Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind
Prose & Photography: Sean Mitchell
Staring off into the mountainside while the noon sun shines down, a Golden Eagle rides the thermals aimlessly, tempting me to fire off a few snaps whenever he comes within a remote range of me. There’s always an abundance of downtime, and that’s one of the reasons we get up at 3am to drive for miles and miles to trudge up the side of a trail-less mountain - but it’s not the real reason.
“Sidewinder low level, two ship of Raptors entering at point [static].”
Did I hear that right? The heart begins to race and the mind to wander to whether it could truly be.
I’ve stared for hours at that mountain, watching for movement out of fear that something would appear before my eyes too late to be anything other than a memory; but now, the anticipation has sharpened the senses, as the sentinel-like radio call always does. The minutes seem like days.
One glint, then another, surprisingly close together.
The viewfinder shows the canted tail and the alien canopy as the second crosses the wash of the other in front of the mountainside nearly head on.
Don’t screw this up - not this.
A clean line as they enter the turn and...it’s beautiful - my eye couldn’t lose this thing if it wanted. It’s a fixation as the vapors slightly stream from the wingtips and the golden Raptor gleams in the sun.
And there’s a second - similar line, angling topside below me and I get to follow it all the way out the exit through the canyon, past the spires and that’s it...no. The chase is on - this is the part where I get to watch the dance that makes these birds feel more like something out of science fiction than something out of science. The way they maneuver so effortlessly and so balletically over the peaks and trees - I can’t stop following them until I finally lose sight behind the mountainside.
After 30 seconds, I get one last gift: the roar echoing from miles away, until finally I’m just left with the sound of the wind again.
The whole thing is over in minutes, but the memory will go on for a lifetime.
