Disclosing the Secret

by Vincent Amato

  As the Counter Intelligence Officer to the Air Field Base that housed the 509th Bombardment Group, the group tasked with the operational deployment of atomic weapons, Major Jesse Marcel was an expert in identifying all types of conventional and top secret aircraft, missiles and their composition materials.

  Standing now, Marcel was holding what seemed to be a severed segment of heavy-gauge fishing line. As he inspected it closely, he noticed that specks of light could be seen dimly shining at its ends. To his utter amazement he found that when he cupped his hands around one of its ends to block out the sunlight, he could peer inside his cupped hands to find the inside illuminated. It was unlike anything he had ever seen.

  Major Marcel stared at the luminous fiber in astonishment. “You say that this came down five nights ago.”

  “The night of the thunderstorms,” the rancher declared. “In between the thunderclaps we heard what sounded like a strange explosion. The next morning this is what we found.”

  Captain Cavitt had picked up what looked like a short broken piece of strut or beam before turning toward Marcel. “What do you make of this?”

  Marcel studied the small silver object, which was the shape of an “I”, noticing the rippling of a purplish-violet hue that rainbowed up and down its length as Cavitt held it in the sunlight. The object was just short of 12 inches in length, approximately an inch deep with a width of three-eighths of an inch. It looked like it had been broken, or possibly shattered, at both ends. Between its flanges shimmered what looked to Marcel like symbols, or maybe hieroglyphics, along the length of its web.

  It was immediately evident to the intelligence officer that the small, broken I-beam segment was made of a material that was not conventional in any definition of the word, and more exotic than anything that the United States military was fabricating, let alone testing.

  Marcel took hold of the I-beam to inspect the symbols more closely. He suddenly paused as soon as he held it in his hand. He was amazed at how little it weighed; it was like holding a feather.

  The captain was already looking troubled. “You think it’s Russian? Or Chinese maybe?”

  The question met with a few moments of silence as Marcel noticed yet another peculiarity about the symbols. They were neither printed nor engraved along its length; instead they had three-dimensional form, as if they’d been moulded.

  Finally responding, he chose his words carefully in front of the civilian. “Its form looks more like symbols than writing, similar to hieroglyphics.”

  “Well,” the rancher interjected, his voice stern, “whatever it is I’m sure you can appreciate the problem here. I can’t get the herd through these parts to the river on the other side. But nobody I’ve shown this stuff to has seen anything like it. This mess has to belong to somebody. Who’s responsible for cleaning it up?”

  CHAPTER 6

  7th July, 1947

  11:20 am

  The two beaten-up military police jeeps bounced onto the delicately manicured lawns in front of the Chaves County Courthouse. Located at 401 North Main Street in Roswell, New Mexico, the county had spared no expense in the design and construction of the majestic building that had been the pride of the town’s center since its completion in 1911.

  As the two vehicles shuddered to a halt, their fully uniformed occupants leaped onto the grounds to trample past the courthouse toward the separate jail extension and Sheriff’s Office that stood behind the main building. The door to the Sheriff’s Office burst open as eight armed officers spilled inside.

  *

  Unaware of the imminent disturbance, Sheriff George Wilcox sat at his desk wrestling with his draft report detailing the particulars of the previous day’s events. Yesterday had not been a typical day for the sheriff, hence he felt it best to carefully filter what was appropriate to include in his incident report, and what was best left out.

  Moments later his peaceful office space was assaulted by a sudden intrusion as the sound of heavy footsteps thundered toward his building. When the doors burst opened, army personnel entered like charging bulls into a ring.

  His eyes bulged at the number of armed officers that poured into his office. “What’s the meaning of…”

  “We’ve been sent on the orders of Colonel William Blanchard,” the ranking office proclaimed, cutting the sheriff off mid-sentence. “You have a package of interest to the US Army; we’re here to collect it.”

