The Silver Bridge: The Classic Mothman Tale

by Gray Barker

  Janet wanted one more look at the golden ball before Mr. Willett closed the heavy vault door. She walked in front of the circular opening. There it was, in the corner, resting on a shelf, still glowing, even in the dim interior of the vault.

  She hoped Mr. White would not call for and remove it the next day, for she would like the opportunity to hold and examine it again, as she had done briefly when he handed it to her earlier that afternoon. As she had carefully supported it with both hands, a feeling of perfect calm had come over her. It must, indeed, have come from outer space—there was something undefinable about it that declared it was of another world.

  But she feared what he probably would do with the ball. Mr. Willett had remarked that White’s discovery of the object would no doubt make him a wealthy man. Its metallic value probably was fantastic, and that would be multiplied many times by its value as a wealthy collector’s item, museum piece, or if it were purchased by the government.

  If it were her’s she would not sell it. It would be a too beautiful, too sacred thing to part with.

  Perhaps he would leave it in the bank vault for a few days. Perhaps she could hold it again. Or just look at it occasionally, as it rested there.

  CHAPTER 10

  INDRID COLD

  Indrid Cold adjusted his flying cap and held up the reflector. A greatly enlarged version of himself startled him; then he turned the shaving mirror and looked into the normal side. The cap gave him a jaunty appearance. It had appeared, as had so many other things, quite suddenly inside the chest of utility.

  He glanced at his panion, Carl Ardo, for approval, but he was busy at working the controls.

  “How about taking ’er down into a tailspin?” he suggested.

  Carl looked up.

  “I’m in for it. Hold on, and we’ll try it again!”

  Carl was in extraordinarily good spirits, probably because of the brand-new uniforms they had suddenly been gifted with, just an hour or so before the appearance of the flying caps. These were indeed more comfortable than the shiny, metallic garb they had discarded, and even more so than when they had worn no clothing at all. They had been so cold then.

  Other changes in the spaceship had been for the better: The ancient CB radio set, which really had no function other than to squeal, had been replaced with shiny new gear, with a bright, wide silver screen, on which entertaining and rapidly dissolving scenes appeared. They displayed what clearly must be other worlds, with fantastic cities, wild, everchanging colors, and happy people, smiling and exhibiting their beautiful nude bodies. Indrid speculated why he had been so uncomfortable before he had received his first clothing. Perhaps it had something to do with the atmosphere of this planet.

  Other improvements were still needed, however. The spaceship could be larger and roomier, and better control was desired, particularly in rough air, where it bounced uncomfortably, once having thrown Carl and him against the ceiling and bloodied his nose—that had rapidly, almost magically healed, however.

  And the old-fashioned, overstuffed sofa was still there. It was anachronistic with the modern design of the spaceship. But these flaws were minor, and their craft probably would make drivers of other spaceships green with envy—if, indeed, there were other such ships (Indrid had not seen any of them yet). Surely he and Carl could not be the only drivers gamboling in the air envelope of this planet.

  Other improvements no doubt would come shortly. He hoped the Interpreter would improve the one wall, obviously hurriedly built to complete the spaceship. It consisted of rough clapboards, probably torn from some long unpainted house. And he should appreciate the shining pair of seat belts which had appeared at about the time they received the flying caps. These would prevent future bloody noses, though he noted that Carl had unfastened his, preferring not to use them. When the wall was refurbished, Indrid hoped it would be replaced by a large screen, like the smaller one, so that he could look at the happy people and see them in better detail.

  The other wall, if not refurbished soon, could conceivably break. For it had a cloudy and indistinct appearance, and was becoming transparent. Even now, Indrid could see through it darkly, watch the surface of the planet pass by, somewhat out of focus. The outlines of the rivers, the counties and the states, could be seen more clearly than yesterday, and he could almost make out the name of the town, Parkersburg, which, of course, showed up perfectly clear on their guiding light screen. As they would descend, those outlines would dovetail into bridges, rivers, cities and houses. They had sometimes flown close, and enjoyed seeing the culture units at work and play. Indrid wished he could fly even closer, and even land and talk to these people—but the Interpreter had imposed certain limits.

  Perhaps he could make friends with these culture units, who did not want to be friendly with him. It had been said by the Interpreter that if they flew too close, and attempted to wave and smile at them, these creatures would turn dischargers on them (“large guns”—that had been the term, and not “dischargers”) and wound them. He was certain the Interpreter was correct about this, but still he was sad about it, and thought that not all of the culture units would do this.

  Indrid wondered if he would die if these units really turned these dischargers toward them. This might be strange and fascinating—dying. These creatures would lift your body with love, and would bear it in great ceremony, and speak of you kindly; and there would be vibrations of high and low frequencies.

