Rods: The Update

Ferris puts in the Braveheart tape, which he is unable to play in slow motion. He points to the sky behind Mel's head.

"You're gonna see it--oh! There it went!"
He rewinds for another pass.
"Okay, it'll be right here. There it goes."

That Rod sure is fast. It's almost invisible. I feel like standing up to testify. "Yes--I saw the Braveheart Rods at Jeff's house! Believe me, they're there!" I would say, but I don't. Ferris winds up his talk, urging the audience to join in the search.

"I think you'll be surprised when you leave here. Today or tomorrow, you may start to see things," he says before stepping down.

Success! People approach Ferris, asking Rod questions, begging to be educated. Robert thinks Rods could be ectoplasm. He is going to fire up his camcorder and go Rod spotting as soon as he gets back home to Cincinnati. Tom from a local chapter of the Mutual UFO Network is interested, but astutely thinks they "need more analysis."

Not everyone is awed by Rods. Geoffrey, a man wearing crystal earrings, is back at the water cooler, and is more interested in telling me about the "spiritual journey" he is on, which will soon take him to Sedona. Geoffrey is from Milwaukee.

But it's all in a day's paranormal expo work for our man Ferris. He makes no money off this, and while possibly discovering life forms previously unknown to man may sound like an exciting hobby, Ferris doesn't let it go to his head.

"You got to kind of keep your feet on the ground, you can't get too overwhelmed by this stuff," he tells me. "You can get poor really quickly." And still I wonder. Rods . . . what is this whole weird thing?

"If anything," says Ferris, "that's exactly what it is. Something weird."

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