Processing the Kings Valley Lights
The morning after Kings Valley was mostly quiet—until it wasn’t. Most of us got maybe five hours of sleep, give or take. Egiel said it felt like he dreamt in static. We checked out of the motel by 10:00 a.m., stretched out across two booths at a café near Monmouth, and started sorting through notes from the night before.
Donna and I sat on opposite ends of the booth, trading off quotes from the interviews. She had three mini-cassette tapes to transcribe. Caleb brought up the man who claimed the lights danced to the rhythm of his breathing. Josh said the story matched two other rural cases he’d studied back in grad school. Vernon didn’t say much—he mostly watched and stirred sugar into his black coffee until it resembled syrup.
The Professor joined late. He had that half-shuffle, half-glide he does when he’s more focused on thinking than walking. “What we saw—or heard secondhand—isn’t inconsistent with localized plasma phenomena,” he said, while pouring syrup directly onto a sausage link. “But that’s not the point. The emotional residue… that’s worth noting. Fifty minutes is a long time for eight people to agree they all saw something that weird.”
Robin asked if they could interview the locals again during different hours to rule out atmospheric tricks. Donna countered that repetitive interviews risk contaminating the original memory. Mathew suggested checking satellite imaging—if only satellite archives were more accessible to civilians.
By lunch, we’d settled on two things: first, that Kings Valley warranted a revisit later in the year, especially under different weather conditions. Second, we were overdue to start prepping for the next unexpected stop—what Egiel keeps calling “the cattle narcolepsy incident.” It’s out near La Pine, southeast of Bend.
Jennifer had already called the rancher earlier that morning. Apparently, the dead cow hadn’t been moved, and the rest of the cattle—those that had fallen asleep—were still reacting strangely to being approached. This was day four.
Plans were drawn up over fries. Robin and I are riding with Mathew again, mostly because his car has the best cassette deck and Donna refuses to hear another UFO story narrated by George Noory on the AM dial. He said the program was called Night Hawk, I think. Egiel will be with Vernon and Caleb this time around. Vernon drives like he’s in a lab—slow, methodical, no sharp turns. Josh volunteered to split gas with Jennifer since they’re both trying to document local landmarks on the way.
The Professor—will follow behind in his battered blue van with his instruments and journals. We assume he sleeps in it sometimes. No one’s asked directly.
By 2:30 p.m., we hit the road again. Maps refolded, gear loaded, drive-time estimated at around 3 hours and 45 minutes without delays. We agreed to avoid stopping unless we needed fuel or found an actual working payphone—Caleb’s chasing down a radio broadcast about another Oregon sighting that aired on AM 750 last week.
We’re scheduled to meet the rancher first thing tomorrow. If his report checks out, this will be one of the stranger agricultural anomalies we’ve logged. No scorch marks. No mutilation. Just one dead cow, no trauma. The rest asleep like someone flipped a switch.
We’ll see.
Miles driven: 147
