The Praying Prey
Steve Harpold
Professor Cathy Rodriguez
English 135 / DeVry University
5/14/2011

The following is a true account of what I witnessed on the slope of a bluff in Carlsbad California one evening in 1972. There are some things in this world that defy an explanation in normal terms because there lacks a common frame of reference. What is perceived by our senses must pass through the matrix of our memories which form our concepts until they settle into a paradigm that can feed back the information in a usable form to the conscious registry of our minds for examination and articulation. We often come up with thoughts like; “Does that make sense?” and the attending reply of “Hell no!” or the classic, “I can’t believe what I just saw!” For some people it’s too much to handle and they blow a 50 amp fuse, others barely notice while a few see exactly what is going on, then silently file it away. Let’s open that file.
We were “Jesus People” hippie Christians, seekers rolling home to Vista from a Bible study at Captain Keno’s in Encinitas. Three Steves, an Alexis, a Bill, a Bob, a Vicky and a Nancy all stuffed inside a ’49 Chevy 2-door sedan, only because there was no back seat. The car rumbled up the coast on Hwy. 101 through a slight mist under a fairly low marine layer of about 200 ft. The moon generated a kind of glow through the cloud base and skittered on the kelp beds where the layer broke over the water. One of the guys had to pee so Steve pulled into one of the turnouts by Hole-in-the-Wall.
It was still warm out in early September so we all crunched down the ice plant to an almost level spot before the drop to the beach. Alexis wanted to pray as a group so we all held hands in an elliptical with the driver on the south end, Nancy on his left and Vicky on his right. Bob “the tree” Anderson was the north point and I faced his brother Bill with a view up the slope just barely able to see the top of Steve’s Chevy beyond the rotten wood rail. Alexis and Steve Samhammer faced each other in the center and connected the trios.
No one said anything; I was waiting for someone to start praying. Nancy was moving around like something was wrong with her back. There was not much of a breeze and the sound of the waves was mildly relaxing. I was thinking how salty and wet the air was staring up the slope at the cloud base when inside the span of about a second a streak with a face on the end of it bolts out of the sky from about 11 o’clock high heading right for me. There was a slight arc to its trajectory from the originating point at east northeast with a 65 degree down angle. As the streak approached it became quite audible with the buzzing sound of a large transformer or maybe a 2 stroke Kawasaki 125, only synthesized. The creature was light grey on the blue side of the spectrum, although made of light, it produced no illumination as it whizzed by. The face was elongated to the front with the nose being most forward and prominent, there was a slight grin.
The streakface went into a half roll just over Bill’s head, turned south and passed through the middle of the driver with a muffled pop, as it did his body convulsed once from side to side pushing him backward. Steve struggled to regain his balance while Nancy on his left, fainted dead away. All this happened in an instant of time.
Bob and his brother snapped to, and looking over his shoulder Bill asked if anybody saw the motorcycle go by. Vicky and my sister Alexis helped Nancy to her feet and up the bluff to the car. Steve Samhammer and Steve the driver said no more that night. I kept what I saw to myself except to tell Bill that no motorcycle made that noise. I don’t know what that thing wanted but I never really saw it come out the back of the driver.
The other part of this episode in weirdness was that on the way back to Vista we could read Nancy’s thoughts which were a confused mush of rapidly forming and disappearing words and unsettled emotions. Without a word being said she turned around and told us, “Stop it you guys”. We just looked at each other. Some months and years later the complete picture of what happened and why came together.
Steve Hanlon, the driver had been directly involved in witchcraft of one form or another beginning with his mother. He had also practiced his own brand of wishing and thought projection which he thought had actually killed a man in Redondo Beach. Steve had also picked up a heroin habit as the result of his experiences in Viet Nam as a young Marine. There was also an entity he was intimately involved with who call herself La Rae (the light), apparently she was rather androgynous looking and had no genitalia. He also related an experience where after smoking something she began to draw his soul out into the space just above his body (some kind of astral projection). This terrified him and he started seeking God.
Nancy on the other hand was not so complicated. She had spent most of the summer in Oregon eating Magic Mushrooms and dropping Acid. That is also a form of witchcraft, less specifically directed by the by the participant, but spiritually dangerous none the less.
I don’t know why the thing buzzed as it flew by – was it because of the power plant being close by? Who knows? Maybe Nancy was the target and the thing had to go through Steve to access her as they were holding hands. Anyway that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.