On our way to Tenant Creek, Andrew and I stopped at what we
envisioned would be our favorite place in the Northern Territory: Wycliffe
Well, the UFO capitol of Australia.
While we were en route, we couldn’t help but feel giddy at
the prospect of seeing an extraterrestrial. Our conversation was filled with
quotes from E.T, Star Wars, and The X-Files. We simply couldn’t fathom
what we would encounter. Closely. Of the third kind.
Crop circles? Ray guns? Probes?
What we found would shock you. Well, it shocked me. Wycliffe
Well is a caravan park with alien paraphernalia and an Elvis statue. There are
no aliens in cages. There are no working UFOs offering free tours of the Milky
Way. I was devastated. No Space Invaders? Maybe my expectations were a little
farfetched.
We entered the park and wandered around, trying to come up
with an angle for our sketch video. We decided that we would do an over-the-top
in-depth investigation of the strange occurrences in the park, all while
dressed like members of The Village People. We would ask the Elvis statue if he
had phoned home recently. High-brow comedy at its best. We started the project
by interviewing Lew, the owner of Wycliffe Well. We spoke with him about our idea
and asked if he would briefly act as an alien for one absolutely hilarious (I swear)
punchline. Instead, he just stared at me. I wasn’t sure if I had insulted him
or if it was my cowboy outfit.
It was both.
He kindly refused to play the part stating that doing so
would make a mockery of what happens at Wycliffe Well.
So we asked: “What does happen at Wycliffe Well?”
That’s when our quick sketch idea became a 20-minute
interview. Lew proceeded to give us an abridged version of his encounters with
UFOs during his 26 years at Wycliffe Well. He explained why UFOs are drawn to
the park in a way that I couldn’t understand and will paraphrase as: “Wycliffe Well holds special energy.
Aliens like energy.”
He told us of his many personal experiences with aliens at
Wycliffe Well. He’s sighted UFOs and portholes, and he’s experienced the phenomenon
known as ‘missing time’ (which I can only imagine refers to time that was
misplaced by aliens). Lew even told us of tourists claiming they’ve seen tall,
silvery bodies moving at Wycliffe Well.
Andrew and I went back to the van with a renewed vigor. Were
we really going to see a UFO? We scrapped the comedy and prepared our equipment
for a legitimate investigation. And then… a storm broke out over the park. The
sky was black and nothing was visible.
Disappointed again, we decided to stay in the van and play
our favorite card game: spit. We played for hours waiting for the storm to pass
before Andrew came up with the brilliant idea to drink the Darwin Stubbies that
TourismNT had so generously donated to our cause (a Darwin Stubbie is two
Litres of beer in one single bottle). At this point, we had been saving these
drinks for a special occasion for over three weeks. And before we knew it they
were gone.
The storm was at its worst. Heavy rain was falling and we
could see lightning in the distance. But we couldn’t leave without seeing a UFO
so we went out on an odyssey. 2001 comma Space.
We headed to some of our favorite places in the park hoping
to see something we couldn’t explain.
“Would anyone believe us if we saw a UFO?” we thought.
Our shoes were digging into mud, flashlights turning on and
off as we tried to scare one another. We even created a code in case one of us
was being abducted. The code, which we borrowed from LOST, was 4,8,15,16,23,42
.
But still we didn’t see anything. Defeated, we turned back
to head for the van. And that’s when we noticed it. In the distance we could see
a large unidentified object. It was not flying; it was on the ground and it
looked silver or chrome. We flashed our lights at it and it flashed back at us.
We didn’t get any closer – there was a large puddle in the way, and that was a
good enough excuse not to. We ran back to the van half scared and half
giggling, jumped into our respective beds, and fell into a deep, beer-induced sleep.
The next morning we woke up and immediately went to the same
area to figure out what we had seen shining in the night. It was an empty field
but in the back there was a shed made of aluminum.
It was probably the shed that was reflecting the light. But
if you ask if we saw a UFO that night? My answer will always be yes.
I’m not really sure why I felt the need to share this story
with you but I think there is a moral in here somewhere. Earth girls are easy?
Always bring a towel? In space no one can hear you scream?
Or maybe what I am trying to say is: if you are drunk and
you see what is probably a shed, don’t discredit the idea that it could be an
alien.
The truth is out there.
By: Willie Concepcion
