A Light in the Trees

A Light in the Trees

By Glen Flensoz

I never believed in UFOs—at least not in the way people talk about them. Stories of beings so advanced they bend time, watching us from the stars like gods. It always struck me as too convenient. A new kind of religion for people too jaded to pray, but still desperate to matter.

Then I found the wreckage.

I was deep in the eastern backwoods chasing hawks—red-shouldered, specifically. The sort of trip where you forget what your voice sounds like. Days off-trail, tracking feathers, light, movement. I saw smoke curling above the treetops—thin and metallic, the kind that doesn’t belong to anything natural. I followed it.

What I found was a crater. Shallow, smoldering. At the center: twisted machinery, if you can call it that. The wreck looked organic—part armor, part bone. And beside it, half-buried in moss and steam, was the thing that had fallen.

I didn’t walk closer. I didn’t need to.

Even from where I stood, I saw its face.

It looked like a hawk—but corrupted. Elongated beak, strange crests, a structure that flitted between avian and insectile. It wasn’t beautiful. It was wrong. Its eyes—huge, golden, black-pinned—locked on mine.

And in that instant, I came apart.

There was no majesty. No calm sense of cosmic wisdom. Just pure, undiluted terror. The kind that lives beneath language. The kind that strips you of thought and self. I remember my body seizing. A primal, ancient fear, like prey realizing it was being watched by something that didn’t blink.

Then darkness.

I woke hours later—maybe more—face down in the dirt, trembling and soaked through. The crash site was still there, silent now. The creature was dead. Its head turned slightly, beak cracked open. Frozen in the last moment of suffering.

I couldn’t go near it.

I still can’t explain what I saw—not in detail. But I’ve thought about it every day since. Not the alien itself, but its eyes. The fear in them. That thing, whatever it was—no matter how advanced or far it had traveled—died terrified and alone.

And that broke something in me.

In that moment, the myth collapsed. These weren’t gods visiting us. Not angels or demons. Just organisms with minds and limits. Travelers who crash like we do. Who fear the dark like we do.

I used to look up at the sky and wonder if something out there was watching us.

Now I wonder if they’re just as scared.

—
Until next time, walk carefully. Not everything from the stars comes down on purpose. — Glen