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