Red-eyed Reptilian, Guatemala, 1957

Extract from the book Sky People by Ardy Sixkiller Clarke (chapter 18:

The first time I saw a UFO was in 1957. I was twelve years old. It was a quiet evening. I was sleeping in the hammock in the backyard. It was a hot night. Darkness had fallen upon our village. Suddenly I saw a bright ball of light the size of the moon drop from the night sky and come to rest in the jungle. I called to my father, who was already sleeping and told him what I had seen. He grabbed his machete. We ran into the cool night in the direction I saw the light come down. It came down in that direction. I can still see it as it descended into the trees. We did not go alone in search of the light. As my father and I made our way out of the village, two other men had seen the bright light and joined our hunt. I remember that the evening seemed normal enough, but as we walked deeper into the jungle, there was a strange smell. I had never smelled it before and it made me sick. Sick, very sick... When we arrived at the sight we expected to see a hole in the earth or some remains of the fallen object, but there was nothing. Disappointed, we turned to leave, when we saw a glow coming from a place deeper in the jungle. We moved toward the glow and that’s when we saw peering above us a pair of red, burning eyes glowing in the trees. I could have sworn I heard a hissing sound. It scared me, but the others did not hear it. We were familiar with the eyes of animals. We knew the difference. One of the village men had a lantern. He held it high, aiming it in the direction of the red eyes. The creature was frightening. His face resembled a lizard. His skin was green, maybe brown. He blended into the jungle very well. If the sun was shining, it would have been difficult to see him. When the light hit him, he jumped from the tree...The creature had scales like a fish. It was twice his size and that it was very strong. It jumped from a tree limb that was four or five times as high as him. He felt the earth bounce when he landed. He disappeared into the dense foliage in the direction of the glow. It was at that point that we all became very dizzy and sick. The smell I had encountered earlier overwhelmed us. We had no interest in following the creature we had discovered, nor did we have any inclination to search out the glow. We returned home and the next morning we didn’t even talk about the incident. In fact, it was like it never happened. We didn’t talk about it. We were afraid if we talked about it, he might reappear. We considered ourselves very lucky. He could have killed us and eaten us. By mid-morning we were all sick. The sickness lasted for weeks. We developed high fevers and rashes. We were too weak to walk. The village shaman made different medicines. Eventually, we recovered.