Alright, this is going to sound bizarre, but bare with me as I’ve never really approached the UFO topic before.

Very brief bit of context: when I was about 8 years old, I witnessed a large cylindrical object floating above a treeline directly in front of me for about 5 whole minutes before it instantly accelerated upwards into the sky without making a sound. I lived on an Air Force base in Wyoming at the time and it coincided with a significant and unexplainable ICBM outage that made national news. It was really bothersome to me even if it was rather mundane on paper. I still don’t even know what I saw and I don’t even tell my close friends about it.

However, what sticks out to me the most was the response I had to seeing it. I distinctly remember feeling what could only be described as shock as my eyes immediately filled with tears. My hair on my arms and head felt like it was sticking up as well. I wasn’t “crying” or experiencing fear like a child would, instead it felt purely psychological as if something was pulling on my eyes.

At risk of sounding crazy, it feels like a deeply religious, unique and very primal form of fear.

To this day, UFO videos (even the laughably fake ones!) elicits the same physical response and as a result I’ve always avoided the topic like the plague. However, recent events have sparked curiosity in me and caused me to confront this. After seeing a shocking amount of other people describe feeling a similar sensation, I decided to make this post.

Is this a recognized phenomenon? If so, what is it about UFOs that brings about such a unique effect on observers? I’m curious to see what others think.