the site, I ended up at a small restaurant in the village for a cold drink and light lunch. When the owner of the café found out that I was from the USA, she invited several of the young women from the village for lunch who had voiced an interest in learning more about the USA and in learning English. As a result, when the sun forced everyone to seek the comfort
of shade or a hammock, I went to a local café, ordered up sweet treats and Coca-Colas or tea for the group of young women and held an unofficial English class. I taught them English; they reciprocated by teaching me expressions in Spanish common to their area and not found in language courses.

As I got to know the women by their first names and learn about their families and dreams, I asked them to share with me the folklore or stories of the area. At one point I shared with them my interest in UFO stories. On one occasion, a woman named Julia told me about the problem her husband, Alonzo, was having with his cattle herd. “Something comes at night and kills them. We do not know what to do,” she said. “Alonzo hired people to watch the cattle, but it does no good. They are killed anyway. Some people say that on each of the nights the cattle were killed, a UFO was seen. Others believe it is a
nahual.”

One afternoon, Alonzo showed up at the café. Julia introduced us, walked to the cafe door, and locked it, placing a sign in the window announcing a temporary closing. At first, Alonzo was reluctant to talk to me, but at Julia’s urging he agreed. He took off his cowboy hat and placed it on the chair behind him. His damp black hair fell around his ears. He wore jeans, a white, starched Western-style shirt, and brown leather cowboy boots, which was basically the uniform of the Honduran cowboys.

“I do not know what is happening,” he said. “I found two cattle last week. Both had their eyes removed and their tongues. There was a hole in their heart, but no blood. I have never seen anything like it. It was like something sucked them dry but there were no teeth marks or any indication that an animal was the culprit.”

“Have you called the police?” I asked.

“Even the university people, but no one has an answer. Some say it is a chupacabras, but I do not think so. Chupacabras are vicious. Whoever or whatever is attacking my cattle knows about doctoring. They cut out the eyes perfectly. Like they were trained to do it.”

“Have you seen anything unusual on the nights your cattle are killed?” I asked.

“One of the men I hired to guard the cattle said he saw a light in the sky. I thought it was lightning and did not think about it more. One of the aunties in the village said she saw a UFO, but most people ignore her. She is a
bruja,”
he said. I knew he was referring to a witch.

“Did you talk to her about what she had seen?” I asked.

“No. We see strange lights often in Copán. Some say the UFOs like this place. Do you think that the UFOs are killing my cattle?” he asked.

“I really cannot say. I am asking you if you think there is a connection.”

He shook his head but did not respond. He stood and picked up his cowboy hat. He spoke quietly to his wife and then excused himself. I did not expect to see him again.

However, that evening I walked to the plaza. As I found a place to sit and people watch, Julia and Alonzo approached me with two companions. They asked me to join them at a secluded spot.

“My husband would like to talk to you again. He has brought two friends.”

“This is Alberto and the other one is Pedro. They work for me,” Alonzo began. “I hired them last week to look after my cattle at night. Pedro says he saw a light in the sky around midnight but doesn’t remember anything else. Alberto said he saw a spaceship one night, but he did not tell me because he did not want the people in the village to know.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“We do not want people to think we are crazy
loco
or that we are
brujos,”
Alberto explained.

“Father Francis [the local Catholic priest] says they come from the Devil and if we see them and do not run away, we are dancing with the Devil.”

“What happened the night that you saw the UFO?” I asked Alberto.

“Nothing. I remember seeing it stand over the field above the cattle. I could do nothing. It was too powerful,” Alberto said.

“Too powerful? Can you explain?” I asked.

“It made pin pricks all over my body. Thousands of them. I was in pain. I could not move. They did that to me. I think I passed out from the pain.”

“I remember the same thing,” Pedro said. “It was like needles sticking in my body. I tried to get away but the pain was so bad I could not walk.”

“When did the pain stop?” I asked.

“I don’t remember much. I remember the sun coming up and we went home. We didn’t know that two cattle were killed. We found out the next evening when we met Alonzo.”

“Did you tell him about the UFO?” I asked.

“No. We were afraid he might think we were cursed by the Devil.”

“Can you tell me anything else about that night?” I asked. Both of them shook their heads. After they left, Julia sat with me.

“They are both good workers,” she said. “I hope Alonzo doesn’t fire them. Their families are poor.”

I
often think of Alberto and Pedro. They reinforced the concept that our worldview is limited to the teachings of our ancestors, family, and environment. Without formal education, we become victims of religion, prejudice, and superstition. Alberto and Pedro were somewhat typical of many indigenous men I met during my travels. They were submissive to their bosses and worked hard. They loved their families. UFOs did not make sense to them, but the battle of good and evil fought in real life or in the stories of the Bible made sense to them. So they explained away their sighting with the teachings of the local Catholic priest and Christianity, sprinkled with a mix of superstition. They were not atypical, nor were they unique in their beliefs
.

A
bout one kilometer (.6 miles) beyond the ruins of Copán, “Las Sepulturas” was connected to the ancient city by a modern stone path. It was the residential area for the ancient city. Ceramics found there date back to 1000
BCE
. It is a beautiful, peaceful site, well-maintained and excavated. There I met Luis, an elderly man who told me he lived in one of the Chorti Maya villages that clung to the mountainsides outside Copán Ruinas. As we talked, he told me about the caves that peppered the mountains around the ancient site and about a discovery that he and two of his friends made in one of the caves when they were boys. This is Luis’s story
.

“We were typical boys growing up in the mountains. We worked hard to help our families and we played hard. We were adventurous youth and dreamed of life beyond these mountains, but we were afraid to leave. We heard stories from the scientists who came here about the outside world. I was born in 1904. I was five years old when Spinden [Herbert J. Spinden, assistant curator of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York from 1909 to 1929] came to Copán.”

“So that must mean you are one hundred years old.”

“I will be one hundred in two days. For now, I am ninety-nine. My name is Luis Santiago. I have seen many changes over the years at Copán. I worked at this site for nearly seventy-five years. Spinden was the first to hire me. Mostly, I was a runner. I would run to get things for them, carried water to them, brought
their lunches to the site. I worked all day for about ten cents a day in U.S. dollars. Spinden said he would give me more money if I learned English. By the time I was eight, I spoke English. I learned fast. He was true to his word and paid me twenty-five cents a day until he left. I worked with the Carnegie scientists who came to excavate and restore the city after that. They paid me more like fifty cents a day because I could speak English.”

“That is amazing. You have been involved in this site from the first explorations. You are like the resident historian.” He smiled at my comment, taking it as a compliment as it was intended.

“When I was a boy, few visitors ever came—not like today. I worked at the site helping the archaeologists who came here to excavate and restore the city. It was an exciting time. Since I was one of the few people who spoke English, I was able to make a good living for my family by serving as an interpreter on the side.” He stopped and smiled as he remembered the days of his youth. “Those were good days,” he said. He began to cough, and I offered him a bottle of water. He accepted it graciously, took a long drink and then another.

“You spoke about a discovery that you made when you were a boy in one of the caves,” I said, trying to remind him of why he had stopped me.

“Yes. I was about eleven and twelve at the time. On the weekends when the archaeologists would take off from work, my cousins and I would check out the caves in the mountains. The archaeologists would pay for artifacts if we found them. It was on one of those excursions that we found the silver man from the stars.”