Disclosing the Secret

by Vincent Amato

  Closing his eyes for a moment, Marcel felt himself reeling back to that night he helped his father lay out all the crash fragments on the kitchen floor when he was a young boy. As he recounted his story, he pictured the minute details of the I-beam he held in his hands: its color, it weightlessness, the sound it made when it knocked the floor, the texture of its flanges, and the shapes that formed hieroglyphic symbols moulded along its web.

  D’Amato’s eyes were riveted on the colonel. “Where do you think those crash fragments may be now?”

  Marcel was surprised. “Don’t you know?! You are the guys that have them.”

  The security specialist’s face clouded with apprehension. “I’m not sure how much you have been made aware of our levels of security, but there seems to be a controlling group entrenched within our government. It’s this ‘black government’ within our government that has secured all known ETVs retrieved from crash sites and maintains the global secrecy about the ETs.”

  Marcel looked around in disbelief. “You’re the security specialist sitting in a top secret subterranean installation UNDER the Capitol Building in Washington DC, and you don’t know either?”

  “Sir,” D’Amato said, giving a controlled smile, “I’ve been charged with the investigation of the operations of this group, this ‘government within our government’, which we suspect is the beneficiary of the unreconciled funds that we believe are being spent annually without appropriate Senate oversight. It’s my job, sir, to report to the Senate Appropriates Committee and advise them on where these tax dollars are going, and why.”

  “Our own government is investigating…our own government?!” Jake’s sudden outburst interrupted his father’s recount of his meeting with the NSC security specialist.

  “Unreconciled funds?… Spent annually?” Jake continued, connecting the dots. “I bet this D’Amato tool was talking about the unaccounted trillions that get diverted into black budgets every year.”

  “Perhaps,” Jake’s father offered. “But there was nothing further I could tell him that he didn’t already know. I must admit, I was stunned by his admission of a black government acting behind the scenes.”

  Jesse Jr.’s expression then softened. “But at the same time, there was something monumental about that meeting. There I was, sitting in that secure underground meeting room and across the table a government official was confirming that everything your grandfather saw, that what I held in my hands as a boy, and the cover-up that followed, was real.”

  Jake was thunderstruck. He felt the truth come crashing down around him. It was as if his father’s recollection, in his own words, had unexpectedly led him through a threshold he had always resisted crossing. Jake Marcel knew from that moment onwards he would no long speculate or believe in a possible ET presence, he had now accepted it as fact.

  All these years, I never wanted to believe.

  When he spoke, Jake’s words were barely a whisper: “You never told me about this until now?”

  It was as if the words were physically hard for his father to say. “We have all had to live with what we know, about what your grandfather found in the desert. Dad would never say anything about it, but even at a young age I could see that the army he loved so much, and dedicated his life to, had set him up to be the fool who made a mistake. Then they silenced him. It slowly ate at him for the rest of his days. He made your mother and I promise that we would never speak a word about any of it until after he passed. God rest his soul.”

  “And you never wanted to know, son.” His father’s eyes looked like they would well with tears at any moment. “I knew you were conflicted about the subject. I used to sometimes see your face when you came home from school; clearly you had been harassed about something. But you never wanted to talk about it. Then you’d always freeze up if the topic of UFOs or your grandfather was mentioned. Although you never said anything, I knew what was going on. I knew people were giving you a hard time about it, about our family’s history.”

  Jake was speechless.

  His father’s words resonated with the protectiveness of a devoted parent: “So I just let you be.”

  The words sent Jake’s emotions reeling. Again he opened his mouth to speak, but was still unable to respond.

  Jesse Jr. sensed he had unleashed deep-seated turmoil hidden within his son. He could read from the boy’s horrific expression that he was reliving his younger years spent running away from anything that had to do with what his grandfather retrieved from the desert, denying it was even true. He moved to change the topic and bring his son back to the present.

  His father spoke with a soft but concerned smile. “For a long time I never told anyone about the meeting we had that day under the Capitol Building. The NSC official had strongly felt that discretion would be the better part of valour, and due to the sensitivity of what we discussed, I agree with him. There was one thing I did ask him though.”

  Jake’s curiosity jolted him back from his daydream. “What did you ask?”

  “I asked him when the government would release the truth about our interstellar visitors.”

  Jake’s eyes went wide. “What did he say??”

  The retired colonel paused, locking eyes with his son. “That if it were up to him, the truth would have been disclosed years ago. He then said it was the ‘government within the government’ that was in control and, for reasons of their own, it’s kept the secret all this time, and is continuing to do so.”

  “So Grandpa really did bring home pieces of the crashed UFO?” Jake’s voice was full of wonder.

  “They’re called ETVs nowadays,” his father corrected him. “Extraterrestrial vehicles.”

  Jesse Jr. flashed a triumphant smile. “They were very real. I held pieces of one with my own hands.”

  Jake’s eyes shot up. “This scientist was adamant that our family had a piece of the wreckage still in our possession after all these years, even if we didn’t immediately know where it was hidden. He said if we did then he’d be able to help us if other agencies came looking for it.”

  His father sensed the rumblings of a gathering storm approaching from the distance.

