What a story.  There was one like that Sunday afternoon by our house.  It 
was so loud and sudden, and left just as suddenly as it had appeared.  Very 
strange.  Several of us in the neighborhood noticed it.  But we weren't hast 
enough.  It actually might have been two Sundays ago.

Vicki

----- 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
>