I Was a UFO in South Korea,

by J. W. Cassandra

"I Was a UFO in South Korea" is an exceptional, comic-toned sci-fi short story from my anthology "Valiant Dreams", framed by a poem of my own.

According to the story, the protagonist writer slumbers one afternoon, and with it, a never-before-seen journey begins on a pearl-gray, shape-shifting spaceship. The aircraft is piloted by a space knight resembling Han Solo, who guides his traveller to the dimension sentinels. Along the way, however, they take a detour to a place that will be forever memorable for both of them.

Although, I am currently engaged on a book in preparation, which I will publish here in parts after finishing it, I translated and will publish here with pleasure the current story as well – I wish you a lot of fun!

Motto:

The pearl of time sparkles up:
Its shining gray tears roll down;
The being entering into life,
Will be its prey, rolling his life.

The pearl of time is soaked in light:
It rolls down from water of light…
The being shivers in the cycles,
Yet a hundred deaths will not claim his sight.

If the pearl of time emanates its light,
Consider well, to let it tempt thee!
Its being is burnt by fire of endless
Torments between its prime and night.

The circle of Omega and Alpha
Is what sparkles gray above,
Omega and Alpha in a single ring,
Broken into a pearl by Infinity.

Infinite or finite: perennial
Is the Pearl of Time entering life,
Ages emanate forth and
Fall ever in it to eternal night.

What emanates forth that returns:
Where there is Prime, there will be Night.
He who exists in it forever,
Is not amazed at the gray Pearl of Time."

I experienced a strange, unusual adventure which I will now share with you: after writing the cycle titled "Time-pearls" in my poetry book "Book of Radiant Origin", I returned to my favourite pursuit: language learning. All my life, I have been keen on knowing foreign languages, or, if not knowing them, then learning them, along with their scripts. My great adventure with the Korean language began quite a long time ago, but I could not really learn this language on my own, because it is rather difficult for an autodidact. I saw immense videos of a South Korean singer, whose breathtakingly beautiful voice and songs fascinated me. Nothing was more natural than wanting to understand what he was singing about. It began in this manner.

As a continuation, a kind girl helped me who shared her fan page - which was a sophisticated website – with me. Later it turned out that she was the singer's manager and, luckily, for a while, she could take time to help me learn the language. When she had no more time to help me, we stayed in correspondence, and she found me a teacher from Seoul, a young woman. In the e-mails, we used English as a lingua franca. And I learnt: I watched videos, found sites where I could find learning materials, explanations, samples, practice materials half in my mother tongue, half in English. And I have already managed the language quite well; I have listened a lot to the singer's songs performed in a beautiful voice, I have gotten to know a completely different culture than the one I live in – and in the meantime, I made distant friends.

It happened one fine day that I fell into a slumber in one afternoon. And in my dream, a pearl gray spaceship appeared. It was cigar-shaped, but approaching, it transformed: it descended like a so-called classical saucer-shaped spaceship and landed to the lawn in front of my house. After landing, it sparkled in pearlescent lights; the sparkles made rings in all directions merrily, and then I saw the pearl gray spaceship again. I rubbed my eyes: what on earth is this? Does some kind of alien creature want to come to my house? But why? The mystery was immediately solved: a door snapped open on the spaceship, a ramp descended, on which a figure wearing a time pearl armour and apparently looking human walked down comfortably. And he walked until he reached me, because I stood with my feet rooted to the ground and stared at him. Surely, I could have seemed extremely sensible in the eyes of an outsider – except that there were no eyewitnesses, or outsiders anywhere!

The stranger came to me, bowed, took off his pearl spacesuit, took it in his hand, and wrote with it such a hilariously tortuous curve in the air during a repeated bow, as was the custom of medieval courtiers in the royal courts that once existed. Needless to say, I could only blink.

