Anyone else had a fairly close up UFO encounter? Let’s hear about it

I don’t really much like talking about mine, though it was many years ago now, for several years I never told anyone. It has stuck with me since the night it happened and there has not been a day go by since that it doesn’t pop up in my mind.

I decided to go catfishing one night in our pond. The pond is only about a 10 minute walk from the house. I was walking across the dam and was about 3/4 of the way across. Ahead of me around 30 yards away there is a small tree line. As I am walking along I am looking down at the ground in front of me. Suddenly it was like someone turned on the sun, the field and pond were completely lit with a bluish white light.

I look up and right above the tree line there are several large lights, I just stood there trying to figure out what the hell was going on. I could see the outline of a very large (at least 100 feet) cigar shaped object with these lights just sitting there barely above the trees. It was completely silent.

I suddenly got the feeling of just pure dread, I have never felt that way before or since. I decided that was enough for me and tossed my fishing gear and turned to run for the house. The lights were still going and I can remember seeing my shadow when I turned my back to it and started running. I made it almost across the dam to the field and it felt like my legs suddenly just turned to lead, I felt like I was fighting to make headway. It was a completely terrifying feeling. After what felt like forever I had made it about halfway across the field. Suddenly the lights disappeared like they were just shut off and I instantly felt normal running again. I hauled ass to the house, got inside, grabbed a rifle, sat down and noticed when I looked at the clock over an hour had passed from when I left to go to the pond and I have no explanation why. I don’t really like sharing the story but thought some of you here would find it interesting.

did your butt hurt when you got home?

I hit a bird in my car yesterday. Could not identify bird. Probably closer than OPs encounter.

Are you  an author fishing for ideas for a book?

Just seems that what you are describing is written in such a way that doesn't seem like an actual recounting of a memory.

I have seen something. So close I could have picked up and thrown a rock at it and heard it go bang off the side of it.
Most terrifying thing that has ever happened to me still to this day and I've have seen the end of a barrel more than once in my life.
Those experiences dont stay with you as long because you can somewhat understand them.

People will crack jokes all they want until it happens to them. Then they have to suck it up and live life knowing what its like.
It's not something that you wished would happen to you. You cant tell people about it, they think you are crazy. You would be surprised who has seen things. You wouldn't guess that they have because it's something you wouldn't even tell your wife. The stereotype comes from the crazies that seek attention and those that want to write a book for money. My bet is that a lot of these books sell because there are many quite people that just seek answers.
I spent 5 years trying to get answers to come to terms with everything. I went In hoping that I would find something that said none of this was true and was perpared to accept that I might be crazy, because that would be easier.
The facts are there if you look. The saying is right, the truth is out there. And a lie is best told between two truths.

When seeing something up close you first get a sense of awe and wonder. You look at every detail. You study every part, every texture, every color. Your mind races to process all of it and you are kinda excited because you think that no one has seen this up close before, and you have to remember everything because everyone all thinks it doesn't exist......
And that is when it hits you like a ton of bricks and the fear sets in. "This isn't supposed to exist"
You look up at it again and you look at the windows of it. You see the outline of figures against the light and one of them is moving.
Yea.. that's when the terror begins.
And it never leaves you.

This happened in September of 1999.
22 years ago,

I found out 4 years later when I first started my research into what happened, that 3 months after I saw it, in January of 2000, police officers from multiple departments chased and described the exact same craft that I saw.
This happened 900 west of where I was when I had seen it 3 months prior.
In 2005 after i worked Katrina as a federal contractor, I decided to move out west to have some fun on the beaches of Cali.
I planned my trip to go through St Louis because I wanted to see where this all happened.
The day after I arrived, a piston seizes the motor in my car and I never left.

You can say I am where I am today because of a UFO.

I saw something once. What I saw does not make sense. It was completely silent and made zero noise, yet was underway, under its own power.

Mankind has not made what I saw. At least not yet.

I don't have the time at the moment to explain but I saw something twice. The one time my wife who also witnessed it refused to talk about it.

I have not.

My mother had a CE3-E experience.

Sure did.  Right outside of a secured G.E. facility.  The things came at night and flew over low.  I'm pretty sure G.E. was looking at heat coming off of their engines.  That was in the late 80's or so.  It was a great cheap date night that ran with a schedule that had downright military precision.  Beer, lawn chairs, and a free air show.

