Phil,
Quite a mystery.
Vinny
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Phil Scovell" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2006 11:05 PM
Subject: Interesting Experience


>     Last Sunday morning, about 8:30 in the morning, something
> quite unusual occurred near our home here in Denver.  I had been
> out in my office for some time thinking about what I would be
> teaching on in church that day when I fell asleep for awhile in my
> rocking chair.  Suddenly, I heard something loud that awakened me.
> At first, I thought it was my son starting his pickup truck which
> is behind our home in front of his garage.  It didn't sound right
> so I thought maybe he was using some of his power tools in the
> garage.  Still, it sounded totally different.  As I listened,
> trying to locate the sound and trying to decide what it was, it
> began getting louder.  It sounded like it was generally southeast
> of our home, I finally decided, but as I sat there listening, this
> thing got louder, and louder, and louder.  I was starting to get
> out of my chair to walk to the other end of my office where I
> could open a door and step around the side of my office into my
> son's driveway when the noise exploded into a horrific mechanical
> cacophony.  I honestly thought that whatever it was, might be
> going to literally crash into the back of our house.  Suddenly, I
> heard the fast turning rotor blades of a helicopter and it was
> close, I mean, very close.  I heard it lift off and immediately
> it choppered straight south and very very low.  I figured it was
> a hospital helicopter but most of them head north to hospitals on
> the north side of town.  One hospital, in fact, isn't very far
> north of our home, and we hear the helicopters passing by all the
> time.  I thought it had probably landed in the intersection just a
> short block to the southwest of our home and picking up someone
> that needed an emergency air lift to a local hospital.  If so, I
> wondered, why is it not gaining altitude but instead flying
> straight south and very low.  In fact, all sound from the machine
> was gone in 10 seconds or less.  Later, I learned more.
>
>     My son jumped out of bed and ran to the window but never even
> saw them.  He knew they were helicopters, of course, just from
> the incredibly loud noise they made.  We learned later that they
> were two Army helicopters that had lifted off and turned and
> headed south.  My son's cousin told him at work the next day that
> he was riding his motorcycle and had just stopped for a red
> traffic light at a nearby intersection when he saw the two Army
> choppers lift off and head south.  He said they passed right over
> the top of him and were so low, he could have literally thrown a
> rock and hit one as it passed.  He also counted the number of
> battle gear dressed men aboard each craft.  The two Army choppers
> had rockets lung underneath them, the soldiers were armed, and
> their were gunners at each of the M60 machine gun stations.  I
> have absolutely no idea what was going on.  I told my son, we
> could start calling all around but they would just deny anything
> had happened.  I am guessing they were on a training mission and
> one chopper had to auto rotate due to engine failure or problems.
> That means it would have landed very quietly because the engine is
> not running and the pilot has to glide the craft toward the ground
> very quickly just using what speed is left in the rotating blades.
> It is a dangerous maneuver and you don't get a second chance of
> landing because you have no power.  the second chopper may have
> come and landed to bring repair parts for the first.  The problem
> with this theory is I never heard them land.  Yes, I may have
> been asleep, unless, of course, they landed earlier at night.  I
> sleep pretty lightly and I find it difficult to believe I
> wouldn't have heard them land even during the night as close to
> the house as they were.  There is a public city park two or three
> blocks east of us so they could have landed in the park.  Military
> helicopters, unless they are on a specific assign mission, never
> carry rockets, though.  These did.  I'm wondering if they didn't
> get some type of threatening report and landed in the park near
> our home.  Helicopters, in case you have never heard one, are
> unbelievably loud when near by and low.  A few years ago, the
> police found a man down across the street about 10 o'clock at
> night in the parking lot of the large church straight across the
> street from our home.  They called in Flight For Life and a
> helicopter flew in.  They first make a wide circle around the
> landing zone area with all their powerful downward halogen lights
> on.  This first circuitous rotation around the LZ is probably done
> at least at a thousand feet above the area so the chopper doesn't
> accidentally run into any high strung wires.  then they repeat the
> process a couple of more time but dropping lower each time.  Once
> they are certain they have enough room to land, they sit down and
> in this case, in the middle of the church parking lot.  When I
> first heard this chopper from the hospital years ago, I thought it
> was loud when it made the first pass.  When it dropped lower and
> made the second pass, It did not even sound like a helicopter.
> It made a very super loud metallic engine sound, of course, but it
> also made a strange hissing sound that sounded like the biggest
> snake you ever did hear in your life.  I am assuming that is the
> tremendous force of the downward wash the spinning props make.  I
> have heard reports, that when choppers try and pick someone up at
> sea and they are not amphibious helicopters, that is, choppers
> which can land on the ground or water, the water spray created
> from the tremendous down wash the rotors make, stings as if it
> were a sharp needle spray shower nozzle as they drop the lift
> basket down to the person stranded in the water.  When the chopper
> landed in the church parking lot, probably less than 300 feet from
> my front door, you cannot imagine the noise.  I had no idea, in
> spite of all the helicopters I have heard flying around our
> neighborhood, that they were that loud.
>
>     Sunday, although these two Army choppers were loud, they
> turned so quickly and headed south, you couldn't get the full
> effect of the sound as they were moving faster than you would
> think at such a low level.  I doubt, from what our cousin
> describe, they were more than 300 feet, if that much, above the
> street where he was sitting on his motorcycle.  I still cannot
> figure out why, although we all were asleep, none of us heard them
> land.  Unless, of course, they auto rotated instead of landed
> using full military power.  Something is fishy.  I asked my son
> what color they were painted and he said they were typical gray of
> the military helicopters.  I would have thought more about it if
> they had been black helicopters.  Yes, the President of the United
> States was here but that was a couple of days before so what those
> two Army choppers were doing a few hundred feet from my back door
> is a mystery.  My brother in law, he lives a mile or so north,
> heard them, and saw them, flying low and heading south down to my
> neighborhood.  So they definitely landed near our home for some
> unknown reason.
>
>     A friend of mine flies helicopters for a living.  I told him
> I had read the story in a book about the Vietnam war.  I asked him
> if this were even possible in a helicopter.  He told me it was
> and it would have been the only way this pilot could have
> maneuvered his way out of this situation based upon the
> circumstances.
>
>     This chopper, it was the standard military work horse single
> rotor called the Huey, came in for a landing bringing a load of
> boxes of ammunition into a remote base.  Of course, the entire
> base was razor wired, bob fenced, and had yards and yards of mines
> buried underground to protect the base from all sides.  The
> chopper pilot was coming in based upon direction from radio
> operators and people on the ground.  He was near the edge of the
> fenced in based and just before he touched down, the craft drifted
> over the fence.  He was now hovering three feet above the ground
> where the mines were.  If he would have set down, not only would
> the mines the skids would have touched exploded, but all the
> hundreds of pounds of munitions as well.  Everybody on the chopper
> freaked out but the pilot gave orders for everybody to stay put.
> He fortunately had room to maneuver so he began making a small
> circle, a few yards in length, from one end of the fenced in area
> to the other.  He added power, as much as was left, to the engine
> as he continued making a circle only a few yards in circumference.
> As he repeated the procedure multiple times, the down wash created
> a cushion of air beneath the craft and allowed the overloaded
> chopper to rise inch by inch.  Eventually, as he made his circuit
> one more time, he was near the top of the fence and a cushion of
> air lifted the monstrous machine up high enough to just clear the
> top of the fence.  Think of the skill it would take to stay cool
> when your life, and that of hundreds of other men, were literally
> in your hands.
>
> Phil.
>
> It Sounds Like God To Me.
> www.SafePlaceFellowship.com
>