  Dying would be interesting, even fun, for you could watch what they did with you. And they would remember you, and build memorials to you, and you would go on flying, darting and gamboling, in the memories of these creatures.

  But with those who displeased the Interpreter, he had been told it was another matter. These unfortunate drivers simply vanished, without trace, and nobody built memorials to them; nobody remembered nor loved them. Or sometimes they were just transformed, their shiny uniforms stripped from them, and there being substituted suits of dark mourning. They were forever bound to Earth, condemned to walk in sidewise motion, to be feared, to be unloved.

  Indrid had once listened raptly, as the Interpreter, in a talkative mood, had told him of the people who moved among the stars, who explored the universe, wandering among a trillion suns, never visiting the same place twice in the everquest for new things. The Interpreter had shown some of these places on the screen, and Indrid was very thankful to him for doing this.

  Carl probably never thought of these things. He was methodical, and he sat there, constantly turning and adjusting the controls, and saying messages into the volume box.

  Indrid would like to be free, to fly to these outer climes; but of course there were the silver cables, tied to his hands and feet, also similarly to Carl’s body, and to the spaceship itself. Through the walls of the spaceship, they stretched downward, sometimes hanging loosely in great arcs, sometimes taunt. The attachments did not seem to bother Carl.

  These silver cables were the impediment, he felt, which separated him from the lush scenes on the screen. He could take one of the wire cutters and disengage them, but that would no doubt displease the Interpreter.

  There was a tug on one of the cables or cords. Indrid looked at the horizon and saw there the huge emotionless smiling face, with the orange triangles of fire surrounding it.

  It reminded him that dawn had broken and that they would have to descend, and hide out, until another sundown.

  CHAPTER 11

  TAD JONES

  North of Charleston, W.Va., Route 60 was cloaked in a double pall. As I drove through South Charleston which, oddly but true, is actually located North of the main city, the cold intermittent rain, coupled with the smog of the great chemical-industral complex, made visibility difficult, even at 4:00 P.M. I turned off 60 and crept along with other traffic on mud-stained secondary and temporary roads, hoping how soon I might reach Institute, my destination.

  Stretching above, to my right, were the slaughtered hillsides, whose gaping, muddy wounds dis
played the first ravages of the approaching interstate highway. inching its way toward the city, with the angry roaring of heavy bulldozers giving the impression of a vast unsatiated monster. As it advanced in its slow but irresistible assault it forced detours and snarled traffic.

  But when the great new road was finished, it would contrast sharply with the decaying local streets and crowded thoroughfares that served the chemical metropolis and had long ago become inadequate for the burgeoning population and traffic.

  I had been doing taped interviews with Hugh McPherson, of WTIP in Charleston, when he had given me the lead I wanted on a dramatic UFO sighting, involving an otherworldly vehicle which belied its sophistication by resting on old-fashioned airplane landing gear.

  “I suppose you know that Tad Jones has disappeared, bag and baggage,” he told me off the air, and I replied in the negative.

  “I know someone who can give you a good line on this. He was a close friend of Jones and he has also experienced some weird sightings himself. And he’s no crackpot. His name is Ralph Jarrett, an engineer at Carbide.”

  He looked up the number and I telephoned Jarrett at work, arranged to see him at home at 5:00 P.M.

  “Don’t forget to ask him to show you the saucer detector he’s built,” Hugh urged. “It’s a scientific device which is supposed to detect the presence of UFOs.”

  I smiled when I thought of Hugh. He had been a dear friend over many years, and always used a great deal of “saucer talk” on his radio shows. He now had a half-hour program, McPherson’s Journal, on which he used material of local interest along with offbeat interviews.

  I wondered if he were pulling my leg about the saucer detector. Hugh had a great warmth of personality—yet displayed a touch of the sardonic when he discussed UFOs. Although he vowed he didn’t “buy” the ufological syndrome, he nevertheless always seemed to be fascinated by it.

  Another pall of smoke in the sky signalled that I was nearing Institute, one of the satellite industrial towns of Charleston, this one boasting a small smoky state college campus, a Negro school recently integrated, now receiving more state funds and trying to raise its status to compete with the formerly all-white institutions.

  The setting sun burst out suddenly through the smog to offer some small reprieve to the dismal mood of the area; but in so doing it served to outline the tanks and towers of the vast Carbide plant, which dominated the town and was now transformed into a sprawling skeleton, spectrally back-lighted in red.

  “A perfect setting,” I thought, “for what I’m about to hear from Jarrett.”