You are an abductee. I'm familiar with that 'can't move/slow-motion' feeling. In your case, the missing time is key along with the 'paralysis' you felt. I've felt that in dreams, including in dreams of abduction. As a kid, I had many strange dreams, including floating down the stairs, flying out of the bedroom window, etc. I don't know if I'm an abductee or not, but I recently found out that my older brothers had similar 'dreams', and the middle brother told me that he woke up to see the older one being 'floated' out of the room by these little 'monkeys', as he thought of them then, but now he realizes they were not 'monkeys' at all.
I saw a show the other day, 'Aliens In Alaska', where one guy was telling about looking at the starry sky when some of the stars started moving. This hit me like a hammer, because I had a dream around the age of 12 (late '50s) where I was looking at the stars when they began to form geometric shapes and move in circles, etc. That dream actually started with me being outdoors by the back of the house when it began to 'rain' fiery objects. Another part of it was looking at the sky in daylight and seeing contrails all intertwined, and realizing 'our' jets were in combat with 'something'. I always thought this dream was brought about by the Cold War and it's threat of nuclear annihilation, but now I think it meant something else.

I’ve had two instances of sleep paralysis as an adult.  It was just like you described.  I also had a reoccurring dream as a child just like the ones you had.

Off topic I know but the "lead legs" and extreme difficulty to run descriptions take me back to my childhood I used to dream about that ALOT. I was running from something and I just couldnt run fast it was like a slow walk but i was trying so very hard to run. I havent had a dream like that in probably 20 years.

Reading these posts creep me out.

On topic.
I have only seen one thing I could not accurately identify that was flying. I was maybe 6 or 7. Mid to late 90s south central PA. I was outside and heard what sounded like a weird jet flying overhead. I looked up and watched what looked like mid-flight refueling. Similar to this.

But they were not flying straight they were turning hard and going every which way. And they were very close almost one above the other but not perfectly synchronized and not attached to each other. Close enough that if they didnt turn at the same time they would colide. My best description would be flying faster than a passenger jet and maneuvering like they were trying to dodge an incoming missile like in an action movie. It was very strange. They didnt look like fighter jets or passenger planes.

I ran inside to get my parents and when I came back out they were gone.

I'm sure that was a mess to read I am sorry. I have never spoken about it other than to my parents who could not offer me an explanation. I've seen air shows and such but they dont compare to the sharp turns and the speed of what I saw.

I checked for signs of probing and all seemed good.

Nice

In 1984, I was deer hunting with several other guys from the Dallas area on a private lease near Rifle,  CO. The deer camp was situated at the base of 5 narrow canyons like the camp being a wheel hub and the canyons radiated out like spokes of a wheel.

The day  before the season opened, everyone scouted the canyons and laid claim to where each team was going to hunt. Opening morning, we left out for our canyon and got to our spot about an hour before daylight. My hunting buddy and I were hunting the canyon farthest to the left. The canyon and jeep trail were very narrow and a little less than 1/4 mi.to highest point we could get to due to several inches of snow and a rough trail.

When we reached our spot and parked, my buddy was behind the wheel and would run the heater every so often which fogged the windows.

Not long before we were going to get out and hunt, he said "shit, somebody's coming up our canyon". This was a real pisser because it might screw-up our hunt. As I watched their light/lights come up, my first thought was that there was some sort of emergency at camp. They came on at a slow and steady pace until they were right on our rear bumper with their very bright light diffused through the frosted glass and turned off the light.

We got out and went back to see who it was and what they wanted.

THERE WAS NO ONE THERE....NO VEHICLE AND NO TRACKS IN THE SNOW BUT OURS.

Because there was a full moon, snow on the ground and the sun was beginning to rise, it was almost bright enough to read a book. It was easy to see there was nothing all the way to the base of the canyon. It took them, it, or whatever several minutes to get up the canyon and it would take longer to get down, as turning around in the narrow canyon was very difficult.

At dinner that night, my hunting buddy asked what I thought was an unessesary question: "Did anyone come up our canyon this morning"? His answer was a surly "Hell no"!

Looking back, the light or lights circled the cul-de-sac - like base of the  canyon kinda like a dog sniffing on the trail of something before coming up. That and whether there was only light or two, I really didn't notice because were seated facing forward and the glass was fogged and we weren't aware of anything unusual at first.

