There is nothing like seeing the beauty of the lights of Albuquerque while riding a bicycle on the East Mesa, near the foot of the Sandias as well as the Southeast Mesa, near the Monsantos. Of course, from many a vantage point, the lights of Lower Albuquerque (LA) could not be seen, but their ever-present glow could be seen as well as the lights of the Northeast Heights. My memories only cover the period of the late ’60’s when Albuquerque only had 300,000 people and many fewer lights and cars. Now that the population is pushing a million, I’m sure that the phenomena of dancing lights and their reflections, refractions, and glows are even more astonishing, presenting phenomena to the eye that is perhaps even more difficult to explain by the rational mind. I will never forget the summer of 1967, when I was biking one night southward on the main drag through, what was then Sandia Base towards the Goat Farm, (the Wyoming extension to what was then Monsanto Base and Lovelace Foundation’s Inhalation Laboratory) when suddenly I became aware of this strange light that appeared to be following me along the ridge of the Monsanto Mountains as I pedaled along the deserted and dark highway. Although chills ran up my spine and my hair stood on end to wave at the light and at each other (they were already doing that anyway because of the blowing enchantment), I concentrated on my pedaling and achieving my destination (the Goat Farm) ahead and what I had to do when I got there (playing nursemaid to another irradiated and dying sheep). I tried to put the lights out of my mind, realizing that they were likely caused by the reflection and the refraction of the Albuquerque City Lights off the rock face of the mountains in the distance. I wasn’t about to call up the Military Police Headquarters on Sandia Base to report an UFO and become the laughing stock for the night (and perhaps for the next few years). Anyway, my exlanation was good enough for me. I was never approached, grabbed, or made prisoner by anything like an other worldly alien. I made it to the Farm, did my job, and returned to the base, and went to sleep. By then, I was too tired to worry about it anyway. I can easily see how the UFO stories of the ’80’s originated. The light phenomena in the vicinity of Albuquerque at night can be very tricky indeed to the untrained, unscientific mind.

In the late ’60’s, I did a lot of bicycling in the area, both for business (transportation to my job) and for pleasure, both during the day and in the early evening hours (because I would invariably overshoot my cycling time estimates and arrive back at the base after dark). There was no chance of getting lost because the lights of the city were always an ever present beacon in the night to guide me back home, though they did sometime present phenomena that were confusing. At this time, there was no real development east of Wyoming Boulevard. Eubank and Juan Tabo were still pretty much unpaved roads. There were still plenty of wide open space on the East Mesa allowing a wide view of the Albuquerque lights. Now, I imagine that there are so many lights between Eubank and Juan Tabo and eastward to the foot of the mountain as to make it difficult to tell one section of the city from another. Pete’s website’s nighttime picture indicate as much. It all being just a “sea of light”. Oh where have the jack rabbits and roadrunners gone! I suppose they are gone forever, at least in this area. The tumbleweed must be confined in the backyards of those homeowners who are too lazy and too cheap to water their grass. I suppose that they roll in the enchantment-laced wind from one privacy fence to another, bouncing from one to the other, until they are finally battered to smittereens only to be become future enchantment flying in the wind. This is New Mexico’s version of the Oxygen-Carbon Dioxide Cycle that we hear so much about in the Global Warming Debate, only here it is only about cycling the tumbleweed from the green stage to the “enchanted land” and beyond.