  Wilcox found his feet, glancing at each of the armed officers one by one. “Eight of you to courier one box?”

  “The colonel understands its contents are…” he paused, “sensitive in nature. We are to ensure it’s delivered without, as he put it, interference.”

  The sheriff felt a rising air of uneasiness; the officer’s tone left no room for debate.

  Moving now toward the wooden box that lay at the end of his desk, he tried to lighten the mood. “Well, I’ve got to hand it to you boys, you certainly are quick. Your two intelligence officers are still out in the desert. They only trekked out there with Mac yesterday afternoon.”

  Motioning toward the wooden box, the sheriff’s eyes fixated on the exotic purplish-violet hues that seemed to ripple up and down the length of a protruding crash fragment depending on the direction of reflecting light. “This, my friend, is what you are here to collect.”

  The wooden box contained torn fragments of thin foil, broken segments of small I-beams with odd symbols along their lengths and fragments of what the sheriff initially thought was hide, but felt synthetic and could not be torn. It was brought into the office the previous morning by Max Brazel, a local rancher who found the crash debris spread over a large area of the Foster Ranch, which he managed. Brazel demonstrated that neither the hide-looking material nor the very thin foil could be cut or torn. When he held a lighter to the material fragments, Sheriff Wilcox was astonished to see that they could not be burned either. The metallic colors of the small I-beam segments were also puzzling to the sheriff, as it was not something he had seen before.

  At a loss as to whom the debris may belong to, Wilcox thought it may have been something that the military was testing so promptly called the local Army Air Field and was put through to Intelligence Officer Major Jesse Marcel.

  During the course of the conversation Wilcox explained that the rancher had reported strange pieces of wreckage that the base may be interested in, of which he had a box of samples sitting in his office. After hearing a detailed description of their unusual properties, Marcel drove the short distance to the sheriff’s office to inspect the debris samples for himself.

  The sheriff was both surprised and amused that the intelligence officer was equally bewildered by the sight of the mysterious samples. When Marcel asked permission to use his telephone, he obliged. He offered a polite smile as he overheard Marcel describe the contents of the box to his superior officer, and felt a rising apprehension as Marcel’s face turned stern. He had obviously been given orders.

  “Yes, sir.” Marcel’s tone was submissive. “Understood, sir.”

  The intelligencer office put the telephone receiver down and paused for a long moment. “I do apologize, but may I please impose upon your good self to make one more telephone call?”

  “But of course,” Wilcox said, his tone laced with curiosity.

  Major Marcel lifted the phone back to his ear and dialed the exact same number. “Hello, this is Jesse Marcel. Could you please put me through to the CIC officer?”

  After a short pause he continued, “Hello, Sheridan? It’s Jesse. We may have a situation. Would you be available to accompany me to inspect a possible crash site?”

  Marcel listened a short moment. “Not sure. You may want to have a look for yourself.” He glanced over at the rancher. “We could come past and pick you up on the way if it suits.”

  Mac Brazel gave a slow nod. Marcel continued, “Good, we’ll see you shortly.”

  The sheriff’s eyes remained fixed on the violet-purplish I-beam sticking out of the box. �
�Not one of ours I trust?”

  Marcel selected his words surreptitiously. “That remains to be determined.”

  The intelligence officer thanked the sheriff for alerting the find to the military then promptly left his office accompanied by the rancher. The two men were to pick up the CIC officer then make the 80 mile journey together out to Foster Ranch.

  It’ll be dusk by the time they get there, Sheriff Wilcox thought.

  Mac Brazel had, however, left the box of samples behind. He felt there was no use in hauling them all the way back to the property.

  “We’ll take the box and be on our way then,” the ranking officer declared, picking up the box without waiting for permission.

  The sharpness of the armed officer’s voice snapped the sheriff from his fixed gaze on the wooden box and jolted his mind back to the present. He watched in silence as the ranking officer helped himself to the box full of debris, spun on his heel and marched out the door without another word of gratitude or goodbye. His flanking muscle filed out the door after him, one by one, until the office was again silent and peaceful.

