After last night’s post, I got a lot of messages containing theories and speculation about what’s going on, and what was falling from the sky in that photo. A few weeks ago, I would have laughed at some of these ideas, but nothing seems very funny anymore:

“Sunwinkle” said:

dude, it wont make your mind rest easier, but I know that extra terristrial beings have long been trying to locate a non-uniformNo coincidence that the location is near I-196. 196 is the lowest known Lychrel number (its a number that can never re-create a palindrem (sp). Look it up. Ever wonder why our most famous astronaut was Neil Armstrong? NeilA = Alien

“Mike” said:

I think that it’s some toxic chemical on a falling satellite that explains what happened. A virus or bacteria just wouldn’t drop people like the military video demonstrated, nor would radiation, unless it was a massive dose like 100,000 rads or more. A satellite would also explain the statement during the video about “following the signal”. What signal could they get from a UFO?

And “Larry F” said:

Peruvian Meteor Flu. Same thing happened … what, six months back now, when that meteor crashed on that farm in Peru, and all those people got sick and started dieing, even stock and farm animals. Then the Peruvian Meteorlogical Department showed up and mysteriously every one was fine and they blamed it on mass hysteria and lack of schooling. Coincadentaly, the following winter we have the worst flu season to date with a strain that mutates to fast for a vacine to be any good.

Other theories I’ve received suggest that government space programs are involved, and argue that this is another Roswell or Area 51 scenario. A few people even told me to read about the “moon hoax” of 1969.

Even if I’m willing to accept the prospect of alien life, or government conspiracies, I still have trouble believing that whatever happened in Piedmont is extraterrestrial. It just doesn’t feel right.

Still no word from Nash, but I might have another possible breakthrough.

I was just sent a photo from a reader who claims to have been hiking along a park trail about 20 miles outside of Piedmont two weekends ago, when she got this picture on her cell phone.

At the time, she thought it was just a comet or a falling star… but when she heard about what I’ve been going through, she started to wonder if it was something more.

I’ve been getting so many odd conspiratorial messages lately that I was tempted to write it off as a random snapshot. But then I realized that several of you have written or posted comments to report seeing flashes of light in the sky around the same time, and I checked the metadata in the photo to see when it was taken.

April 11, 2008, at 10:43 PM

The night before Sam left me the voicemail that started all of this.

So I’m trying to figure out what this means. It’s starting to seem as though whatever happened in Piedmont had something to do with whatever it was that fell from the sky. But I’m not sure what it could have been, and if it were something bigger, like a meteor, there’s no way it wouldn’t have been in the news. Plus, there’s the military, and their attempt — for reasons I can’t yet figure out — to keep the whole thing quiet.

But at least this gives me another possible direction to explore.