Earth

by Timothy Good

  “The task you are going to undertake may be quite easy, but it could become extremely difficult. We have known about it for some years and have made certain preparations at this airfield during the past six months. You may have observed activity at and near this hangar which appeared to be a building project. It is a secret project and all works have been carried out by military experts, some flown in from the United States and Canada. The men and women involved are no longer in camp.”

  The project henceforth was to be referred to as “Code Orange.” “All personnel in camp have been told the airmen with orange flashes are on sensitive RAF work,” continued the squadron leader, “and you are not to be interrupted, questioned as to your work or whatever. If you are questioned, then treat it as a breach of security, reporting the incident on the phone in your new quarters.”

  Thomas and another colleague, Alan, were assigned overall charge of Code Orange, within the camp perimeter. Next, one of the “suits”—the man with white hair—addressed the new team, after thanking the squadron leader for his briefing. “I work for the government as a scientist and feel satisfied that all has gone as it should here today,” he began. “So, what is Code Orange about? It is about an incident that occurred in the American state of New Mexico during 1947, a most unfortunate incident that involved living beings from another world crashing to Earth, for reasons I will not go into here, and of deaths and casualties,” claimed the man. “Code Orange is about ordinary country people on the spot at the time and of military personnel becoming involved under orders from their superiors within the military and within the government. Code Orange is about putting right, as best we can, a mess….

  “I am here to explain your part, and perhaps then we can learn more about how to take advantage of the alien technology as a priority over alien life. Whatever the outcome, Code Orange is about a strange craft and its occupants who did not complete their journey in New Mexico after all—well, two of them did not, and who knows if others got away? [There were] three craft on the 1947 situation, each with seating areas for three. Two dead bodies were recovered, two alive and still held by the military.

  “Other craft have been sighted over many years and many have landed. They are not all from the same place, and are therefore of different races. The two aliens still held by the military are having, shall we say, an English holiday. It is too hot for them where they were and the wrong people are getting close.

  “The aliens are vastly more intelligent than we are as a race. So despite considerable arguments, they themselves have forced a move, and months of talks and time-wasting have at last resulted in Code Orange…. The two aliens went silent, refusing to communicate unless they were moved. They do not speak and voice their words aloud as we do, but they converse with each other and us in silence. For want of a better expression, the term ‘thought transference’ will do, but they communicate mood too…. Your task is to look after them here—until they decide to communicate again, or not. You will be shown how.”

  “That was it, really,” reflected Thomas. “The other two did not have anything to say to us. I remember sitting quietly, trying to take it all in. Then we were told to sort out our new billet at the side of No. 1 hangar and settle in immediately….”

  Sunrise and Sunset

  The office at Weston Zoyland was reached by the team directly from their billet, and another door led into the hangar. “A long desk with three chairs was along one wall, with two telephones, piles of notepads, pens, pencils, and a radio set and typewriter,” Thomas reported. “Filing cabinets were ready for use and a screen ‘looked into’ the hangar, but was not ‘on’ at first. Fire buckets and extinguishers, tea and coffee facilities and water were laid on to a sink basin. A fairly ordinary situation then, but extraordinary was a metal cupboard with revolvers and ammunition and a set of white overalls for all of us.”

  Thomas’s team had the use of other amenities nearby and were permitted access to the NAAFI (Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes) shop and the Mess at mealtimes, though only two at a time. The team received orders to man the office from 08:00 to 16:00 each day, until further notice. “At that time we organized two four-hour shifts, always with Alan or myself leading these in turn,” Thomas explained. “We received phone calls on a regular basis to verify that all was well, from an anonymous female voice, the origin of which we were never told. We were given a password—‘Sunrise’—and had to use it in reply to the woman’s password—‘Sunset’—which I will never forget.”

  Special Delivery

  The team looked after the office and kept themselves fit by running or walking outside the hangar and in the large field adjoining it. Nothing relevant occurred until well into the second week, when a phone call came from a man advising Thomas that a Code Orange delivery was due on the Saturday of the following week. Early on the next Monday morning, the team was advised that their password would change to that of the project name. The usual female contact advised them that on Wednesday at 08:00 a special consignment would be arriving (at Merryfield).

  Thomas told me that the special consignment, originating in the U.S., was delivered from somewhere in the U.K.—Scotland, he believes—by train, ending its rail journey at Ilton Halt, thence by a huge vehicle to Merryfield.

  Like Weston Zoyland, Merryfield had been used in World War II by the USAAF and RAF, and then by the latter as an advanced pilot and training establishment with Meteor and Vampire jets until the end of 1954. During the following two years—which involved Code Orange—a detachment from an operational conversion unit, with Canberra jets, was often present. Then came the Royal Navy with Sea Venoms, until 1958. By 1961, it was abandoned until 1971 when, as Royal Naval Air Station Merryfield (HMS Heron II) it was used for assault helicopter training and exercises. Today, it remains an operational airfield and a restricted area, with security on the gate.3

  About twenty feet high and eight to ten feet deep, the wooden crate was hauled on to the back of a large wide-load vehicle, secured with steel cable hawsers on its narrow end. “It didn’t cause a lot of problems along those Somerset roads on its short journey to Merryfield, as one might imagine,” Thomas explained to me. “However, some traffic problems delayed delivery.”