The stranger finally straightened, and then I saw that he was an enough tall, around thirty, blond, blue-eyed, well-fashioned young man. He greeted me with a smile in my own native language, but it seemed in retrospect that I had slightly wandered from what he was saying, because I was musing on who he reminded me of. And suddenly it jumped in: Captain Han Solo from Star Wars! Namely, the actor who played him, Harrison Ford. Not overly, but he still reminded me of him. When the film was released, the actor was very popular among young girls. I realized him saying:

"Did I surprise you? As if you saw someone else here in my place for a fleeting moment!"

"Yeeesss", I blinked, somewhat strangely – at least, I concluded so by 'Han Solo's' reaction.

"Well, I know who I remind you of. They often believe that Harrison Ford came for them on a flying saucer, rather than a white horse… But I am somebody else: my name is Khai, and now we have to talk about something else!"

"What would you like to talk to me about?" I tried to pay attention to him. Meanwhile, I scolded myself in my mind: "You are not wet behind the ears anymore, pay attention! Moreover, you have never cared about the world of actors, so what has gotten into you now? Have you gone completely mad?"

Han Solo apparently slipped over this little interlude and continued:

"Since you recently finished the cycle "Pearls of Time" in your poetry book, its vibrations have reached us and the dimension sentinels have decided to get to know you in person. Now then, it is my honour to invite you on an interstellar voyage. Please, board the vessel, and at the end of the interstellar voyage, if you desire so, I will return you to your own world to this exact spot, at this very moment! Or if you prefer, slightly further back in time. Or slightly ahead, though; it could disrupt the spacetime continuum, and the dimension sentinels would rap me on the knuckles for it…", his rich baritone faded.

"Accordingly, are you a dimension sentinel?" I blinked at him.

"Not entirely, but I perform their errand. My name is Khai, as I said. If you board the vessel, I will show you all kinds of things that you ought to know, and if you are very clever, when we finally return here, you will remember everything you are about to see."

I boarded the vessel still in disbelief.

"I respectfully ask you to take this seat here at the control panel", he said, pointing at a comfortable pilot-style chair, rigged with some kind of buckles and straps. In front of them, the control panel gleamed darkly beneath the window-like observation strip. Next to the chair he pointed to stood another similar seat, into which the owner of the saucer lowered himself, but he leaned over, strapping and buckling me in securely, then gestured with his hand, and a time pearl armour, perfectly identical to his but tailored to my size, moulded itself around me, along with the space suit. Then, he asked me convivially:

"Before we depart to the dimension sentinels, where would you like to fly?"

"I have never sat on such a flying vessel! It is so weird! Maybe to the Winter Palace", I pondered loudly.

"I do not recommend it now, since, as you know, I hardly could guarantee your safety. Tell me another destination!"

"I do not really know, instead of it, please, enlighten me on the mysteries of the control panel!", I suggested.

"Well, the control panel is tailored to me; that is, it is designed so that I can control it with my thoughts and my will, but for your sake I am recalibrating it now". With that, he touched a spot on the gleaming dark surface, and the console came to life with a soft whirr: in the centre, a spiralling circle flashed in shifting colours, surrounded by an array of arrows, small knobs and symbols. Some of them recalled the arrows and the symbols of a flowchart, others gleamed as flower-like icons, and there were triangles, cones and truncated cones and similar shapes. I did not remember them really, for my companion went on with the explanation:

"These symbols are the common navigational markers. Each of them enables something different. But you will see it!" And he flashed a kind smile at me.

"If I play the piano on the lotus petals, then I programme where we go", he said, and with a chuckle, he touched a lotus petal, after another one, in swift succession, nine in total, if I remember correctly. These petals flashed up suddenly in gorgeous hues under the spiral circle. Then he touched the spiral at three points, and the spaceship transformed: it drilled into the stratosphere in the shape of a cigar, then into outer space after the music of the spheres… And then for a long time, we only have been flown, and then the spiral circle on the control panel flashed strangely, then the stars disappeared from our sight for a moment. Complete darkness surrounded us, pulling us with roaring noise into something the cigar-shaped vessel was corkscrewing into. I was dizzy, feeling as heavy as lead, as if I might crush through the floorboards; then I was floating in weightless levity. Had the straps and buckles not held me down, I would probably have been flying around the vessel like some giant bird in a pearl space suit.

