Or what if I were to miss a spaceship?
On Amtrak’s Empire Builder, running between Seattle and Chicago, there is a long straight run across Wisconsin, after the track leaves the broad Mississippi and its glimpse-able eagles. The southbound train speeds up after it leaves Lacrosse (its top speed is 79 mph) and the passenger eye tends to blur what’s closest…fields, marshes, fences, an occasional farm.
Don’t allow the blur. Stay attentive. Approximately fifteen minutes past Columbus, on the left-hand side of the train, in a field with no buildings, there is a spaceship.
I glimpsed this oddity several times without being quick enough to register it (as the train sped by, I turned so quickly that I bumped my face on the window) or to figure out its location. A trip or two later, boarding, I thought to query the oldest conductor I could see. Was there, and here I laughed lightly, a spaceship along the line in Wisconsin? Oh, he said, waving me on to board. You mean the rocket bus? Start looking after we leave Columbus!
And there it was. Alone in a field, with a decidedly galactic, if forlorn, air.
I want to know more. Sometimes oddities, roadside attractions, can turn up on the web, spied and backtracked by some other curious soul. Not this time. My search, for ‘spaceship on Amtrak line in Wisconsin’, led off with an AI-generated summary. The cold creature said this:
“There is no information available about a spaceship reported directly on an Amtrak line in Wisconsin.” (Wait, is there an indirect report of some kind?) And it went on to say “While there are reports of unexplained aerial phenomena, they do not necessarily indicate alien spacecraft or a spaceship on an Amtrak line.” (Good, I guess.)
Parenthetically, also this note: “There is a story about an alleged spaceship encounter near Eagle River, Wisconsin, in 1961, where a man claimed to have received pancakes from the occupants.” Eagle River is not anywhere near Columbus. I checked.
I inquired further. The machine in the box said, helpfully, “The term ‘rocket bus’ is not a recognized transportation service in or near Columbus, Wisconsin.
Also, in tiny font at the very bottom: “AI responses may include mistakes.”
Well, the rocket bus is there, however un-chronicled, captured by my eye and more poorly by my poised-in-the-hand-since-leaving-Columbus phone camera, its existence confirmed by the conductor whom I never saw again. What happened to that conductor? Why is there a rocket bus in a field in Wisconsin? And what is a rocket bus anyway?
It was such a quick glimpse. Could there have been pancakes involved?
I feel a field trip coming on.
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Photo by the author.