  CHAPTER 7

  7th July, 1947

  3:32 pm

  The shaken archaeologist student stumbled toward the weathered phone booth that stood in front of a dusty rundown service station in the community of Mesa, New Mexico. With a trembling hand, she picked up the receiver, fed it a coin and hesitantly dialed the operator and asked to be put through the County Sheriff’s Office.

  After several rings she heard the authoritative but personable voice of Sheriff George Wilcox crackle through the line: “Sheriff’s Office.”

  She felt drained. During the 35-mile drive from San Augustine she had practiced in her mind, over and over, how to explain what she had seen. Now that she had contacted the authorities, the prepared explanation instantly evaporated.

  She could not believe what she had just witnessed, and wondered how anyone would possibly believe her. “Umm…sir, I’d like to report a…” She drew in a long breath and finally managed, “…crash.”

  “A car accident?”

  “No.” She tried to ease her nerves. “A craft.”

  “I’m not sure I understand, Madam. An aircraft?”

  “Not quite.” Her voice was a quivering, barely audible whisper. “A silver craft.”

  There was a pause from Sheriff Wilcox. “I’m not sure I understood, Madam. You’ll need to speak up.”

  She gathered her strength. “A silver craft.” She went on, getting louder: “A round metallic silver craft crashed in the desert.”

  She spoke faster. “A flying silver craft has crashed in the desert, the side of it has ripped open and there are bodies. Tiny little bodies. Three of them are dead, but one survived.” The archaeologist student didn’t realize she was on the brink of crying. Almost shouting now, she went on, “And those eyes, those big dark eyes. It knew what I was thinking; I could feel its thoughts!”

  She stopped herself, clasping her mouth as if trying to restrain the psychotic rants of a crazy woman. She feared she may have told too much, that she would be simply dismissed as a drunken mad woman.

  But to her surprise the voice on the other end of the line did not sound skeptical. “Madam, please calm down. Tell me exactly where you saw this silver craft.”

  CHAPTER 8

  7th July, 1947

  3:48 pm

  Roswell Army Air Field Commander Colonel William Blanchard stood before the contents of the wooden box laid out across his office floorboards. It had arrived less than an hour prior; now he had four of the MPs who had retrieved the box assisting with the assessment of its content’s unusual material properties.

  “Sir,” an assistant called, “we managed to get through to General Ramey. We have him on the line for you.”

  Without acknowledging the assistant, Blanchard moved toward his desk to take his seat. His face stern, he drew in a deep breath before reaching for the receiver.

  Four hundred and sixty miles away at Fort Worth his superior officer, Eighth Air Force Commander General Roger Ramey, had received urgent word concerning enough to warrant his exclusion from the weekly Joint Chiefs briefings. General Ramey had rushed back to his Air Force Strategic Air Command office and was waiting on the line.

  Colonel Blanchard didn’t know where to begin. “Sir,” he began, his voice uneasy, “we have a developing situation.”

  The general remained silent.

  “Yesterday we received a report from the Chaves County Sheriff Office of a possible aircraft crash site out on a ranch outside Corona. From the description given by the ranch foreman, the debris remnants didn’t sound…” Blanchard paused a moment to searched for the right word, “conventional.”

  “We dispatched our intelligence officers and CIC to meet with the sheriff and inspect the samples of the crash debris, of which they confirmed that the materials were indeed…well, the term they used was exotic. They’re now accompanying the ranch foreman back to the crash site to have a look for themselves. In the meantime I had the box of samples shown to the sheriff couriered here for a preliminary assessment.”

  The general finally spoke. “And?”

  “Well, sir, we have several pieces here; none of the men can break, tear, or even scratch any of it. There is one sample that looks like silk but has no strands of visible fibers. We can’t even puncture it. The men brought in a sledgehammer to pound one of the larger metallic pieces, but they couldn’t even dint it, no matter how hard they hit it.”