Now, it really gets weird.... on the drive back to Texas, my hunting buddy, who seemed excessively rattled by the above experience and was still visibly shaken, confided that he was abducted in the past and that aliens were following him wherever he goes. I didn't know what to make of this because I didn't know this guy prior to the trip. I would have thought him bat-shit crazy if it wasn't for what happened in CO.

I saw the flying tic-tacs and was one of the guys in the recording.

As I indicated in an earlier post on two different occasions I seen things in the night sky that don't make any sense to me. This is coming from a person with a degree in mechanical engineering and worked in the Aerospace industry for a long time. You could say that I have more than a passing interest and aeronautics

Several of the other post reminded me of some experiences I had in addition to the two sightings. When I was in my twenties I remember waking up and I know you're going to think I'm crazy but I was on the ceiling in my bedroom screaming I don't want to die and below me were two creatures on the side of my bed standing over me sleeping in my bed. One was tall and thin and the other one was short. The next morning my brother asked me why I was screaming I don't want to die.

I've also had several instances of sleep paralysis and I can tell you firsthand it's not very fun. Now onto my sightings. The first one I was at a concert with my now ex-wife my daughter and stepdaughter and some friends in their daughters. It was an outdoor venue and since I wasn't much interested in the music I was lying on a blanket staring up at the stars in the sky

My wife asked me what I was doing and at that time I noticed that one of the Stars started moving in an irregular path. It took me more than a couple of seconds to explain to her where this quote un quote star was and she finally saw it. It was about that time that it flew down out of the sky and I can only describe it as 3 meter diameter metallic sphere that flew around over the heads of everyone at the concert and I couldn't tell if anyone else noticed it but us.

The next morning when I asked my wife about it she refused to talk about it I never said another word about it. The next sighting was  with my daughter and I were out on my back deck around 1 or 2 in the morning observing the Leonid meteor shower. I had my pvs14s which as you know greatly expanded the number of stars and meteors that you could see. We were passing the PDS back and forth each taking a turn.

During one of my turns I saw a flying cyndrillical shaped object that was very dark and was flying about 30 degrees up and a hundred yards away and it made no noise whatsoever and it had no lights.

Anything more you can expand upon the experience?

Thanks for sharing these experiences guys.

this was taken at an airshow in st. hubert quebec(south shore of montreal) around 1992-93.
the snowbirds were performing and i took this with a 35mm film camera.

i saw nothing at the time--only when i got the film developed.it is on the negative.

Not me but my neighbor. Around summer 1983 we lived in a little town out near Mt Rainier. Our neighbor came over real early one morning. I answered the door, my brother and I were up watching cartoons and he asked to talk to my mom and dad. He looked off but it was early so I didn't pay much mind to it. Mom and dad were in bed still but he asked me to wake them up so I went and got them. Mom had him come on in and got some coffee going and he just had this weird look on his face sitting there at the kitchen table all quiet which wasn't like him at all.
Mom told my brother and I to go watch cartoons but I stayed right outside the kitchen door and overheard him tell them about coming to out back in his field standing there watching a saucer like object going up into the sky. He said that it was like he just came to all the sudden standing there and thought he was having a dream. When he couldn't see it anymore he realized he was naked and went to go into the house. He said he got this wave of fear that came over him. He started shaking real bad when he realized he wasn't dreaming. When it got light he went out back and found 3 large swirl marks in the grass. He got pretty freaked out at that point and that was when he came over to our place. My parents bedroom window faced back toward his house so he wondered if they had seen anything.
At that point I made my way out the front door real quiet and high tailed it out back to the field fence we shared and sure enough 3 big swirls of grass were trampled down in his field in a triangle shape and at that point I ran back home. They were maybe about 6' in diameter each.
He had gone through a divorce and lived alone but he was just an all around good neighbor and friend. We went fishing now and then and I took care of his animals when he was out of town on logging jobs.

To make a long story short he was not the same after that. He stopped joking around and took to drinking and about two months later put his house up for sale and moved. I was sad because he was kinda like an uncle in some ways and I'd never seen a man have a personality change like that.

