I have.

1979 right after the taking of the hostages in Tehran Iran I was at Fort Bragg, 2/325 PIR, and we began practicing for the invasion of Iran.

So we had this night jump onto Sicily DZ, a massive sandy drop zone at Bragg in what we called the sand hills.

I was the primary Jumpmaster on my bird, a C-130, in a force of 12 total birds passing staggered in line to drop our sticks. 700 feet low altitude static line mass tac exits.

So we're a minute or two out, we're under red light, and I am hanging out the door to check my markers to make sure we're on the right path. I'm hanging out the door and I see something 90 degrees straight ahead of me at about 3000 feet just hovering, but I couldn't quite make it out and I was like wtf.

Safety wonders why I am still hanging out of the door and he grabs me and pulls me back in knowing it was time for me to give the 1 minute warning, which I do, then ten seconds then bam ..... go go go.

I get my stick out, look to see that my secondary got his stick out on the other side, he gives me a thumbs up (no towed jumpers) and he bails and I blast right after him under a red light.

We were jumping the old T-10s back then, not very steerable, but I managed to stand on one riser and just managed to skim the tree tops to make the end of the DZ and I make my PLF and stand up.

Guy about twenty feet from me starts walking towards me .... it was this butter bar Lt named Mike Harris from Chattanooga Tennessee and he's raving about me standing on the riser to skim the tree tops and I cut him off and tell him about this thing I had seen when I was hanging out the door.

So he's listening, and looking at me like I was crazy, but I was fairly well known for being a serious guy by then so he's looking up and scanning a pitch black sky while I'm talking and he says, "what the frick is that?" and he points to this gray object at about 1500 feet hovering above the trees behind us.

So we both quit rolling our silk and instead we just watch this thing for a minute, (seemed longer). I ask him, "is that some kind of chopper?"

We both agreed it wasn't, but it was silent, except either we heard a hum or our adrenaline was pumping and the breeze may have been blowing a bit ... but all of the sudden this thing shoots up to maybe 5000 feet in the blink of an eye. We lost it for just a second but caught a reflection off of it from some lights on post and we continued to follow it. I mean it defied the laws of physics.

Mike Harris says to me while we're looking up, "we can't tell anyone about this. It would ruin us."

I was just staring at it shaking my head that I agreed.

About that time these five lights, dull but red in a point (although this thing was huge and square shaped), flick on and it continues to just sit there for a few more seconds then zip .... it goes straight up then takes off horizontally like it was shot out of a cannon and was gone. Not a sound.

True story.

So we finally get our silk rolled up and throw DBags and rucks over our backs and make our way to the cattle cars about two clicks away at the far end of the DZ.

When we get there our platoon is waiting on us and we load up and start back to post.

Everyone is quiet.

One of the NCOs is smoking a cigarette by the door and he leans over to me and asks me which bird I jump mastered and I told him ... ended up being the one right behind his, which he jump mastered. And he says to me, "I saw some shite .... you can't tell anyone," and he proceeds to tell me the same story Mike and I had seen.

No way to explain it. Our business required us to know every kind of aircraft in the world. Even our poker cards were aircraft knowledge based cards.

This was no aircraft of this earth.

That was the first time and we let it go and would occasionally get drunk and tell that story to our closest cohorts.

Fast forward to 1983 and I am with another unit, another Airborne regiment 509th AIrborne Combat Team, and we're training with the SAS in England, Wales and a little piece of Scotland. We're staging for this insertion into the mountains out of the RAF base, middle of the night, and we're using these modified Seahorse copters which we're planning to tailgate.

So as we cross over into Scotland we get a red light and we all stand up and the tailgate goes down. I'm first man out on my stick and an SAS guy is jump mastering, same rank as I, and he sees it first then I see it and he turns to me and hollers above the prop blast, "do you see that" I said, "wtf."

Now this was a fairly moonlit night and we could see this thing flying behind us, about 500 feet above us, same identical type of anomaly I had seen that night at Bragg.

But we get a greenlight and zip ... we're gone. We get on the ground and several of the guys are talking about it, quite a few guys had seen it on at least three different birds ... and we were told to stfu and get on with the mission.

I am convinced there are things not from this planet out there. Absolutely convinced. Have seen it with mine own eyes.

Now, while stationed in Italy with the 509th and later the 4/325th Airborne Combat Teams (our mission was to rescue and secure the Space Shuttle if it was forced down or had to land anywhere in Europe or Africa) ... we used to stage out of Aviano AFB in Northern Italy, so we used to interact and party with a lot of fighter pilots that flew in and out of there all the time. Not to mention the Nimitz guys who would port and dock in Naples for resupply.

Almost every fighter pilot I ever met had at least one or two unexplainable UFO stories to tell. Not all, but many of them would whisper their stories to us over beers in the clubs and we would tell them our stories.

One common theme we would always agree on .... whatever they are they always seemed to be observing our military maneuvers as if they were scouting us. And they always seemed to be most commonly seen around our best units, carrier groups, Airborne units, etc.

Went to a big reunion last year and some of us old timers were talking about it. Some stayed in for 30+ years. Others have sons still doing active duty.

The sightings are still happening all the time. They have yet to be explained but think about it.

Our descriptions from back then are identical to modern descriptions. Whatever technology they had back then they're still using it. That's a conundrum to us because you would think something would have changed .... but it hasn't.

Think about that. That's forty years.

I just finished streaming the first couple of episodes of History Channel's UFO special that aired a few weeks ago.

What these people coming out are describing are exactly what we would see forty years ago.

There is something to be gleaned from that.