  The colonel shifted his weight. “The really strange thing about this material is how light it is; like picking up a feather.”

  Blanchard picked up a small torn piece that was on his desk. He folded it in his hands as he spoke. “And some of the tinfoil-looking sheets, as thin as the tinfoil lining inside cigarette packs, can be folded.” He made a fist, crumpling the small silver sheet in his fist before opening his hand again. “And it will immediately resume its original shape, without any creases, as if remembering it was a flat sheet. I’ve never seen anything like it…it’s definitely not made by us!”

  The general’s eyes slowly widened as he thought back to the strange reports he had heard about a circular craft being recently sighted over his Fort Worth base. He had dismissed the notion, thinking the report was more likely the product of alcohol and bored officers than lights in the sky.

  The general heard Blanchard draw in a slow inhalation. The colonel was clearly uncertain how proceed. “I was going to ask if there was a special program that I had not yet been made aware of, but then things took a turn.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, it would seem that the Corona site was not the last of it. We’ve received another call from the sheriff’s office. A distressed young lady has reported another…umm…crash site.”

  “With similar materials?”

  “Yes and no, sir. It’s not the materials that have prompted my call. It’s the, the…” Blanchard paused a moment to compose himself. “It’s the pilots, sir.”

  General Roger Ramey felt his heart sink low into his chest cavity. “Pilots?”

  “Civilians have found a silver disk with injured occupants. Not Russian, not Chinese. Not like anything, sir.”

  The statement was met with a brief moment of silence from the other end of the line as the general weighed the information.

  “Where is your field team now?” the general snapped.

  “Major Marcel and Captain Cavitt are still out in the desert.”

  The general’s grip tightened on the phone. “Then find a photographer, scramble a Sentinel, and do a fly-over. Find me that disk!”

  *

  Within an hour of Blanchard’s call to Ramey a lone single-engine Stinson L-5 Sentinel, affectionately called the “Flying Jeep” by the troops, was already in the air conducting the reconnaissance mission ordered by the general. Along with the pilot, the four-passenger liaison plane flew a photographer and an accompanying officer past the Foster Ranch to systemat
ically criss-cross through the skies over Corona.

  A few miles west of the debris field, on the Plains of San Agustin, a shiny metallic object caught the photographer’s attention. As the small plane approached he became transfixed on the glimmering object, seemingly out of place on the backdrop of the sunburned desert floor, and started snapping shot after shot, chronicling the mysterious object as he watched it grow in his viewfinder.

  Shooting faster now, he felt an upwelling of nervous excitement as the object took form.

  The photographer then froze. Overcome by a wash of perplexing incomprehension, he slowly lowered the camera to behold the approaching vista with both eyes.

  Below him lay a flawlessly polished silver metallic disk lodged into the side of a rocky outcrop. It had evidently carved an increasingly deepening trench as it scraped toward the small rocky hill, which it was now wedged in at a steep sideways angle. He could clearly see a tear that extended from its domed apex and widened to its curved extremity. It looked as if a similarly sized disk had sliced through it.

  Five people in civilian clothing were scattered sporadically around the crashed disk, observing the unearthly object. Under the raised end of the silver craft, lying motionless, were four small gray bodies.

  CHAPTER 9

  8th July, 1947

  1:00 am

  “Jess, wake up.”

  Jesse Marcel Jr. slowly emerged from his sleep to the soft tones of his father’s voice. The 11-year-old boy rubbed his eyes to find his father, Major Jesse Marcel, sitting at the end of his bed. Tired from a full day of riding his bike with his friends and chasing fireflies after dusk, he thought it was unusual for his father to wake him up in the middle of the night, especially while still in his uniform.

  With a gentle smile his father said, “I’ve been out on a ranch and picked up pieces of something that crashed out there. It’s in the kitchen; come take a look.”