Complete Independence Day Omnibus, The

by Molstad, Stephen

  J. Bond Johnson was a reporter and photographer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. At four o’clock, he was on the phone researching a local political story when his editor walked in, took the receiver away from him, and calmly put it in the cradle. He’d been on the phone himself and had arranged for Johnson to get in on something more interesting. “If it pans out,” the editor said, “it’ll be the story of the century.” He told Johnson about the press release from Roswell, which had been dominating the wire services all afternoon. He’d been trying to get through to Roswell, but all the lines were jammed. Then, out of the blue, he’d gotten a call from General Ramey’s office. They were bringing the saucer from New Mexico to the Fort Worth Army Air Field. He told Johnson to grab his camera and get over there before Ramey called anyone else.

  Thirty minutes later, Johnson pulled up to the front gates, expecting to check in with the Public Affairs Liaison. To his surprise, the guard directed him straight to Ramey’s office. He was shown in immediately. Laid out on the floor were big sheets of butcher paper upon which rested a gnarled combination of rubber, steel cable, balsa wood, and something that looked like dirty aluminum foil.

  “This is what all the damn excitement’s about,” Ramey said, shaking his head. “There’s nothing to it. It’s a rawin high-altitude sounding device. I must have seen a dozen of these in the Pacific. The Japanese launched them all the time from Okinawa. My instructions were to examine it, then send it on to Wright Field. But the minute I laid eyes on it I knew what it was, and now I’m not going to bother.” The general was, however, quite anxious to put a stop to the rumors about spaceships and men from the moon. He had Johnson snap a dozen photos of the balloon, then sent him speeding back to the office to develop them.

  At one minute before midnight, one of Johnson’s photos was sent out on the Associated Press news wire. The caption read: “Brigadier General Roger M. Ramey, Commanding General of the 8th Air Force, identifies metallic fragments found near Roswell N. Mex. as a rawin high-altitude sounding device used by air force and weather bureau to determine wind velocity and direction and not a flying disk. Photo by J. Bond Johnson.”

  The next morning, the story was dead. Newspapers across the country and many overseas ran tongue-in-cheek articles about Major Marcel, who had apparently leaped to cosmic conclusions. None of the writers bothered to learn that the major had previously been assigned to a meteorology station and had extensive familiarity with both weather balloons and high-atmosphere balloon bombs. Marcel was angry and humiliated.

  But Ramey wasn’t done with him yet. He ordered the major to fly to Fort Worth, which he did the following day. Before he came, he stopped by the sheriff’s office and retrieved a few pieces of the debris still locked up there. Marcel brought the fragments into Ramey’s office and demonstrated some of the material’s exotic properties. The only logical conclusion, as far as Marcel was concerned, was that the stuff had not come from earth. The men left the material behind as they went to a map room to try and pinpoint the exact location of the craft. When they returned, the material was gone. Instead, a ruined weather balloon had been brought in and laid out on the floor. On the general’s orders, Marcel knelt beside the balloon to have his picture taken. Then, a few hours later, a dozen reporters were invited into the office for a good look at the “flying disk” Marcel had discovered. The newsmen wanted to ask the major questions, but Ramey had given him strict orders not to utter a single word. He was going to be the goat, the overexcitable idiot who had caused all this fuss, and Ramey was going to play the role of his benevolent commanding officer, speaking to the reporters on his behalf to spare him any further embarrassment.

  *

  Back in Roswell, Mac Brazel was also speaking to the press. A few of the local newspeople had gathered outside KGFL’s audio room to watch Wasserman interview the craggy old rancher. An unmarked car with two intelligence officers inside had dropped him off and was waiting to take him away as soon as the interview was completed. Mac had spent the last two days in a guesthouse on the Army base. During that time, a large group of MPs had invaded his ranch, allowing no one to enter the property. Before they were ordered away at gunpoint, his neighbors had caught glimpses of soldiers working on hands and knees in the debris field.

