This is my story that actually happened about 40 years ago, and at the time only my immediate family was told. I have told several people about the encounter the past five years after seeing so much about UFO's on the History Channel. I figured it was a more acceptable time to tell my story.It's unique to me because I have never heard a story about seeing a UFO at the very beginning and leave the way this one did. I have never seen another UFO quite like this. I have seen a satellite, which did nothing but go across the sky at night. I think I saw a UFO last year, but it could have been a plane and it went by very fast. But this UFO was too close and too technically advanced that I knew that it came from another world and I was probably somewhat in a state of shock- unable to really think-just observe it. We also live about 30 miles from Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi and at that time there were a lot of fighter jet training going on (basic not advanced) and sonic booms were almost daily.I was about 10 years old in the summer of 1968 (I think that's the year) in rural Mississippi. My cousin (XXXX XXXXXX) was visiting and we were both sleeping in a single bed, but XXXX was taking all the covers and kicking me. At about 2:00 am I was wide-awake. It was a very clear summer night and the stars were numerous. After looking at the stars for a few minutes, it looked as if one was falling or a "shooting star". But, something very unusual happened; the "star" quit falling! Then the light, which is all I could make it out to be, slowly made its way down moving to the left (South) and down until it leveled out and came straight for our house. Very much like a helicopter would do, but with no sound. In an instant there was this huge object, which I will call a "space ship" because of all the detail I could see, was hovering in our front yard. It was "saucer-shaped", or like one saucer on top of another, but not as bright as it was when in flight. The upper half of the craft seemed to have rectangular port holes and a lot of light was coming out of them. It was about as long as a school bus and close enough that I could hit it with a rock. It just stayed in one spot for a moment, and then went over the house- not making one single sound. My first reaction was to go tell mama, but when I got up to go tell her I thought she might think that I was crazy. I then went to use the bathroom. I looked out the back (bathroom) window and did not see anything. When I got back to bed, I looked out the window again and in just a few minutes the UFO went back over the house slowly, but a little higher than before and still with no sound and flew West with very little elevation, about as high as a helicopter would fly and slowly made its way up to a very high altitude and then went straight up at a tremendous velocity as fast as it had come down and disappeared in just a moment.I told everyone in my family the next morning about it and I was surprised that they all believed me. My cousin wondered why I did not wake him up, I had tried, but he was the sleeping dead. I should have tried harder, looking back, of course.This seemed to happen all in about 5 minutes, but after thinking about it over the years it seemed very odd that visitors would come from so far away and leave so fast. I use to think that maybe they went behind the house to the barn and took a cow or calf, but no cattle were missing. Now I think I may have a loss of time due to some force on the UFO and that possibly they may have done something to one of my sisters, who lived upstairs ages 14, 15 and 18. My sister aged 15 at the time, has never had kids.This is the story I submitted to the UFO Chronicles on 1-5-08