Everybody Has a Story: Flying object spotted in Montana

The recent government report about unidentified flying objects reminds me of the mid-1970s, when I was working out of Hamilton, Mont., developing a new hot springs resort: Sleeping Child Hot Springs.

It was 16 or so miles out of town, high in the mountains at the end of the road. The lodge and swimming pool had been there since the early 1900s. We were building a huge new hot tub, buildings with rooms to rent, dance floor, gambling area and restaurant. We were turning it into a world-class resort.

Several of us lived there while construction was going on. The locals would come up to soak and swim, shoot pool, eat and drink. There was a group of horse-riding ladies called the Saddlebags who would come every week or two. They were the funniest, most interesting women you could ever hope to meet in your life.

Montana was as wild as could be and it would get rowdy on weekends. I had people break bottles over my head. There was a guy with one eye who’d get mad and go outside and shoot bullets into the air.

There were two brothers who came up. They were big boys, 6-foot-2-inches and 240 pounds each. They’d get drunk, throw a picnic table into the pool, float around and drink more. They inevitably started fighting — each other. We’d calm them down as best we could, but one broke a pool cue over my head one night. He came up the next day, apologized, picked me up and hugged me. All was well.

It was 20 degrees below zero and the bartender and I were soaking in the pool, which was 100 degrees or so. The locals were gone and everyone else was asleep. The bartender was a Flathead Indian, the sweetest, funniest girl who loved to laugh and joke and smile.

We were watching satellites cross the sky — Montana is called Big Sky Country for a reason — when one of the satellites stopped dead in its tracks, sat there, then shot straight up and disappeared into the night sky.

I remember her saying, “Did you see that?”

We watched the skies many a night after that. It never happened again.

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