Border Security? (You Tell Me)
Posted: Saturday, January 16, 2010
by Jack H. Schick
Some people think I'm nuts, but I swear the Border Control boys monkeyed with my video camera. My wife and I and the three dogs were driving to California in the Cherokee Sport. We took the southern route and were down at Big Bend National Park. I was using my old VHS-C camera with thirty minute tapes. They never actually touched the camera, but I'm very suspicious.
It was just a small parking lot with one of those metal plaques on a post you see all over Texas. It was an important fording spot in Old Mexico days. The river is shallow and narrow there. We let the dogs out and I took a stroll with my camera. It was only a few dozen yard to the river. I could have thrown a rock into Mexico. There was no fence, no gate. The road went into the river American and came out on the other side Mexican. I could have taken off my shoes and socks, rolled up my pants leg and waded across the border without even getting wet. I did some filming and went back to the car.
"There's nobody even watching the place." I griped to my wife. "I could drive the Jeep across without putting it in four wheel drive. No wonder we have an illegal immigrant problem"
"Maybe thay have cameras." she suggested while she was cleaning up the dogs from their violation of international waters.
I scanned the area back toward town. There were a couple of old buildings and a few junk cars but I didn't see any camera. Then I noticed a relatively new modular house on top a low bluff a couple hundred yards to the east. It had a large picture window. "I suppose they could be watching us from up there right now." I admitted.
We got the dogs loaded up and when I started to back out of the parking space a big burly Mexican looking guy on a four wheeled ATV came down the road and stopped right behind us. I had to wait. He sat there for a moment. I was a little worried, but he backed out of the way. As we were leaving he drove up a lane to the house with the picture window.
We got onto the main drag and headed for Terlingua. After a few blocks the same guy, on the same not-street legal ATV, pulled out of an alley in front of us. We followed him half way through town until he pulled off into an alley again. We were wondering about it, but we didn't know how people acted in that far corner of Texas.
When we left town and started across the desert toward Terlingua, a nondescript helicopter swooped down a few hundred yard in front of us. I thought it was a cop. I tend to drive fast in Texas, so I slowed down. So did it. It stayed in plain sight, right in front of us like that, for a couple miles. We got nervous, and wondered what the heck was going on. Finally, it veered off and was gone.
We were pretty suspicious by then, but it wasn't until we got back to the motor inn in Alpine that it became really spooky. We watched our video tape from the day's travels. Granted, it could have been operator error, but all the film was fine, except fot the few minutes I took at Lahitas Crossing. It was scrambled, just scratchy white snow. It was the only section like that on the few hours of video I took that trip.
From then on we were more alert. We noticed that, all the way to El Paso, then from Las Cruces to Tucson, we were never out of sight of a tethered blimp or a small building surrounded by chain link fence. We thought we were one time, when we made an emergency restroom stop along the road in the desert west of Lordsburg, but then we spotted the blimp over a low ridge. They probably got a real chuckle out of that when they reviewed the tapes back at headquarters.
After we thought about it for awhile, and figured it this way: They were watching us from the picture window and beaming some sort of ray at us to scramble the video. The guy came down to check us out and get our license plate number. He stayed with us in town to be sure which way we were going and until the helicopter got there. The helicopter, which was in perfect positon to do so, filmed us, zoomed in on our faces and sent them to the FBI.
We could have figured it wrong, I guess. We might be paranoid or crazy, but we're blaming Home Security. They screwed up our vacation tape on purpose, and now we're Persons of Interest in their data banks.
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Top-level comments on this article: (5 total)Good story! I don't think you're paranoid at all, Jack. Aren't you glad you're not an undocumented immigrant?That might be safe. Thanks for reading.You make "undocumented immigrant" sound so sinister; what DO you call someone who breaks into your house and cleans it?!My wife, when she loses her key.
Uh,huh! Did they even ask for your green card? Happy Anniversary to you two! MarijoThanks for reading. We willHey.... I gave you 5s on all except one star out of 5 I think and wonder why this shows up as only four - thought it would be 4.75?! Still learning about SWnot many are worth 5. this either
great narrative story, Jack...at least we're finally doing something on the border. It's pretty much been a joke for the past 150 years in the SW.thanks for readingmy pleasure.
Great article Jack. Well-written and informative. Thanks for sharing your experience with us. All the best to you and yours,~Nenita~Thanks for reading
You wandered into an underground NSA /CIA base of operations.I knew it! Thanks for reading.
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