My self, my wife and a few sleeping children came home to our rural farm a little before midnight. After turning off the car lights, off in the pasture I could see 1 or 2 small green lights.  I thought someone was messing with out cattle, or perhaps someone had a green headlight on and had jack lighted a deer.  We watched them for a minute or so, but could not make anything out other than the faint green lights.  My wife saw the next two.  From where we were parked, looking between the house and the shop we saw them.  Two green lights, Growing brighter and than fading out of sight before growing brighter again over a period of a few seconds repeatedly.   They were "dancing" together in a figure 8 pattern, but not in sync.  They would have been about 50 yards or so away, since they were in the yard and the tree line was behind them.  They moved out of sight, behind the house.  

At this point the first lights in the pasture were completely forgotten by us.  I told my wife to stay with the children, and entered the house to look out the windows for the lights.   I removed my carry gun and put it on the kitchen table.  I remember thinking to my self, I do not need this.  I have no explanation for this action, and I am careful not to leave a loaded firearm where the children can get to it.  This action is extremely out of character for me.  I looked out the windows and did not see them.  I than cleared the house (unarmed)  It was a small farm house, It would have taken 5 minutes or less.  I remember being frightened while looking through the house, but thought I must.  Nothing was found.  I retrieved my handgun, and went out to get my wife and sleeping children.  Once they were in the house, my wife asked why it took me so long to come out and get them.  She claimed I was in the house for 1/2 hour (I still think 5 minutes or less), and she saw the lights leave to the east before I came out.  I got my starlight scope out of the safe and went on the front porch to look at the pasture where we saw the first lights.  Nothing.  We never saw them again.  We talked to a few neighbors, no one else admitted ever seeing them.  This would have been in 2009.

I have absolutely no idea what they were.  None of the cattle were injured, and there was nothing to show anything unusual had happened on the property.

If I was to guess, I would suspect that they were not physical as I understand that word, and I would suspect them to be spiritual in nature (again as best as I understand that word).

Bird or insect.  It happens.

These are the kind of stories that make things believeable.  His behavior completely changed after the incident and you verified the markings he saw.  

Once .

Very freaky, saw it with 3 other people.

Made a believer out of all 4 of us.

My uncle is certain he saw a hovering light above a state hospital for mentally  handicapped people.  Said it made no sound and then took off very fast straight up.

In the late 70's my BIL and his uncle (early teens close to the same age) were out snowmobiling through the woods on the family farm one night and stopped suddenly when they lit up a shiny metallic disk shaped UFO in a clearing. They hauled balls back to the house and told no one (family was asleep) figuring they would check it out the next morning when it was daylight and less "scary". The next day it was gone but there were 3 circular impressions in the snow from the weight of the landing gear. No melted or blown snow so whatever propelled it upwards didn't make much heat or turbulence. My sister (his wife) was the only one my BIL told after 10 yrs. of keeping it a secret and will still only talk about the event if prompted, his uncle verifies what happened but gets a serious look on his face and tries to change the subject like he has PTSD or just wants to avoid the stigma of sounding crazy.

My brother and I did. A very close encounter. Like right above us low enough I could have thrown a rock at it low and even missing time and feelings.


Having said that. Aliens are NOT visiting us. There was absolutely NO proof it was alien or  anything other than an unidentifiable mystery. Labeling it anything but that is speculation and you are just labeling it something you want it to be.

I have.

I will share the story when I am back at my desktop and can type more easily.

..and that is the difference between an Unidentified Flying Object and an UNIDENTIFIABLE Flying Object.  The latter really fucks you up.

Somewhere in a very, very small town well outside of Sioux City, Iowa.  Late December 1977 or 78.  The date was actually written in a notebook but that notebook has long since be relegated to the dustbin of time.

It is just prior to the usual Christmas school break and an 8 (or 9) year old boy is walking home on a VERY quiet, ultra clear December evening after band practice for the annual kids' Christmas "show" that was common in small towns across the Midwest and the East back in the day.

While he walks, as is his habit, he is stargazing partly through the leafless trees that line the road to his home which is about a half a mile or so away.

Without warning, from beyond and behind the trees at an altitude of about five thousand feet a mysterious and very INDESCRIBABLE object shoots from a point that was out of view, through the tree branches and stops above his head.  The object then bounces, at an angle, back behind the trees and out of site in an instant.  It then pops back into view and then zigzags in an out of site several times.  Each time making zig zag patterns across the night sky.   It stops well past the boy (towards the west) and then hovers again.  Then, like a shot, it sets off on a straight course towards Sioux City like a golden tracer bullet.  It is utterly silent.

