I have been wanting to tell people about this experience for 10 years.
10 years ago this January, in 1989, while hiking high on the Altiplano in Bolivia, I witnessed a dazzling display of bright, laser like lights shooting up at the sky behind a bluff nearly 2 miles away.
I was with a group of indigenous Quechua speaking farmers. When I asked them what it was, they smiled but refused to tell me anything. After insisting that they should tell me what I was seeing, they explained it came from up there, pointing up at the night sky.
Military?, I asked, knowing that the U.S. were present in Bolivia.
The Bolivians shook their heads and just pointed to the sky again.
I nervously followed them back to our sleeping quarters a half hour hike down the bluff we were standing on, in the pitch dark of night.
The name of the bluff is Misquipampa, outside of Cochabamba, Bolivia.