We came upon the carcass at the end of a long, dusty road leading from the mountains to the highway. It was the body of a small dog and it lay on its side next to a street sign. There was still a bit of fur left around its paws, but it appeared the animal had been dead for some time. It was mostly bones and teeth.

It was chilling enough to find that the carcass was attached to the signpost by a coil of rusted metal around its neck. But the words painted on a sun-bleached slab of wood nearby was the most disturbing of all. The sign read: “Please feed dog.”

It all presented a nasty little scenario. A small dog lashed to a fence with a scrap of metal wire. A whimpering pooch left to starve to death in the intense heat of the desert afternoon and to freeze in the bitter-cold night. All that fear and pain until starvation and exposure dropped the agonized animal to the ground.

But, hey. I’m not sharing this vacation memory to cause you unease or speculation about the suffering of a helpless puppy. The significance here is that we found the carcass at the edge the mysterious desert range known as Area 51.

Most of you know of Area 51. It’s part of a military base in a cluster of Nevada mountains where experimental aircraft are launched into the sky. For those fascinated by the phenomenon of unidentified flying objects, Area 51 is almost a holy land.

I won’t subject you to details about my recent trip to the UFO capital of the country. Not a word about the strange, saucer-shaped objects in the sky or the gray, wide-eyed creatures wandering in the desert. All you men in black suits should take note of the fact that I’m sharing absolutely no details whatsoever.

The concept I’m meandering toward is a sickening irony. While I was thousands of miles away at Area 51, a trek I’ve dreamed of since I was a kid, a man back at home was videotaping a strange white object streaking through the sky over Lewiston and Auburn.

His name is Jeff Gousse and he was not looking for a UFO the night of March 16. No, while I was pounding through the Sierra Nevadas, Jeff was leaving his Auburn home to visit his grandma in Lewiston.

It was around 6:30 p.m. The bright white light was moving from left to right across the sky just above the horizon. There were no flashing lights. There was no noise. It did not look like an airplane or a helicopter.

Thinking swiftly, Jeff brought out his video camera. He taped the white object from his home in Auburn and later, from his grandmother’s house in Lewiston. While I was stealing, Indiana Jones-like, into Area 51, Jeff was treated to not one, but two UFO sightings, all for just visiting his grandmother.

It sickens me. I think we’ve covered that. But I got a measure of satisfaction when Jeff came to the paper and let me view his video footage. To me, the streaking white light looked exactly like a spacecraft from another universe come to check out the strange people of Lewiston and Auburn.

Jeff and I have ruled out several possible sources of the mysterious white light. He called the people at LifeFlight and determined there was not an emergency helicopter in the air that night. I began making calls this week, and this is where I really lumber toward a point.

People get funny when you ask them about strange things seen in the night sky. Their first reaction is to scoff. They start speaking in an E.T. voice or they spout Spock or Captain Kirk quotes. Hysterical little skeptics.

But here’s the thing. Even these stand-up comic types get reflective the more you talk about the phenomenon. Their merriment over, there is a period of silence. They think about things they have seen or heard. They think about things none of us understands.

I called drug enforcement to see if they had helicopters up on the night of March 16. The agent who answered the phone was quick with a response: “We cannot confirm nor deny that we had aerial platforms in the air on the night in question.”

Then the hard-nosed crime fighter launched into his own thoughts about life in other worlds and we talked for 20 minutes on the subject.

I called John McGonagill, manager of the Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport. Here is a guy who spent 20 years as a pilot with the Air Force. Yet, after a brief period of mirth over my questions, McGonagill got down to business. He checked his flight logs and helped me rule out other possibilities. He then told me about a strange object he once spotted in the night sky while driving from Nevada to Arizona. We talked about UFOs and spent more time than we needed to on the subject.

I’m convinced more people than not are fascinated by sky phenomena and the possibilities they represent. I’m convinced that the people who laugh the hardest probably keep telescopes in their closets and UFO Web sites in their list of bookmarks.

I still don’t know why the dead dog was lying at the end of the road near Area 51. I still don’t know what that white light was flying over the Twin Cities on March 16. Even if I did know, I couldn’t tell you.

Men in black, please take note of my cooperation.

Mark LaFlamme is the Sun Journal crime reporter.