  “It was 11:00 when the two motorcycle MPs (Military Police) roared up to the doors of No. 1 hangar followed by the huge wide-load vehicle, all noise and flashing lights, then two more motorcycles with a staff car following,” Thomas reports. “The hangar door slid smoothly shut on it.” An hour or so later, the presence of a group captain in the hangar was announced to the team via phone. On being admitted to the office, he introduced himself, explaining first that a viewing screen in the office was now operational, enabling the men to see into the hangar. “The hangar had a pitch roof with rows of skylights and a pair of very large hangar sliding doors to the front,” Thomas continues. “There were rows of strip lighting for night use. Our billet-cum-office was on one side abutting the west hall of the hangar with the one door between us. An orange six-inch-diameter circle was painted on it [and] the viewing screen had a small red light above it, no doubt showing it was ‘on.’ From within the hangar there was no way of knowing what was behind our door.”

  A large red-brick room had been built at the back of the hangar, within which was another room mainly made of glass or similar material. “Its rear wall, really a gigantic window, looked out across the Somerset countryside to a distant perimeter fence we were told was electrified,” Thomas revealed. “We later learned that the electrified fence was only fixed about No. 1 hangar at Merryfield and that the fencing around the remainder of the camp remained normal. Just beyond this fence was another, some eight feet high but not electrified, and beyond it were fields and a river. Due to the slope from the rear of the hangar down to the river, the view was not despoiled by the fencing, nor could anyone else see in.”

  About fifty feet by forty, the glass room was divided in two by a dark gl
ass partition. Normal daylight was adequate, but strip lighting was used at night. Other rooms in the hangar were color-coded differently, each with windows looking into the hangar. “Security was very tight. We could see two men on a high platform facing the hangar doors…. During a practice security drill, we had seen a row of vertical bars shoot up from the ground [and] at that instant two armoured vehicles appeared….”

  When the crate had been positioned in the hangar and the lid taken away, the day after its arrival, the team was allowed to inspect it. “Almost touching the sides was a gray, glistening metallic saucer of perfectly circular shape,” Thomas describes. “It had what looked like a window all the way around but with no panes, just one strip of glass-like material, and we could see within to panels of instruments, screens, and three seats. At a nod from the group captain, four men in overalls ran across and within minutes the sides of the crate were on the floor.”

  It looked, said Thomas, like two saucers, one in the usual position with the other upside-down on top of it. “Strange though it may seem, I felt it was alive and thinking, silent but as if brooding. It was more ‘alive’ than any other inanimate object I had ever seen.”

  Three small seats with seemingly molded curved-topped backs—evidently not designed for adults of normal human stature—could be seen. No seat belts or any obvious “driving” apparatus were noted. As Thomas reveals:

  “The panel of instruments facing the seats swept around the front half of the craft and was black or [very] dark gray. There were scores of ‘keys’ of the shape and size of our modern computers plus several screens of about one foot by six inches (30  15 cm), some vertical, some horizontal. Along the lower length of the panel was a ‘desk’ with more keys in neat rows and at each end a pale gray-colored list in some printed form of hieroglyphics … above the main panel was a larger screen, again dark, and of about three feet by two feet and fitted as a horizontal, like a modern TV screen.”

  The area behind the seats was relatively bare, with the exception of half a dozen circular “switches,” almost flush to the wall.

  Asked if the team could enter the craft, the group captain began by expounding on the actual event that had led to its recovery. The one in the hangar had followed two others down, one badly damaged with “bits strewn over the desert, the other badly damaged but intact,” he explained. “This one came down of its own volition, that is, it was not shot at…. At that time it was on a set of tripod-type legs with a small disc at the end of each.”

  The group captain went on to explain that the craft had been opened by its occupants at the crash site in New Mexico. Two aliens were seen to emerge but a third remained inside—then simply stood up and “disappeared” and hadn’t been seen since, despite the area having been searched for a week. The other two aliens were “seemingly unwell,” said the group captain. They were easily apprehended and had no weapons. “If all three craft had three occupants, we have dead and alive evidence of six. It is known that one, apparently unhurt, left this craft and has since escaped detection somehow. The other two may have been thrown out from the two crashes and lost, or they also escaped…. On the third occupant’s disappearance, the exit-cum-entrance facility was seen to close itself. It has not opened or been opened since. We just can’t bloody well open the thing. The seal is absolute perfection. The metal and glass are absolutely unknown to us.”

  The other two damaged craft were kept in great secrecy at a certain U.S. base, the group captain revealed. “All I know,” he said, “is that parts of its amazing system of navigation, and some sort of tiny technological ‘brains,’ which have to do with communication and pretty well everything else, are hastily being examined by various world scientists to see how we humans can benefit by them.”