  Jake immediately noticed his father’s expression turn grim. “Do you think I should trust him, Dad?”

  The question seem to hang in the air between them for a long moment while his father carefully weighed his thoughts. “Before I left that meeting under the Capitol Building, the government official had asked if I’d received any threatening phone calls. I told him I did receive the odd anonymous hang-up, but nothing that would qualify as an actual death threat.”

  Jake shifted uncomfortably.

  “He then ripped off a piece of paper,” his father continued, “wrote down all his contact information, and I mean all of it, and told me that if I were ever threatened, I was to contact him immediately.”

  Jake’s voice caught. “Did you ever need to call him?”

  “No. But my point is,” Jesse Jr. added, “that this government official was not only conducting an internal investigation, but also offered me protection if I needed it. Perhaps there are others within the government who don’t agree with how this ET secret is being maintained. If you do decide to listen to this Dr. Reilly, tread carefully.”

  The words echoed in Jake’s mind.

  Perhaps he is who he claims to be, Jake thought.

  “And to answer your other question, son…” Jake sensed an unexpected glimmer of contentment in his father’s eyes as he spoke. “Whatever secrets your grandfather kept, he took them to his grave.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Sitting silently in a plain-colored sedan, two agents observed a motorcycle approach. Parked four houses away from Jake’s home, the agents watched as the motorcycle slowed to turn into Jake’s driveway.

  The rider dismounted then approached the house without removing his helmet. Unlocking the front door, he let himself in.

  *

  Jake shuffled into his bedroom, heavy with the weight of
what he had learned from his father. He slumped onto his bed, dropping his helmet to the floor beside him. Staring at the ceiling a long moment, he was stuck somewhere between drained and unsettled. It would seem that his father was no longer the only Marcel in the family to have been approached by government agents.

  Rolling to his side, he reached under his bed. The gadget he retrieved was a little bigger than an iPod. It too had earphones, but the difference was that it also had a set of sunglasses that plugged into the gadget. However, these sunglasses couldn’t be seen through, instead it held a small matrix of LED lights fixed to the inside of the opaque glasses that sat in front of the eyes.

  The gadget was a small mind machine. He put on the earphones, fitted the opaque glasses over his eyes, selected a program and pressed the start button. Exhaling slowly, he allowed himself to relax as the LEDs pulsed in front of his closed eyelids.

  The effect was the feeling of being wrapped in a hypnotic symphony of colors. The strobing flashes were accompanied by sounds and tones specifically set to the same alpha frequencies the human brain experiences when dreaming. Buddhist monks could spend a lifetime training in a meditative state to reach such levels of consciousness. Volumes have been written on the revelations learned by monks that had gone beyond alpha, to the super-conscious state of theta, the mind’s frequency when in a deep sleep.

  By exposing the mind’s senses to these specific frequencies, Jake’s little mind machine allowed a shortcut to a deep meditative state.

  The trick is to let go, Jake reminded himself has he relaxed.

  Jake felt his consciousness begin to float in an ocean of hypnotic colors. It was liberating to kick-start the mind into its dream state while remaining awake. As he let go, careful not to fall asleep, Jake felt as if his body was slowly starting to accelerate upwards. He often used his mind device to float in the alpha state while reflecting on problems that had presented themselves. He found that the logical side of his mind would become dormant, while allowing the artistic side of his mind, the side highly active during dreaming, to find solutions he would never have thought of otherwise. It was his secret problem-solver.

  Images of his father flashed before him, their conversation replaying in his mind. His father’s words ricocheted around him. “Whatever secrets your grandfather kept, he took them to his grave.”

  Now passing the edge of consciousness, Jake felt his muscles melt away; he was floating somewhere between being awake and being in a dream.

  What should I do? he thought, as if willing the universe to guide him to an answer.

  He felt his mind drift further away from consciousness. Images of his conversation with Dr. Reilly were now replaying before him, layered over what he had learned from his father.

  Then an unexpected image appeared in his mind – a vision. A plateau was being cleared; a semitropical forest was surrounded by lakes and opulent vegetation. The sky was filled with large prehistoric-looking birds. Thousands of workers dressed in white kilts and shoulder-length cloth hats labored at removing stones from timber platforms suspended from a large cigar-shaped craft.

  Jake felt himself being drawn into the vision, as if drifting into a dream.

  Is that an airship? Jake asked himself, trying to figure out how the colossal charcoal-colored craft was being powered. The scene was reminiscent of helicopter transports flying in heavy machinery to a massive building site.

  In the distance three more cigar-shaped craft approached, carrying a series of suspended platforms, each cradling huge stone blocks. The prehistoric birds scattered as the craft came closer and slowed to a halt. The huge stone blocks were the color of sand; engraved on their sides were what looked to Jake like hieroglyphics.

  In the distance, beneath the newly arrived airships, two more building sites bustled with activity. Armies of workers labored to haul the huge stone blocks into place. It was immediately apparent to Jake that whatever was being built was going to be massive in scale. The shape looked eerily familiar to him. Although construction looked as if it had only commenced recently, what had been built looked remarkably like the base of two pyramids.

