We must have been about half way home when it happened........ But no, let me begin at the beginning. It is the custom, during the Summer months, for Newark section members to go for Friday evening "training" runs whereon we usually find a licensed hostelry for refreshment (strictly to maintain the isotonic balance of the bodily fluids). On one such night I entered the "Veterans All- Comers Pint of Bitter Time Trial" where I managed to clip two minutes off my previous best time. Flushed with success, I attempted to improve even further on this time but due to fatigue, and other factors, I was unsuccessful.
But I digress. It was while we were returning home, between Hougham and Dry Doddington, that I first noticed the sound. At first I thought it was my dynamo drive wheel that had slipped on to the tyre tread. It was like a high pitched "thrumming" noise that gradually got louder. I was just about to dismount to investigate when my lights and those of my colleagues suddenly, and without warning, extinguished.
In the instant darkness we all managed to come to a halt safely. It was then that we noticed the blue and green flashing lights in the sky above the field on our left. We stood and gazed at this strange phenomenon. Someone said "It's a Flying Saucer"; "Don't talk rubbish!" said another. The lights grew brighter or closer and eventually we were able to distinguish the shape of a most unusual craft; It was formed as a flattened sphere with a hemispheric dome on the top, with what appeared to be blue green-contra rotating lights around the periphery. The vessel settled down in the corn field on three round landing pods flattening the corn in the process. "Could this be the cause of those strange corn circles reported in the press?" I wondered.
The "ship" seemed to be about 60 feet in diameter, but it was hard to be certain in the pale moonlight. "Shall we go and have a closer look" said a companion. "You bet" I said "I've always wanted a trip in a flying saucer." As we drew closer, a door opened and a humanoid figure could be seen silhouetted in the opening. With some trepidation we approached the door.
The figure spoke to us in a strange accent, which sounded vaguely Eastern European to me. He invited us inside and explained that he was a visitor from the galaxy we call Andromeda and that he and his colleagues had been observing Earth for over fifty years. He told us that we were destroying our planet by pollution, and that he greatly admired our silent, efficient and environmentally-friendly mode of transport. After about 20 minutes of discussion during which he attempted, unsuccessfully, to explain how his craft functioned, he told us we should leave and escorted us to the door.
Did it really happen? Who could we tell? Who would believe us anyway? If we told the police they would probably comment that we had been time trialling and furthermore I had an under-inflated front tyre that might have caused an accident, possibly injuring a motorist! I didn't want to be charged with Reckless cycling (Which carries a maximum £2000 fine) so we decided to tell just our cycling friends who would understand the full implications of this unusual event. I for one will be travelling that road more frequently in the coming months in the hope of a further encounter with our intergalactic traveller.
We gazed awe-struck as his craft took off vertically, hovered momentarily, then accelerated rapidly disappearing from sight within 10 seconds. "Strange..... I thought, why was there no sonic "boom"?"