The making of a documentary

The Zone of Silence

Documentary

“For 30 years I thought my father played a trick on us kids.

Today I'm going to find out for the first time the truth about the crazy lights that I observed first hand as a young teenager in the zone of silence desert.”

This story emerged during a normal family conversation where we were remembering our stay at the ranch. At that time we were city people living in a deserted place full of ghost stories and supernatural phenomena: ” The woman with the horse head”, “The devil with the chicken foot”, “The weeping woman looking for her lost kids”. We didn’t believe the stories, specially the one about the crazy lights.  They were called crazy because their movement were random and their appearance was also random.

However, our disbelief in the crazy lights was about to change.  One night 3 lights appeared on the horizon at dusk. We thought they were tractors working on the ranch next door so we decided to have a look at the lights ourselves. We seated the horses and my brother, dad and myself went in search of them. We rode for about 2 km but the lights were not getting closer or further, they just remained where they were, moving from side-to-side. Then, without warning they disappeared. We looked at each other and my father said to start heading back, so we turned around. Suddenly and as soon as we turned to head back , the lights came back, brighter than before as if they were close behind us.  All I could see was a long shadow of me on the horse. Scared, I didn’t look back but signaled the horse to get back home and we all started galloping towards the house. Upon arrival I asked my dad and brother if they turned around to see what was behind us but they told me that they were so scared that they didn't and just wanted to get home.

I was 14 years old and my father always played tricks on us at that time. I didn’t even ask, but I thought it was just another trick. I was certain that my father has seen something so obvious that he just didn’t want to say. He wanted to keep us in suspense and wonder.

About 30 years later,  I asked my father (now in his seventies) what he saw the night we went in search of the crazy lights. He laughed, and said - I don’t know, I was too scared to turn around and look. To this day I am still not sure if he is still playing the same trick.

This is a part of my history that I want to revisit.