(As an aside, the boy in this story grew up in and around aircraft and long range shooting through his childhood well into the early 1980s and was actually a fairly good judge of distance and scale)  

As was noted, the object was not like the "nuts and bolts" type UFOs you usually hear of.  There is no proper way to describe the craft or the motion specifically attributable to the craft when it would stop and hover for a few moments before zigging or zagging in and out of sight.

The boy stops and marvels at it, knowing that no one will EVER believe him if he tells the story of this gold and black "thing" that, for some very strange reason, gives him the impression of a crazy rendition of a bumble bee.  It didn't LOOK like a bumble bee...it's just the only thing his mind can come up with to describe VERY vivid colors that comprised it..

He finishes his walk home and says not a word. To his dismay, he is not even close to the only person who has seen it as the very same sighting appears on the local news that evening; having been seen over a large portion of Woodbury Country, Iowa.

Many of the eyewitnesses described is as being the color of a bright, gold and black bumble bee.

The boy still kept his mouth shut.  That sighting was not the only paranormal thing he would witness in his life....but it was the first and it left him very, very disturbed to this very day.

The news report has been searched for but, due to video tape being recycled so much in the 70s and 80s, it has never been found and likely never will be.

All the time and I swear I saw their faces yo. But I'm typically relaxed and just like whatever. Think they want a fight.

Pretty boring, comparatively, but I did see a triangular shaped black craft silhouetted against low winter clouds illuminated by the orange glow of the city below.

At first glance I thought it was an F117. But it was low and slow enough, and I saw it clearly enough for long enough that I decided it wasn't an F117 (I had a model of this aircraft that I played with as a kid, so I've see that thing at every angle imaginable). It definitely wasn't a B2. Aspect ratio was way off.

This was the early 2000's. Maybe 2001?

Late 2014/early 2015 our air wing was doing work ups for deployment on the USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT.  We all kept seeing these weird things off the coast of VA/NC, and the videos were kept and saved inboard the ship's secure vault.  The one in particular that was mine was the one looking down over the water with the "dot" zooming from top right to bottom left on the display before we were able to track it. We also saw it make some very extreme maneuvers like  "instantaneous" 90° turns (not shown on the video). LT Ryan Graves who was just in the news for his tic-tac video was in my sister squadron; the day I shot my video my wingman was from his squadron and we all got videos that were the same.

For the record I don't believe it was "aliens" or visitors from another planet.

What is your best guess on what it was?

*sigh*

As a government employee with classified security clearances, I HATE using the term "classified government program" because that term has become synonymous with conspiracy theories, cover ups, and Roswell/aliens... but I think it was a program that we were not read into that has not yet been acknowledged.

A giant rectangular object flew over my wife and I in northern AZ. It was totally silent and blacked out the night sky in a perfect rectangle. Was trippy. If we didn’t see it together, It would be hard to say it really happened because it took my brain a second to understand what was happening.

I figured with the handful of fighter pilots/aviators here, one of you guys stood a good chance of one of these encounters.  
We’re you able to see anything with the naked eye?  Or just you IR tracking?

I was a nuke electrician  with a classified security clearance on the Enterprise, you can tell me.  Spill the beans.

My mom told me a story once about her family being out putting up hay in the field one afternoon in the middle of summer, and having some sort of flying disc with rotating lights all around it come right over them and hover. They all (my mom, her two brothers, and my grandma and grandpa) all hid under the hay wagon until it flew off. I'm guessing this was sometimes in the mid-50's.  They all have confirmed my moms story.,

@1saxman

These dreams of floating down the stairs...

Where you standing at the top of the stairs looking down, and you suddenly began to float down the stairs standing upright with your feet motionless just above the steps?  You wanted to stop moving, but were unable to?  

I guess what I am trying to ask is...were you floating on your back or were you upright?

