Awaiting delivery from far, far away

Despite years passing, the Black Mailbox remains an enigma, puzzled over on Internet message boards:

6/27/03: the farmer painted it white in hopes that people would stop being fascinated with this mysterious black mailbox in the middle of nowhere

5/3/05: Steve Medlin has a government contract to provide cattle for the space aliens to mutilate

2/25/08: Can anybody give me any info on the rancher. . . . I know his mailbox is famous and his cattle look strange. . . . I bet he has stories.

The sun disappears, and the surrounding Groom, Timpahute and Pahranagat mountains blacken. Stars peek through clouds. It's 52 degrees -- unseasonably cold for spring -- and Arnold and the other sky watchers are shivering through lined gloves and wool ponchos. They pace near the mailbox, one of the few things visible in the dark.

They clutch digital cameras and night-vision binoculars that tint everything green. They tilt back their heads, training their lenses on the sky. Someone clicks on a scanner, but it broadcasts only silence. Becky Spidell, 60, and her husband join the group, which passes time trading stories that, back home, are usually pooh-poohed.

"My mother was a UFO person. We had a big telescope in the living room," says Spidell, who runs a mobile home park in Phoenix. "I was so embarrassed -- I wouldn't bring friends over."

But three years ago, after seeing the Little A'Le'Inn on television, Spidell and her husband headed to Tikaboo Valley in early summer. She said that she peered out her car window and glimpsed three orange UFOs, followed by a giant saucer.

"We watched it for a little bit," she says, "and then it went over the mountain and it glowed for two or three minutes. It landed at Area 51." The Spidells have returned every year since.

"My youngest daughter thinks I'm nuts," she says. "I think this is the mother's curse."

Minutes pass; the sky watchers never lower their gazes.

Spidell: "It's a big sky, big universe."

Arnold: "It would be naive to think we're the only ones."

Spidell: "I'd like to know the games they're playing with us. The abductions and all."

They continue the UFO chatter.

"After I see one, I always check my clock," Spidell says.

Pause.

"In case I've been abducted."

That way, she says, she could figure out afterward how long she'd been missing.

The others nod in understanding.