Suddenly, another space suit leaned over very close: "We have almost crossed over; everything will be restored soon!"

 Han Solo, aka Khai, encouraged me.

And so it was: the corkscrew motion straightened out, and through the observation strip, I beheld a wonderful host of stars.

"As if these stars slightly differed from the previous ones!" I pointed out.

Khai only chuckled.

"I heard you would like to see South Korea, for you have learnt their language." He then said.

"Well, now you will have the opportunity to see it!" And the spaceship has already descended with us to Seoul. I saw the roof of the Gyeongbokgung palace [1], and in the meantime, caught a fleeting glimpse of Cheomseongdae [2], the observatory tower of the medieval Silla Kingdom, even though it is not close to Seoul; and finally, I saw the mountains surrounding the capital. On the main street, women dressed in hanbok [3] were walking, and small, cosy coffee bars beckoned to their guests; further away, modern skyscrapers rose, where lines of modern people emerged.

The spaceship descended, morphing into a saucer instead of a cigar, and landed on a riverbank amid frightened running, people pointing upward, followed by audible cries. I acknowledged with satisfaction that this was the River Han. As I later learnt, on the other side of the river, the capital extended in a large area.

I did not understand what they were shouting, but probably that they had to escape, and that a UFO had descended. The braver ones, running to a respectful distance, turned back and took videos and photos of us with their mobile phones. Leaving the ramp, Khai stepped forward and opened his palms wide; he bowed his head and said something that I did not understand. But Korean people did understand it, because they stopped, opened their palms wide toward us, as well, and bowed their heads. Seeing it, I did the same, following the saying "When in Rome, do as the Romans do". After the mood calmed down, Khai took me by the elbow and drove me to where to go; he directed me to a long, cozy street winding along the river, where we stopped next to a smaller café.

"Order us coffee, please!" He said, and his eyes sparkled mischievously.

"Maybe I will succeed", I thought and ordered:

"안녕하세요! 커피 두 잔 주세요!" (Annyeonghaseyo! Keopi du jan juseyo!)

Which, based on my sparse knowledge of Korean, means: "Hello! Two cups of coffee, please!"

But the waiter, who came over at Khai's nod, stared at me in bewilderment and did not move. Then I tried to speak English, hoping that I would have more success.

"Hello! Two cups of coffee, please!"

The waiter blinked and stared at me, then at Khai, who had burst out laughing. Khai then swiftly touched the flashing button in the centre of the pearl space suit, and the waiter understood what he said, whereas I did not. Waddling back, the waiter brought the coffee before long, as befitted a good waiter, and he was still astonished when we continued further along the beautiful, winding little road.

Suddenly a restaurant appeared, where some guests were sitting on its terrace. Startled, I snapped my head up: my favourite South Korean singer was sitting at one of the tables, just putting down the newspaper he had been flipping through. I came to a sudden halt; my feet were rooted to the ground for a moment, then I excitedly explained to Khai that he was the singer, and I did not even understand how he could have ended up here, since he had performances in theory.

"Ask him!" Khai encouraged me, a host of stars dancing in his eyes as he laughed.

I stepped up a winding, designer staircase, the broad-petalled purple and red flowers blooming in their pots as I navigated my way past. Thus, I wove my way through the tables to where the singer stared at me agape, as did everyone else, even though I had already removed my space suit helmet in the meantime. When I got to him, I bowed my head and asked:

"어떻게 공연 준비를 하지 않는 거죠?" (Eotteoke gongyeon junbireul haji anneun geojyo?)

That is: "How is it that you are not preparing for a performance?"