Good question,  I meant to include this in my write-up above; I personally only ever saw it on our aircraft sensors like depicted in the videos you see online,  but never with my naked eye.

sometime in the 80's(i'm thinking 84 or 85) me and 3 others were camping at long sault provincial campgrounds somewhere between cornwall and kingston ontario.
we left our campsite to cross the road so we could walk to the beach situated on the saint Laurence seaway.
reason being we were bored and wanted to see the water at night and have a beer.absolutely no one around but us.
this was at night around 9:00 p.m. around July.

as we were walking to the beach i noticed two blue-like afterburner "engines" over the inlet that held the boat launch for pleasure craft.
imagine an image of a nighttime carrier launch where the engines go to full power before launch.i would say those "flames" were a few hundred feet off the ground.
craft was totally silent and IIRC there was a strong wind coming off the seaway.
this thing circled around us in the course of maybe an hour--we didnt see it at the beach but when we walked back we saw it again.
i say "we" because i pointed it out to everyone but no one seemed concerned or cared.

it was as if an f-18 was practicing surveillance on us in "silent mode" even though i'm sure there is no silent mode on jet aircraft.new a/c engines today are pretty quiet with hi-bypass geared turbofans.

this comes from someone with 27 years building and then inspecting commercial aircraft.

Thanks for joining the discussion. I'm of the belief that a lot of what people are seeing is in fact black program craft.  

Something I wrestle with though is there is typically a progression of technology used in aircraft.  Everything flying that is known to the public utilizes a reactionary propulsion system. It either breathes air like a jet, or carries it's oxygenator with it like a rocket. They give off heat and are loud

Craft like what CDR. Fravor saw with his own eyes are using something altogether different. Craft with no control surfaces that can make high speed, 90 degree turns like what you witnessed must also use a non-reactionary propulsion, as well as some means of diminishing or cancelling G forces, or they'd be ripped apart. Missiles can't even make instant turns, let alone aircraft.  You know this better than most.  

That would seem to be a quantum leap forward in technology versus just the next step forward.

If we do in fact have these technologies and are flying silent, hovering, black triangles and other craft, that begs a lot of questions.  For example, why  do we continue shoveling money into NASA rockets and air breathing jets when both systems are completely obsolete.

I think I know why but I really don't like what it means for us.

Why do you think they would do that?  The only reason I could think of is control/holding us back from some Great Leap Forward for nefarious purposes.

Told this story before and it wasn't close or so I don't think it was.

Aug 2013. My wife and I are on a late night trip on hwy 40 to Laughlin NV. Think it was between 12am and 1 maybe. We see what appears to be hanging low in the sky, these lights that were in sequence. They started in the middle and radiated out away from each other and then stopped and started the sequence over at like a 45° angle.

Didn't even think to pull over and try and get a pic as it didn't seem that strange at the time, I guess we were just on a mission to get to the river to gamble and party but now I kick myself for not trying to get a picture at the time.

One other thing to mention is earlier in the trip we saw what looked like low flashes off in the distance a few times. Made me think someone was setting off fireworks for some reason.

I would believe a secret program as well, but my limited understanding is that the  maneuvers these craft are performing are simply defying physics and way beyond our current tech.

I think our "understanding" as citizenry is always well behind the reality of the current state of tech in use or in research. Probably at least 10 years retarded.

I agree with this line of reasoning generally, but if it's US Gov, it's beyond even advanced education/understanding. I say this as an experienced aviator with multiple degrees in relevants fields (astrophysics, astro engineering)... this shit still blows my mind.

Could that been because of its distance from you (far) and it was perhaps relatively small (although the ones spotted of CA by Fravor and others I thought he said were about the size of an FA-18)?

Regardless I am jealous of you guys born with and kept perfect vision long enough to fly
I remember reading of Vietnam war fighter pilots who claim they were seeing the red stars on the wings of Migs 20 miles out.  

Unless it divulges too much about the capabilities of your IRST systems (if that’s how you tracked it in your case) - does the FLIR tell you them surface temperature range of the object?  I know the industrial FLIR systems do that for the user, but no idea about the military stuff.  
So if it were a dull surface and something not conspicuous like gray or a lt earth tone (like a camouflage) it might be hard to see visually if it were small and moving against a similar colored background.   Especially if it’s just a little pill shaped object.  
But if it were polished metal , or a glossy smooth surface , maybe gloss white, you’d expect to see some sunlight glint off it.

Based on my intuition and distance, I would say it was relatively small; definitely not the size of an aircraft. And we weren't able to tell temperature,  only relative temperature compared to everything else in the FOV like any other IR camera.

For the record, I still wore glasses when I first started flying in fighter jets.  Backseats are way more forgiving than front seats...