Deadly Artifact

By age 7, Daniel J. Koch ("Dan") knew he wanted to be a meteorologist. A deadly tornado struck his hometown the year he was born, and that was all anyone could talk about for years afterward. That spurred his interest in the weather at a young age. After high school he earned a degree in meteorology from Northern Illinois University.Dan spent thirty-two years as a government meteorologist, working for the National Weather Service (NWS). His job took him to various duty stations across the United States, from the Midwest to Texas, to the desert southwest, back to Texas again, and finally to the deep South.When he started his career, emergency services forwarded many UFO reports to local NWS offices. Dan was a skeptic and felt that most sightings could be explained as misidentifications.However, on the fateful night of March 13th, 1997, Dan was at work at the Phoenix NWS office and witnessed the now-famous Phoenix Lights incident.The first occurrence that night was the sighting of a large, V-shaped craft moving south over Arizona.The second incident, which more people are aware of, was a series of glowing orbs suspended over the Sierra Estrella mountains, southwest of Phoenix. Dan and a colleague witnessed the first event, and he became interested in UFOs from that point forward.He moved to Arkansas in 2001 and never left. He met his wife and raised a family. When 2025 came around, he retired and pursued other interests.The written word called to him since childhood, though the relentless demands of operational forecasting left little room for writing-until now.These days, Dan dedicates most of his time to crafting fiction, drawn primarily to the pulse-quickening worlds of techno-thrillers, though the vast frontiers of science fiction and the shadowy corners of horror also beckon.