  The construction of the Great Pyramids of Giza?

  The revelation jolted Jake upright.

  He ripped the flashing glasses and earphones from his head and fished in his pocket to retrieve the plain business card.

  He reached for his phone and dialed the number. Charles Reilly’s raspy voice answered. “Jake. I’m glad you decided to call.”

  Jake’s tone was unwavering. “I want to know everything!”

  CHAPTER 30

  “Where would you like me to start?” Dr. Charles Reilly asked Jake.

  Charles had arranged to meet Jake at another public place, but this time at a different location, one Jake was more familiar with. It was the middle of the afternoon under a clear blue sky as they both found a bench seat in the park within walking distance of Natasha’s house. Jake, however, had suspected that the scientist most likely already knew that little fact.

  The scientist obviously had volumes to share with the younger man. Jake pondered quietly a long moment before asking his first question. “Tell me about my grandfather.”

  Charles took a moment to collect his thoughts. “Your grandfather was a good man, a true patriot. Your father also served, and I know about the injuries he sustained, and that he even came out of retirement to serve in Iraq when his country called on him. He’s a good man, too, like his father… The very definition of a true American hero. You come from a fine family, Jake.”

  Charles recounted to Jake that on Sunday 6th of July 1947, the intelligence office at the Roswell Army Air Field received a call from the Chaves County Sheriff’s Office reporting that a local rancher had presented some strange pieces of wreckage. Jesse Marcel, at the time ranked a major, then drove to the sheriff’s office to inspect the strange materials. Puzzled with what had been found, he reported it to his commanding officer, Colonel William Blanchard.

  Blanchard then immediately ordered Major Marcel to be accompanied by someone from the Counter Intelligence Corps office to collect as much of the strange debris as possible and return to the airbase. Jesse complied.

  While Major Jesse Marcel and CIC Captain Sheridan Cavitt of the Counter Intelligence Corps were in transit to the crash site, military police stormed the sheriff’s office on the orders of Blanchard to take possession of the debris samples left behind and deliver them directly to Blanchard’s office. The samples were then flown to his commanding officer, General Roger Ramey of the Eighth Air Force headquarters in Fort Worth, who took control of them.

  On Tuesday 8th of July 1947, the newspaper Roswell Daily Record ran with the headline ‘RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region,’ stating that the information had been released under the authority of Major Jesse Marcel. Ramey’s office then received a call from General McMullen from Washington ordering some of the recovered material be immediately sent to Washington and to squash any stories about the army recovering a crashed flying saucer by creating a believable cover story.

  The material was wrapped in plastic and placed in a case that was attached to the wrist of Fort Worth base commander Colonel Al Clarke, who personally rushed the samples directly to Washington, D.C., on the direct orders of General Clemence McMullen.

  Once Washington realized they were dealing with exotic materials beyond their understanding, they quickly ordered a mission to recover all of it. They wanted to learn as much about it as they could, but more importantly needed to be certain it did not fall into the hands of the public or, worse still, into the hands of their enemies. An aerial survey then located a second crash site containing the main body of the craft a few miles from the debris field Marcel was still attending, a site which a group of civilian archaeologists had stumbled on and reported to the Chaves County sheriff the same morning the reconnaissance mission was launched. A third crash site was also found within a few miles of the second; there a small pod had hit the groun
d and there were several small humanoid bodies. It was at this point that US army intelligence had to face the shocking reality that the crew and their vehicle were non-terrestrial. The army’s mission instantly changed from that of reconnaissance and debris clean-up to securing and recovery of bodies and technology from unknown origins.

  Meanwhile, Marcel and Cavitt returned to Roswell Army Air Field carrying with them two carloads of the exotic materials and debris.

  General Ramey was tasked with formulating a story to cover up the army’s find. To do this his staff had to source an object that looked badly damaged enough to be passed off to the press as nothing more than the remains of a radar reflector.

  “The weather balloon!” Jake chimed in, unimpressed.

  “That’s right,” Reilly confirmed. “Ramey then invited the press and announced that what had been spread out over a square mile on the ranch was just a radar reflector from a downed weather balloon. It was then reported by the media that the weather balloon had been misidentified by both the rancher and the military personnel who had recovered it.”

  Jake was shaking his head. “I remember the photograph that was in the paper; my grandfather was kneeling down next to the bits and pieces of a weather balloon. Didn’t anyone care to ask how the hell a little flimsy kite-like weather balloon could possibly spread itself out over that area? Not to mention that they don’t exactly come rocketing down like a re-entering spacecraft. It’s a balloon! The only way they come down is when they develop a leak, and then they slowly float down as the helium escapes.”

  “Believe me,” the scientist agreed, “your grandfather was not happy about being ordered to go along with the story. The very notion of a Senior Intelligence Officer stationed at the only atomic bomb group in the world at the time, where only top tier personnel served, having his capabilities as a ranking officer brought into question, not to mention his reputation.”

  “They made him face the world as the fool who couldn’t tell the difference between an ET craft and a weather balloon. Either that or one of the qualifications of becoming the head of our elite top secret atomic bomb program was to be a complete idiot! ” Jake was fuming.