He stared at me in at least as much bewilderment as the waiter had done at the café moments before. Meanwhile, Khai was rolling with laughter inside his spacesuit. Getting to his feet, he pressed the same button at the centre of my space suit that he had used on his own with the waiter earlier, and suddenly, I was speaking in Korean, which finally got a response. Certainly, I could hardly understand it without that little button! In the meantime, the waiter arrived, and with immense astonishment in his eyes, asked me what he could do for me. I reiterated that I thought the singer should prepare for a performance, because as far as I knew, he would be performing at the other end of the city half an hour later.

"Performance?" They both asked in return at the same time, astonished: "What kind of performance?"

"Well, I think of your performances as a singer! The beautiful songs you sing". I answered.

"I am not a singer". He protested. "I cannot even sing."

"The guest sits here every day", and the waiter referred to the "singer" with a nod, "and exactly this time he used to have his lunch after flipping through his favourite newspaper.

The "singer" nodded, hesitantly flipping the newspaper, then he stopped it. Suddenly he turned to me:

"What country have you come from?"

I explained enthusiastically that I was from Hungary, but when I told him where it was located, he blinked strangely again. Here, the waiter joined in again, who had apparently forgotten to attend to his duties.

"Hungary is located well to the north of that; I had been there some years ago, in my young days. Its capital is wonderful and nice!" He bowed his head politely.

I insisted on what I myself knew about my homeland, yet I failed to convince both the waiter and the singer. Then I told them what I knew about South Korea and the singer, explaining that it was because of him that I had begun learning Korean, to understand what he was singing about, for it was so beautiful.

"Would that be the Korean language you spoke in just now?" They asked then.

At my nod, they informed me that the language we were currently speaking was Korean, not the one I had used. But I maintained that I knew exactly that this was Korean, for even a teacher from Seoul was helping me so that I could learn it. Khai pressed my button, right as I was drawing a parallel between English and Korean, so our new acquaintances looked again in complete bewilderment. Then I myself pressed that language-changing button, and told them everything I knew about them up to that moment: I had met the teacher thanks to the singer's manager, and she was helping me learn Korean through English. I also mentioned that I regularly corresponded with the manager in English and Korean, and knew from her that the singer was performing half an hour later. The manager's website was full of audio clips, where one could listen to the songs, and sometimes even find the English translations.

Finally, they understood me, and I concluded that thanks to the language-changing button, we now understood each other! In the meantime, an increasingly huge crowd gathered in front of the restaurant to witness the extraordinary performance of the "UFO"s.

"I am Hungarian", I told them now. "Do you know Hungary? Have you ever heard of it?"

Several people nodded, and someone named it, but it did not sound like 헝가리 (Heong-ga-ri) but something completely different. Then I was interested in English, German, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Turkish languages – they knew all of them, but all of them by different names.

Finally, it was revealed that Seoul and South Korea, which I would have liked to see, were not identical with these. Khai artfully crossed into another dimension with the rushing cigar-shaped spaceship, and when I saw the stars shift on the observation strip, they changed indeed: the Milky Way was left behind us somewhere, as was the Earth. We were in a completely different dimension, on a completely different Earth, in a completely different South Korea and Seoul – that is, I was a UFO in a completely different South Korea…

After the inhabitants of this other Seoul had bombarded me with questions about everything I could possibly tell them about Seoul, South Korea, and the entire Earth existing in my own dimension, we said goodbye, walked back into the saucer-shaped spaceship, and, after waving for a long time, ascended, so that this time the vessel would carry us before the dimension sentinels.

When Khai wanted to calibrate our destination, I accidentally touched a lotus petal that fluttered just a tiny bit. Suddenly, the cigar-shaped spaceship hurtled spirally somewhere; I do not think even my companion really knew where. But then we came to a halt; he poked his head out and, seeing no one, beckoned that I could descend, too. Hardly had I stepped onto the sloping ground when it tilted, and space rogues burst out of the crevices, firing at us with ray guns, visibly treating us as enemies.

