My first encounter

**My Encounter at El Manzano
SUMMER of 1977 (Age 6) – Cajón del Maipo, Chile

In the summer of 1977, when I was six years old, my family decided to celebrate my passing the school reading exams with a short camping trip to El Manzano, in the wild and beautiful Cajón del Maipo, south of Santiago.

That evening, while gathering firewood on the riverbank, I had my first real brush with death. On the opposite shore, a mountain lion appeared: silent, huge, its eyes fixed on me. The only thing that saved me was the river. The current roared so fiercely that the puma couldn’t cross. I still remember those yellow eyes glowing in the dusk.

Later, when night had fallen completely, we built a bonfire beside our tent. We made lanterns from old coffee cans and candles, their soft light flickering against the darkness. The air smelled of woodsmoke and pine. We sat in a circle, tired but happy, listening to the river.

Then came the screaming.

At first we thought someone was injured or in trouble. We stood up, straining to see across the valley. And that’s when we all saw it—at exactly the same moment.

About five hundred meters away, hanging motionless in the pitch-black sky, was an enormous orange orb the size of a school bus. Around it spun a halo of revolving multicolored plasma, like living fire—red, blue, green, violet—constantly shifting and pulsing.

All across the camping area, people were shouting, pointing, some in terror, others in awe. But my family and I could only stare, frozen.

Then the orb began to open, or release, thousands upon thousands of tiny, brilliant lights. They poured out like sparkling stars and swarmed around the main object in perfect, flowing patterns. Even as a six-year-old, I remember thinking clearly:

“They’re showing off. They’re putting on a show… for us.”

The spell was broken when my uncle Luis suddenly screamed in Spanish:

“¡Son marcianos! ¡Los marcianos! ¡Todos los niños adentro de la carpa, ahora mismo!”

We were rushed into the tent in a panic.

And then… nothing.

Complete darkness in my memory. A blank space where the rest of the night should be.

Whatever that thing was, whatever those beings or that intelligence was, it marked me forever. My whole family saw it. Dozens of other campers saw the exact same thing that night. To this day, it remains the most vivid, most mysterious, and most unshakable memory of my entire life.

I know what I saw.
And I know I was not alone, but by no means it is the only or the first time that I saw them....