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It was a cold night on Fort Campbell in early 1987 when I saw that very strange bright object floating over the base's back 40 range area seemingly pursued by a number of Chunuch helicopters as it darted around the sky. But without much information to go on, and probably like everyone else who saw the same thing I did that night,

the incident quickly faded in the back of my mind, and I didn't give much thought after that.

That is, until I saw it again.

And this time...

It was much closer.

This is the second half of the story of Strange Lights over Kentucky.

I'm Luke Lamanah, and this is wartime stories. For as many strange things as I've seen in my lifetime, especially those during my years in the U.S. Army, I do take solace in the fact that I rarely seem to find

myself alone when such strange things happened. And that leads me to introduce another old army

buddy of mine, Sergeant Hayslip. Hayslip was senior to me, having enlisted in the army long before I did,

serving his first enlistment with the

1001st Airborne in Vietnam. After coming home, he had left active service for a time, but

ended up re-enlisting and becoming an MP. Having arrived to Fort Campbell as a radio operator,

when I was eventually reassigned to work with the military police division, someone had to train me for my new position,

including showing me how to conduct the routine daytime and nighttime security details around the base.

So, as a senior MP, Sergeant Hayslip was assigned as my field training supervisor,

accompanying me on most of my earliest night patrols. During

our time working together, he shared a lot of stories with me from his time in Vietnam, the funny

ones, the terrible ones, and even the stranger ones. For instance, there was one story he told me

about the time when his unit encountered a freakishly large python in the jungle.

Apparently, this thing was 30 feet long.

...