Khai then touched the right side of his pearl space suit, causing my own pearl space suit to merge with his, whereupon both transformed into time pearl armour. And Khai held me tight, letting me know only that he ruled the situation. The pearl armour burst out light rays from itself in every direction of space. To my greatest amazement, whoever it hit, the one started to rejuvenate: from a grim space rogue, armoured, he transformed first into a youngster, then a young boy, and later he transformed backward in time until he lied in front of us as a nursing baby. Each met the very same fate, and with the last of them whimpering as a newborn infant, Khai remarked:

"We would be safe for at least twenty years, if we waited until they grew up again and became grim space rogues. However, we will not wait it! Come! Even a space knight cannot be obliged to wait so long to win!"

"A space knight?" I asked, astonished, while 'Han Solo's' fingers tightened on my wrist; he drew me so, hurrying after himself.

"Yes: I have not said yet to you, but I am a space knight, as well. Which is why I can deploy such combat stratagems as you have just seen! Hurry up!

And he rushed with me into the saucer, for fear of having to contend with yet more space rogues. He feared not for himself, rays of light bursting even from his fingers to defend us; rather, he was afraid we might fall into a time trap or, as he put it, a time loop, and we would become trapped within it for an age. But the dimension sentinels were waiting for us somewhere.

When we finally reached them on a bare asteroid, they were already aware of this slight bend, as Khai named it. Their leader, who stood in a windblown mantle ramrod-straight, dispensed with admonition, considering that for me this travel could be a non-recurring adventure and a novelty finally. His mantle, despite of this, fluttered annoyed and Khai pulled his neck in, but nothing else happened. I tried to make the leader dimension sentinel know that I was the cause of the problem with my clumsiness, but he only waved; he already knew everything.

The dimension sentinels then gave me a crash course, saying: if once I have already written the poem "Pearls of Time", then I need to know something about them. But what these extremely strict beings taught me then is another story.

Finally, I stood at the ramp leading to the spaceship, entered the door, gave my last wave to these beings, and, beside Khai's careful guard, we returned to the lawn in front of my house. Exactly to the same spot where Khai had landed when he visited me, and exactly at the same time when he had appeared. But now I knew everything, and as a matter of fact, his arrival became at the same time his departure: after I descended, he waved goodbye, assured me that he would guide me with a good grace another time, as well.

The saucer roared away, changed direction, and reached the stratosphere in the blink of an eye, and I woke up. On my table my poetry book titled "Book of Radiant Origin" waited me with the cycle "Pearls of Time": I had to type the poems yet and beyond that, a lots of work waited me.

In my head, the poem "Pearls of Time" echoed, namely its end:

The circle of Omega and Alpha
Is what sparkles gray above,
Omega and Alpha in a single ring,
Broken into a pearl by Infinity.

Infinite or finite: perennial
Is the Pearl of Time entering life,
Ages emanate forth and
Fall ever in it to eternal night.

What emanates forth that returns:
Where there is Prime, there will be Night.
He who exists in it forever,
Is not amazed at the gray Pearl of Time."

Written: 29 / 10. 2026, by J. W. Cassandra
Translated: 04 / 11. 2026, by J. W. Cassandra

[1] Meaning: "Greatly Blessed by Heaven". It was the main royal palace of the Joseon dynasty, completed in 1395.

[2] The Silla Kingdom was one of the ancient Three Kingdoms of Korea, alongside Baekje and Goguryeo, the latter being the origin of the modern name 'Korea'. These kingdoms constantly waged war and rivalled one another. Silla's Early Period lasted from 57 BC to 654 AD. Near the end of this era, Queen Seondok had the observatory built. Middle Silla existed between 654 and 780, and the Late Silla between 780 and 935.

[3] Hanbok: traditional attire for women; royal and queenly robes were also made as such dresses, flaring outward toward the bottom. The more dignified the wearer, the more colourful more ornate the hanbok was.

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