  Brazel told Wasserman a different story than he had during their first interview. He had been out inspecting his herds with his wife and son when he had come across the debris, he said. It was scattered over an area of about two hundred feet and seemed to be composed mainly of a rubbery gray material. Smaller pieces of heavy-duty tinfoil were strewn around the central hunk of the wreckage. He had noticed pieces of Scotch tape attached to it, as well as tape of another sort with little flowers on it.

  He spoke softly the whole time and kept his eyes anchored to the ground. Before he was finished, Wasserman switched off the microphone. “This is all a load of bull, Mac, and you know it. These Army guys got you to change your story, didn’t they?” Wasserman continued to pester Brazel for an explanation as he headed back outside. When they were out of earshot of the others, Brazel pleaded with the man, whispering, “Don’t make me talk about it. It’ll go hard on me and my family.”

  He got back in the car with the intelligence officers and drove away. He refused to speak of the matter ever again—not with Marcel, not with Wilcox, not even with his wife.

  7

  INTERVIEW WITH AN ALIEN

  One morning about a week after starting his Roswell research, Okun stumbled out of bed at about eight o’clock. He was trying to remember his dream. It had something to do with him being a roadie for Frank Zappa and having to chase a grizzly bear away from the backstage area during a concert out in the forest. He had repeatedly yelled at the animal that it didn’t have a pass. Without a pass it could not go backstage and would have to move away.

  He put on the robe and slippers the other scientists had given him, unlocked the door, and started off toward the bathroom when he stepped on something lying outside his door. It was a thick yellow envelope which had been sealed with masking tape. He knew what it must be and tossed it on his bed. About twenty minutes later, he returned with a cup of coffee and tore the package open. He was right. It was the report Wells had written immediately after his so-called conversation with the creature from outer space.

  *

  On the night of July 5, 1947, Colonel William Blanchard phoned the Los Alamos Laboratories and asked to speak with Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, head of the Manhattan Project. He said it was an emergency situation with implications for the national security of the United States. Immanuel Wells, the midlevel scientist who had answered the phone, heard the urgency in the colonel’s voice, but explained that all of the senior staff were traveling and could not be reached.

  Blanchard was desperate to get some “scientific backup” and ended up telling Wells that three bodies had been recovered from a crashed airship. Wells asked what made that a special situation. After a moment of hesitation, Blanchard told him the ship was of extraterrestrial origin and the bodies were unlike anything his medical staff had ever seen. He and the examining doctors both wanted as much help as they could get without going outside New Mexico’s large population of high-level security-cleared personnel. Wells left immediately, arriving at Roswell Field’s small base hospital about nine in the evening, a few hours after the three bodies had been delivered from the crash site. Soldiers posted outside informed him the entire building was under a Stage Four Quarantine. If he chose to enter, he would not be allowed out until the base commander lifted the order. Wells didn’t hesitate for a second. He knew he had been presented with a rare opportunity and was determined to get a look at these cadavers from outer space.

  Inside, the lobby was deserted except for a handful of soldiers and a distraught nurse. When Wells walked up and put a hand on her shoulder, she jumped halfway out of her skin. Something had shaken her up pretty badly. She told him everyone had gone into the observation area because the doctors were just beg
inning the autopsy on the first “eebie.” She had just come from another room, where she was helping prepare the other two bodies to be embalmed and airlifted away, but the sight of them had been too much for her, and she’d come into the lobby to get some air. When Wells asked what an “eebie” was, she explained it stood for EBE or Extraterrestrial Biological Entity.