  Later that day, the group captain explained to the team that visits to the craft at Merryfield were permitted, provided they were dressed in their “whites”—white overalls unique to the team—and that authorization had been obtained by their Code Orange contact. At Weston Zoyland—where the aliens were to be housed—the team agreed to eight-hour shifts with three men on and three off, with one of each three always by the phone. “So it was 0800 to 1600, 1600 to midnight, and midnight to 0800,” explained Thomas. However, two officers and a scientist came on duty during the early shift’s lunch break, allowing the team a two-hour respite.

  Not of This Earth

  Some days later, an RAF “V” bomber—either a Valiant, Victor, or Vulcan, capable of delivering nuclear weapons but in this operation delivering two aliens—landed at Weston Zoyland with a two-fighter-jet escort. Thomas told me he was fairly certain that the bomber was a Vulcan. The team was told to remain in their office and await further orders. A few hours later, they were summoned, two by two, to meet the alleged aliens, now ensconced in a specially constructed glass container in the hangar at Weston Zoyland. Thomas and his colleague Alan were first. “Emotions welled up in me that I feel to this day,” Thomas admitted.

  “Two thin little people lay side by side. They were gray-colored and their heads seemed rather large for their bodies and were oval, or egg-shaped, with the large end at the top, a large cranium leading down to a small chin, and their eyes were large, limpid, and dark with no iris visible. Just dark, lustrous pools, wide open, rather like those of seals, I thought. There were nostril holes but no nose projecting from the face, and I could see a small mouth beneath. There were no visible projecting ears as we have.

  “Sinewy arms stretched alongside their bodies and the legs looked skinny. They were very still. Unreal, I thought…. I looked at their hands. Four long fingers similar to us. But no thumbs. And four-toed feet.

  “Just beneath the small chin of the body nearest to me a pulse was beating, and looking at the other being I could see the same…. I was actually looking at two people from somewhere else. Not of this Earth! I glanced across at the officer and met his eyes. He smiled and nodded, as if to say ‘yes, this is real—they are alive.’”

  Shaking, Thomas made for a chair and sat down, followed by Alan. They didn’t feel it was appropriate to stare at the aliens too much. “They look so dignified,” said Alan. One appeared slightly shorter than the other. They seemed frail, though Thomas sensed a latent strength about them.

  Half an hour later, all of the team having seen the beings and returned to the office, the officer/instructor declared that he didn’t know which sex the aliens were. He thought they wore a membranous covering, but added that the Americans hadn’t been very forthcoming with their information. He suggested that the team gave names to the aliens if they wanted, but that officially they were referred to by their American captors as “G32” and “G33.” Thomas speculates that the numbers might relate to the 32nd and 33rd aliens recovered by the U.S. military. The team elected to call them simply “G” and “L.” (Much later, it was determined that G was male, L female.)

  Thomas remains amazed at the aliens’ ability to convey a sense of humor, or sadness, for example, without such feelings manifesting facially. As time went by, it became possible to “feel” their thoughts, and it was always clear what they meant. They did speak audibly on occasions—not that it helped. “The problem in our inability to converse by voice was that their language contained no vowels,” he explained; “thus, if they spoke to us we would hear a series of unintelligible sounds not unlike the chattering of small animals.” (However, the airmen later learned from their duty officer that although official communications from G and L did not involve actual spoken words, the Americans confirmed that they do have voices—presumably capable of communicating in English and other languages.)

  Thomas and the others liked the aliens from the outset and grew to care for them deeply over the approximately twenty-month period involved.

  One lovely summer’s day, Thomas and Alan were sitting beside “the Grays” (as they apparently were referred to occasionally by the military, even at that time), surveying the cou
ntryside through the large window of their enclosure. “What is worrying you both?” “said” the aliens. “Is this not the kind of day when you should feel all is well?” The men were indeed worried—about the aliens. “Thanks to you airmen, we are doing well and recovering,” the Grays responded. “You need not worry about us.”

  When communicating, G and L would put one hand on their chest, to convey who was “speaking.” Then began a discourse, warning of Earth’s future overpopulation, the poisoning of its environment, and so on. “We know your instructions are to inform your seniors of all we say. Do so. We will be telling them all we have told you when they pay their regular visits….”

  Like other alien groups, they confirmed Man’s extraterrestrial genetic links.

  “The majority of flora and fauna on this planet have evolved over millions of years. Humans were one of those that were genetically manipulated and thus you are related to another species as a planned experiment by beings from another world. Our presence here is of right, and we have visited before this time, many times. Our present role is to observe others who are here, to see that they are not destructive and to give you some of our technology in order that you will survive—if you have earned the right to survival as we judge it. That was the core of our message to Earth people and part of the reason for our arrival in your time of 1947, though we reneged upon that in that July month, and here two of us remain—at least for a little longer.”

  At this juncture, G reached out and clasped hands with L. “I felt there was significance in the comment ‘at least for a little longer,’ linked with the hand clasp,” writes Thomas. “The two aliens had been held captive for at least eight years. Not much of an existence for people who know how to travel light years’ distance, and had somehow done so to reach Earth.”