You said — “I had a friend who was out in the mountains in West Texas around Alpine, and they decided to spend the night in the mountains and look for UFOs in the clear night sky. He said they were laying out there and hoping, hoping, hoping they’d see a UFO, and then suddenly there was a star that was moving all over the place, and freakign them out, and then it started coming toward them, getting bigger and bigger until it was like the size of a quarter in the sky, and suddenly he was hoping, hoping, hoping that they would NOT see a UFO, and then it flew away.”
That reminds me of being in New Mexico, over by the Trinity Bomb site, on the military reservation. We had gone there that day and when it was over, we left and went elsewhere. Later in the evening, we passed by the front gate of the military reservation (White Sands Missile Range, generally speaking, north end), and it was late at night (headed back to the motel over in Socorro) and we stopped and took a break to stand outside and look around at the sky and stars and stuff (it’s super dark out there...) — and then I saw some funny lights over the missile range moving back and forth and moving towards us and they looked like they were coming closer.
We were on a public highway, so that wasn’t a problem (LOL...), but I didn’t like the looks of it and they were headed our way. I said, “Let’s get going!” and I hopped in the car and got out of there right away.
Probably nothing but military craft, but it sure gave me a weird feeling and it wasn’t pleasant. But, I would never classify that as a UFO, of any kind, because — hey — you see lights in the sky all the time. It’s gotta be more than that, to be a UFO of any significance... :-)
We did make it over to Roswell, the next couple of days after that... LOL...
You may be right... and he admitted he didn’t know for sure if it was a UFO, though it was certainly an unidentified flying object to him. But the point of the story, when he told it to me, and as I tell it now, is how you can think you want something really, really badly and suddenly change your mind when you think you might get it. I should think seeing ghosts would be rather similar.