  The observation area was a darkened, L-shaped corridor with windows looking into the hospital’s primary operating room. Wells could see the medical team hovering around a bulky shape lying on the table. At first glance, it looked like something dredged up from the depths of the ocean: an enormous clamshell surrounded by a mop of limp tentacles. Wells paced the length of the enclosure and studied the cadaver behind the glass partition. He soon became impressed with how similar, morphologically speaking, the creature was to humans. It was seven or eight feet tall and looked as if it might be capable of standing erect. The majority of its weight was contained in a very large head-chest region, which, even at close range, with its flared design and scalloped ridges, reminded him of a mollusk shell. This main shell was composed of two symmetrical halves which came together at the front, so that the seam between them created a long scar running from the crest of the head, down the center of the face, all the way to the pointed, coccyx-like projection at the bottom of the chest. The face itself was nothing more than a blunt slab of bone and ligament, with four short feeler-tentacles hanging off the sides. The eyes were hidden deep in narrow black sockets that looked like long gashes chopped into the surface of a rock. The creature could not be laid on its back owing to the presence of six rounded appendages, eight-foot-long tentacles, which sprouted from the back of the shell in the area of the shoulder blades. In contrast to the rigid exoskeleton, which protected the rest of the body, these long tentacles looked soft and pulpy, like thick ropes of flesh.

  It was a menacing sight to behold. Apart from the obvious fact that it was unlike any creature found on earth, it appeared that it might also be stronger than any creature on earth. Though slender, its limbs showed a highly developed musculature. Even the muscles in its foot-long hands were visibly well defined. If the thing had lived and had proved to be hostile, Wells thought, it would have made a formidable opponent—especially in a forest or a jungle environment where its profusion of limbs would allow it to climb with ease.

  The autopsy was conducted by Army surgeon Dr. Daniel Solomon and three assistants. His first step was to drag a large scalpel down the long seam connecting the halves of the skull, slicing into the cartilage tissue which filled the gap. When the incision was complete, efforts were made to pry open the large shell. This took some time and was finally accomplished by driving a large spike into the crevice. Piercing ammonium fumes poured into the air out of the head-chest cavity, forcing the medical team to back away from the body, their eyes watering. When the air cleared enough for work to resume, the four men positioned themselves on either side of the creature, twisted the snout toward the ceiling, then pulled hard in opposite directions. The shell cracked open, and Solomon’s team made a gruesome discovery. Where they had expected to find the creature’s entrails, they found instead another being, fully formed, tucked inside under a thick membrane of clear gel. The soldiers posted inside the operating room took aim at the ghoulish, glistening biomass. When it showed no signs of life, Solomon gathered his courage to come forward again. He reached in and prodded the figure with the blunt end of his scalpel several times. Eventually, he used a towel to wipe away some of the thick gelatin ooze and examined the thing more closely. He soon determined that it, too, was dead. Unclear whether this was a fully developed embryo or some sort of parasite, the medical technicians carefully lifted the smaller creature out from its hiding place, the gelatinous substance causing a loud slurping smack as it finally pulled free. Two puzzling discoveries were made. First, the smaller alien appeared to be of a completely different species than its host. Second, the larger animal appeared to have been gutted; there was a complete absence of anything the doctors recognized as internal organs.

  While they were discussing these new revelations, someone standing near Wells in the observation hall called through the glass to Dr. Solomon, asking about the other two creatures. Immediately, the medical team went to the room where the other bodies were being prepared for shipment. Solomon put a stethoscope against the hard chest of the exoskeleton and, after listening for a moment, looked up and announced, “This one’s still alive.”

  *

  It was during the exhumation of the second alien that Wells became centrally involved. The second exoskeleton remained lifeless as it was lifted onto a gurney and wheeled into the operating room. But when Solomon inserted his scalpel into the seam and began slicing away the ligament holding the skull halves together, the tentacle-arms lifted weakly off the ground and tried to push the doctor away from the table. Suddenly Solomon understood the relationship between the two types of alien beings, explaining to his crew and the onlookers that the EBE inside seemed to be manipulating the larger body, which was being used as a biological suit of armor. Intent on reaching the hidden creature before it died, he called for help from the observation gallery. He wanted volunteers to restrain the extremities while he split open the torso. Wells was among the volunteers. He was given a pair of gloves and assigned the task of holding a tentacle against the tabletop. He grasped the serpentine appendage in two places, sinking his fingers deeply into its spongy flesh. As Solomon resumed work with his scalpel, Wells could feel the thing writhing weakly beneath his hands—a sensation which caused him to grow increasingly lightheaded. He was on the verge of fainting when the ammonia vapors lifted into the room and momentarily cleared his head. The creature inside began to struggle harder. There was a loud sound of cracking bone as the shell was fully retracted. Wells glanced at the tabletop and saw the goo-slathered alien wriggling around the chest cavity of its host animal. He felt his fingers losing their strength and his knees beginning to buckle. Fighting to maintain control, he focused his eyes on the edge of the table and began to hum the first melody that came into his head. Concentrating on his song, he kept himself conscious long enough for the medical crew to begin lifting the smaller body out of the larger one. Taking a deep breath, he raised his eyes to watch this part of the operation.

