Tim Meyer is a Duluth architect and community builder writing about Downtown Duluth, politics, business, sports and economic development. Reach him at tim.meyer@meyergroupduluth.com
I grew up in the 1970s watching the Apollo moon missions on a living room television set that made space feel both impossibly far away and somehow right next door. I was hooked early.
In second grade, I read An Interrupted Journey, the bestselling 1966 account of Betty Hill and Barney Hill, who said they were abducted in New Hampshire in 1961 and later recounted their story under hypnosis. It was the kind of book that made a young kid stare a little longer at the night sky.
Add in college courses in astronomy and meteorology, and the question followed me into adulthood: Are we alone in the universe?
Over the years, I watched more than a few hokey documentaries — productions heavy on dramatic music and light on credibility — filled with people who, frankly, felt unhinged. I dismissed most of it.
Then I watched The Age of Disclosure.
This one was different.
There were no wild-eyed storytellers claiming joyrides through the cosmos. The film featured former U.S. defense intelligence specialists, members of Congress and current Secretary of State Marco Rubio. It included Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, Reps. Tim Burchett, Andre Carson and Anna Paulina Luna, along with former Navy pilots who described encounters with UAPs — unidentified aerial phenomena.
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper appeared. Naval intelligence officials appeared. Defense specialists appeared.
Depending on your politics, you may disagree with them. But they are not crackpots.
The documentary also referenced a shadowy initiative called “The Legacy Project,” described as a secret government effort working with major defense contractors on crash retrieval and reverse engineering of UAP technology. It framed the issue not as fringe curiosity but as a global race involving China, Russia and other nations.
If true, it is not just life-changing. It is culture-changing.
My son is 9. From an early age, he showed an intense interest in science — especially space. Obsessed might be the better word. His favorite software is Universe Sandbox, a program that lets users study stars and planets and even create new ones.
One night he asked, “Dad, have you seen the Milky Way Galaxy?”
I told him yes — but not from Duluth. You have to get away from the city lights.
So we drove to Stony Point along Lake Superior. It was dark and clear and windy, with the kind of waves that pound the shore and remind you who is really in charge. We stepped out of the car and looked up.
The sky was razor sharp. The Milky Way stretched above us, billions of stars spilled across the black.
My son burst into tears.
He wanted back in the car.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“It’s so big,” he said. “And we are so small.”
Yes. That was the point.
We cannot possibly be alone. There are billions of stars. Mathematical probability alone argues against solitude in a universe that vast.
It was the most profound experience of his young life — and one of mine. To feel both insignificant and connected at the same time. To stand beside Lake Superior and sense the power of Earth while staring into something infinitely larger.
The documentary talks about stigma. The ridicule attached to anyone who claims to have seen something unexplained.
I have had two such experiences. Both in Duluth.
In the 1990s, living in the Lakeside neighborhood, I woke from a deep sleep around 2:30 a.m. I felt compelled to go outside. No voice. No sound. Just a pull.
I slipped on sandals and stepped into my driveway. Looking north, I saw four bright objects in a diamond pattern crossing the sky at high velocity. I was not frightened. I was mesmerized by what I was seeing and by the fact that I was seeing it at all.
They passed overhead and were gone.
The feeling was unmistakable: I was meant to see them.
A friend up the shore in Castle Danger had described something similar over Lake Superior. I told almost no one. Family. A few close friends. The stigma is real. You risk being labeled.
My second experience came in December 2023, in my office in the Alworth Building. I had said goodbye to colleagues in the elevator lobby and returned to my office overlooking downtown Duluth. I told myself to stop and appreciate the view.
In the low December cloud deck hung a metallic object with a glowing light that grew brighter.
It was stationary. The wind did not move it. The clouds drifted around it.
Was it a drone? A helicopter? An experimental aircraft? None behaved that way. It hovered as if gravity itself were propulsion. A bright teal light reflected off the metal, intensifying.
Then it moved laterally — quickly — and stopped over the Copper-Top Church. Again, motionless despite the wind. Then it shot north out of sight, faster than any aircraft I have seen.
I called my best friend. I described the color. She told me teal symbolizes prosperity. Was it a message? I don’t know.
I called another close friend whose husband was a senior member of the Duluth Police Department. No reports. None.
How could something that visible go unnoticed?
Was it only for me?
Then last week, former President Barack Obama said on a podcast that there are things in the sky we cannot explain — comments widely interpreted as acknowledgment that unidentified phenomena are real. He later walked parts of it back.
That is how this subject works. Advance. Retreat. Whisper. Deny.
So, are we alone? Absolutely not. Go look at the night sky.
