Stan was a friend of mine who worked in Old Town. He wasn't the sharpest stick in my quiver of friends but he was loyal. So it never surprised me when he would telephone with odd news. As it happens, it was news that led up to the strangest occurrence I ever saw.

"Ben," he said that morning. "Get your butt on your bike and join me across the river."

"Why?" I asked.

"You'll see."

Stan never steered me wrong so I jumped on my bicycle and headed over Tower Bridge. I was only half way across when I noticed why Stan had called. On the other side from Old Town, a huge pyramid had appeared. It was fuzzy and difficult to look at despite sharp sunlight.

As I drew closer, I saw it was floating a couple feet over the ground. As I drew alongside, I saw Stan.

"Ben," he called. "There's gold under there."

"I wouldn't do that," I yelled. But too late. Stan had dropped to his knees and already crawled under the pyramid.

I peered under and noticed that despite the huge apparent weight of the pyramid, the grass under it was not bent at all. I saw Stan and maybe two dozen others crawling under it toward a mysterious gold glow.

I heard sirens and soon police arrived to shepard everyone back from the pyramid. But by then, at least a couple hundred folks had crawled under to find the gold.

I, like most folk, was a hundred feet away, behind the police line, when the pyramid vanished. There was a collective oooh, in which I participated.

Then I heard, several loud calls of "Hey look." So I stood on tip toes and looked. In the middle of the field where the pyramid had floated, stood a gold statue. It appeared to be almost twelve or so feet tall, and was the spitting image of a sitting Buddha.

Then I noticed that all the people who had crawled under the pyramid were gone.

Months passed. The military hauled the gold statue away over the screaming of the Governor. A permanent fence was set up around the field to keep the tourists out.

I remember it was Sunday, the middle of the night, when Stan next telephoned.

"Ben," he said. "Where did everybody go? One minute I was crawling under that pyramid, and the next we were all stuck here inside this fence. And it's night time!"

"Where are you now?"

"On my way to your place if I can get over this fence. Oops. Hey! Look at that!" And his phone went dead.

I never saw nor heard from Stan again. And, like I said, it was a very strange occurrence.