  “Don’t stop, keep on humming,” Solomon commanded. “It’s keeping it calm.”

  So, the physicist from the atom-bomb project continued to hum. When he heard the slurping noise that signaled the separation of the two animals, he looked up and found himself face-to-face with the goop-slathered body. The creature’s enormous eyes, like reflecting pools of mercury, were open and looking straight at him. When a pair of heavy eyelids closed slowly over these quicksilver orbs, Wells felt as if a heavy curtain were being lowered over him as well. The room lost its shape, and he felt himself sinking toward the floor.

  *

  He came to the next morning, Dr. Solomon by his side.

  “Welcome back. You got a little squeamish on us last night and passed out.”

  Wells sat up and accepted a cup of coffee, but as he brought it toward his lips, the smell of it struck him as repulsive, and he set it aside.

  “I wanted to thank you,” Solomon continued. “It was a brilliant idea you had, humming to the eebie like that. I guess music really is the universal language.”

  “I was just trying not to faint,” Wells admitted, “but I’m glad I could help. Is it still alive?” As quickly as he asked this question, Wells realized he already knew the answer.

  “Yes it is, but I don’t know how long that will last. We can’t figure out how to help it. It’s been dropping in and out of consciousness all night. We’ve offered it food and water, but it hasn’t accepted anything yet. We aren’t even sure how it eats yet. If it doesn’t die from its internal injuries, it’s going to starve to death.”

  “That would be good news, wouldn’t it?” Wells asked.

  “You’re quick.” Solomon smiled. Like W
ells, he was in his early forties, but looked much older this morning after missing a night of sleep. “The military is overjoyed to hear it won’t eat anything. They think it proves the alien can’t survive here, but I’m not convinced of that. The thing is badly wounded—of course it has no appetite.”

  Although Solomon’s idea had a great deal of common sense to it, Wells somehow got the idea that it was wrong. He sat staring into space wondering about this idea until Solomon spoke again.

  “I’m off to try and get some sleep myself. They’re in there questioning the eebie now. You might want to get some breakfast, then go in and watch.” With that, he left the room.

  Wells dressed himself and went into the lobby. A large buffet table had been set up with food passed through the quarantine perimeter. Although he had not eaten anything for well over twelve hours, he found he was not hungry. In fact, the food smelled rotten and repulsive to him, and he quickly made his way to the observation room in order to escape the odors.

  The frail creature lying passively on the operating table was awake. Its eyes were open but turned blankly toward the ceiling. Standing at what they felt was a safe distance, a pair of agents from Army Intelligence were trying everything they could think of to initiate communication with the alien. Wells sat down and watched them work for the next six hours. They asked it questions in several languages, waved their hands, snapped, drew simple pictures on a tablet, then set the writing instruments beside the creature. They played music on a tape machine, then made a whole series of ridiculous noises with their mouths and hands, hoping something would catch the thing’s attention and elicit a response. They showed it newly developed photographs of the crashed spaceship but got no reaction. When they had tried everything they could think of, they made way for another team. Wells, still sitting comfortably in the same spot, watched for another six hours as a second set of questioners went through a similar routine and achieved similar results. Eventually people began to notice this man who had not left his chair to use the bathroom, have a drink of water, or merely stretch his legs all day long.