I wrote on Facebook yesterday, “Good grief, a mysterious low Low LOW flying helicopter just passed directly overhead and it sounded close enough to touch my treetops! It was heading west, a big chinook kinda copter.” A friend shared a hilarious story:
“Years ago, I was traveling and making my way down to Key West … a good friend had a place on Deer Key and I had an open invitation to stay on his place when I was in the area … so I called him up, only to find out that he is away on business, but he gave me the code to his gate and told me to enjoy myself … sweetness, as my friend’s estate was quite large and private … and I’m always down with camping in the Keys …
I pull on to the property in the early morning hours and find a nice spot away from the house to park my van and set up my tent … in the dark, mind you … after doing so, I crawled inside my tent and promptly went to sleep … a deeeeeeeeep sleep brought on by exhaustion of the drive and the sounds of the tropical night …
……. only to kinda sorta be awakened at the crack of dawn by what I thought sounded vaguely familiar to a helicopter …. which sounded like it was right on top of me …
I actually thought for a brief second that I was dreaming about working on the oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, because I flew on helicopters all the time back then and know very well the sounds of an approaching helicopter …
Eye on you
So, I rolled out of my sleeping bag to unzip my tent, stick my head out with my best “I’m not awake yet” look on my face … and suddenly …… I’m staring wide eyed at this helicopter which is hovering about 200 yards from my tent … and on the front of the helicopter was this gigantic orb with a lens staring right back at me … at that moment, I recall thinking to myself … “wonder if my buddy has some nefarious some thing going on down here in the Keys that I don’t know about … ???”
As that thought crossed my groggy morning brain, without a thought, my fight or flight instinct kicked in … so I jumped out of my tent … butt nekked … and started running as fast as I could to try and allude the chopper … when, about that time, the helicopter started flanking me … and I remember looking over my shoulder while running at a steady clip and seeing the pilot / co – pilot just laughing their asses off while pointing at me …
Butt nekked, I started running as fast as I could
“I’m going to jail … this has to be the FBI / DEA / SWAT teams coming down on my friend … and I’m the only one here I am so f*cked …” …….. when about that time, I came to my senses … so I stopped, raised my hands above my head and fell to my knees … the helicopter hovered around me for a couple of minutes before pulling up and suddenly flew away … WTH ???
I jumped up from my knees and ran … butt nekked … back to my camp, threw on some shorts and shoes and started tearing down my tent, throwing everything into the van as quickly as I could …
I was beyond freaked out, thinking that dozens of cop cars were making their way to this estate and were going to throw my ass in jail … because there was no telling if my buddy had something on his property that would get me in trouble, so, being a man with a plan, I wanted to have my affairs taken care of … and then I waited …
… when about that time, a big black Cadillac Sedan pulled up to the property gate with a screeching halt … my heart sank and I doubt that I’ve ever been so scared in my life as I just knew something bad was going to go down and there is no one here but me and oh man I’m in deep and what is going on here, anyway …
… instead of driving through the gate delivering a hail of gunfire and tear gas, the driver honked the horn and motioned for me to come over … as I stepped to the gate, a guy jumped out from the passenger side of the car, walked to the gate, introduced himself and proceeds to tell me that “I need to explain what just happened …”
Turns out, the big orb on the helicopter was, indeed, a high end camera … a big production crew was set up a couple of miles from my buddies place and they were preparing to shoot a car commercial … the helicopter was scoping out the road in front of the property when they saw my tent and decided to “have a little fun” … and after they saw me running nekked across the property with a crazy look on my face, they figured that they should radio the crew and have someone come out and explain things … ahhhhhhh, yes …. good times !!!
so … that’s my story and I’m stickin’ too it !!!”