by Terry A. Hamilton
State of Ohio Section Director, MUFON
A good friend, his fiancée and I had decided to take a vacation by going to the 1995 Mutual UFO Network symposium in Seattle, Washington that year. We traveled there by Amtrak, leaving Cleveland on Tuesday and arriving in Seattle on Friday. We attended the symposium on Saturday and Sunday, meeting a few friends from Ohio, but talking with few others who we didn’t know. In the evening we spent little time around the Red Lion Hotel after the speeches were over, electing to go out on the town, so to speak.
After the symposium on Monday we secured a rental car in order to do some sight seeing and shopping around Seattle. We traveled north to the Boeing aircraft plant for a tour, and then drove around the nearby rain forest and then on out to the ocean. We returned to Seattle to eat and then went over to the world famous Pike Street Market, arriving at 4:00 PM. We stayed until 6:00 PM.
The crowd at the market was heavy, as we were shoulder to shoulder with other people most of the time. Since I was tired and interested in watching some of the fishermen as they sold their fish while signing to their customers, I found a nearby bench to sit on. My friend Harold and his fiancée went into a nearby spice and gift shop. As I sat there, I noticed a man walking toward me who was making eye contact with me. Having been a law enforcement officer for 19 years, I know that most people in a crowd will not make eye contact for more than an instant. This guy was staring me down, which was a bit unnerving.
The man was clean cut in appearance, 5’ 10", short black hair, dressed in tan pants and a pullover short sleeve shirt. At first I thought this guy might be some sort of law enforcement officer, given his appearance and demeanor. He fit the stereotype. He got within a couple of yards of me, looked towards the store into which my friends had gone, stopped, changed facial expressions, and then turned around and walked away. I turned to see what changed his mind. Harold and his fiancée were walking towards me. They told me they were going into the shop next to it. I looked around, but the man was nowhere to be seen. Five minutes later he was back, coming right at me with the same determination that was on his face before, this time walking faster. He appeared to be surer of himself.
He came up to me and said hello. I replied, "Hi, how are you?" He said he was fine and while doing so, sat down on the bench beside me. For him to do this really meant he had a purpose. I am a large man, and even thought there was enough room for the two of us, there wasn’t much of it left over. He sat there for a couple of seconds and looked into the crowd. He then turned back looking over my shoulder towards the store where my friends had gone. This made me feel uncomfortable, as I thought that maybe I was being set up to be robbed or something.
He looked back at me, gave me a little smile, and said, "How are you enjoying your vacation?" I thought he was being a little personal, but I replied, "Great." He then pulled out a small black wallet and showed me a U.S. Army ID. As a Deputy Sheriff, I have seen hundreds of IDs over my career, and I recognized this one as a legitimate item. He then closed the wallet and put it back in his pocket, saying, "Terry, you are involved in something that you need to be careful with. I have been in the Army for over 20 years, and there are real things going on that you should not get involved with. I know that you enjoy this subject, but be very careful in what you get into. I hope you guys enjoyed your train trip here, and your stay. Have a good time in Denver, and a nice train ride back to Cleveland, but always be careful." At that he stood up and walked back into the crowd. I was dumbfounded. I sat there for a minute, and actually began to shake. I WAS SCARED! This man came out of nowhere, knew my name, and knew what I was doing here and where I was from. True, at the symposium I wore a nameplate, and this person most likely had been there. However, there was no way he should have known that I was going to lay over in Denver to see the sights. I felt that the government had just invaded my privacy, and that I was supposed to have felt threatened.
A few seconds after the man left, my friends returned. Harold’s fiancée looked at me and said, "Are you OK? You look white as a ghost." I then told them what happened. I stood up and looked over the crowd, but could not find him. I must admit that this experience some what ruined the rest of my vacation as I was constantly looking around me and could not relax the rest of the week.
Nothing else like this has occurred to me in the past and to the best of my knowledge, nothing became of it. Sometime last year, I was training a new recruit for our department, a female who had been in the Air Force for over 6 years in the Air Police. I told her about what happened to me. She told me that she had worked in some areas of high sensitivity concerning national security matters. She noted, "You definitely got a warning. He was telling you to stay away or be careful with something." She started to laugh and said, "You are interested in a very controversial issue, one in which I have seen some things at air bases that I don’t understand, and that we have, and that I cannot talk about, but I think that man was probably on the job."
That was all she had to say to get my paranoia up again. I guess you just never know who is watching you, and everything you do.