Lights Over the Garden State

Personnel and civilians operating after dark in the Garden State are advised that the sky is routine. Identified traffic includes commercial corridors, regional jets, helicopters, planets, and — when required — weather balloons. Venus is available upon request. It does not hover. It does not bank left over a rest stop. It does not wait while three people drop their coffee.

Should an object fail to behave like the approved inventory, do not upgrade the language. Log it. The file prefers “odd, but.” The file is often early.

This airspace has a history of plates that left the kitchen before anyone ordered them. Lights that hold still when they should be landing. A quiet that arrives a minute before the statement. Folded explanations on the railing: aircraft, swamp gas, Venus, balloon, nothing to see. You may notice the explanation has a timestamp earlier than the witnesses.

If you find yourself under an unscheduled garnish, remain calm. Follow procedure.

1. Procedure 01

   Do not accept the first plate

   If the official story is plated before the witnesses have finished pointing, it is a garnish, not an entrée. Record time, direction, duration, and what the object did. “Probably Venus” is not a flight plan.

2. Procedure 02

   Separate the ingredients

   Keep four piles: light, sound, movement, departure. A plane has a personality. A balloon has a personality. A thing that sits over a parking lot and then is gone does not share either. Do not stir them into one sentence for the report.

3. Procedure 03

   Ask about the string

   Weather balloons are real. They are also the house soup. They do not hold station. They do not make a right-hand turn. If the balloon story has no balloon, you are not the one who burned the dish. Leave the question on the ticket.

Do not pursue. You are in a Civic. It is not. Your job is the log, not the intercept.

Follow these three hangar procedures and you leave the lot with your own notes instead of theirs. Refuse the first garnish. Keep the ingredients apart. Treat “nothing to see” as a plate that came out cold.

This concludes the briefing. The sky will be described as boring. It often is. File the nights it isn’t.

Filed by Joe · Black Lung Media