  An ambulance, double-parked in front of a small wood frame house, further complicated the traffic congestion. Approaching and swinging around the vehicle I saw two white-coated men, restraining and leading an old woman out of the dwelling. She held onto a sheet of paper which she tried to raise into the air, apparently to attract passersby. The red light of the setting sun added to the unreality of the scene, like something out of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

  With long, uncombed hair streaming, and dressed in an ill-fitting smock-like attire, the woman seemed to be begging anybody to hear her out. Through my rolled-down window, my eyes caught her fierce gaze which also contained the quality of piteous defeat and helplessness. Somehow she broke the firm grip on her arm, held the paper high and cried at me:

  “Dr. Pandolus is no fool! Look what I wrote in the dark!”

  This tragic situation added to the gloom of the late afternoon, along with the traffic which threw a layer of mud on my windshield, and the cold hostility of the wind and rain.

  Once in Ralph Jarrett’s neat study, however, the engineer’s hospitality and warm friendliness soon had me cheered and relaxed—and discussing UFOs.

  “The boys at the plant don’t really think I’m a nut; they know me too well for that,” he told me; “but they still play these little jokes on me. Today, for example, someone took an ordinary saucer (the kind that goes with a cup), wrote what might be construed as a ‘message from outer space’ on it, and slipped it into my locker. I don’t know how they got the blasted combination, but there’s a lot of bright boys down there. I suppose they could also make a good living at safecracking.”

  I asked him about the flying saucer detector Hugh had mentioned.

  “He probably made a big deal of it,” Jarrett replied. “Really there’s not too much to it, and it’s something anybody can build. It’s only a bar-type magnet pointing north and south. If nothing bothers its equilibrium it remains in that orientation. But if another magnetic influence, such as this small permanent magnet, intrudes into the vicinity—here, I’ll show you…” He brought the small horseshoe magnet close to the apparatus. The bar magnet moved, touching an electrical contact and activating a loud buzzer. He removed the horeshoe and the noise stopped.

  “To the bar magnet and the contacts you add flashlight cells and most any bell or buzzer—and you have yourself a good watchdog in case a saucer comes around.”

  Except for his deliberately setting it off, the ufological alarm had sounded only once during the year it had been operative. One evening he heard the buzzer, ran out into the yard and witnessed a star-like object. Initially it appeared to be stationary, but suddenly began moving and quickly receded into the distance.

  Jarrett reviewed the evidence collected by UFO researchers which showed that the saucers, whatever they were, often displayed one common denominator: they exhibited decided electromagnetic effects, often interfering with and deadening auto ignition circuits and causing engines to stop. From reports he had collected, he also believed that the great eastern electrical power blackout may have been caused by the unidentified objects.

  He replaced the plastic lid on the box containing the detector, moved to a cabinet and withdrew a detailed drawing he had made of the strange machine Tad Jones had seen and described to him.

  “I knew Tad Jones very well about ten years ago, when he worked for Carbide. I lost track of him though, after he quit and opened an appliance store in Crosslanes, a few miles west of here.”

  The drawing depicted a spherical object with a port or window in the top of it, with four protruding landing gear, an antenna, and a strange propellor. He reviewed Jones’ account.

  On the evening of January 19, 1967, Jones was returning from Charleston to Crosslanes. He had followed approximately the same route I had taken, then had swung onto the beginning of the newly completed section of interstate highway a short distance beyond Institute. As he neared the Crosslanes exit, his low beams caught an obstruction on the long straight stretch ahead of him. He tramped the lights to bright, slowed, hit the turn signal and swung into the left-hand lane. As he approached the obstruction, his curiosity grew.

  At first he thought the object was some sort of state road equipment, though he wondered why it would be left on the highway without warning lights and signs. The bright metallic glint of the spherical thing was now becoming more apparent, and he was picking out more details. Now more curious, he eased back into the right lane, with the intent of stopping and observing the object.

  He estimated it to be about 20 ft. in diameter. Next he saw it was not resting on the road, but hovering a foot or so above it. He then noted a slowly-revolving propellor-type device, connected to a short protruding shaft on the underside. But the “propellor” was odd, indeed.

  “Tad called it an ‘impellor’.” He said it looked for all the world like a washing machine agitator. As he came to a stop, about ten or fifteen feet from the thing, he said the ‘impellor’ began rotating very rapidly and became a blur. Suddenly the sphere shot up into the air at great speed, and as he rolled down his window and put his head out to get another look at it, all he could see was a light, departing rapidly and then vanishing.”

  “Ralph,” I told him, “you have just mentioned another of these things that so often bother me. Jones said the propeller looked like a washing machine agitator. So often, parts of and aspects of these machines seem almost frighteningl
y terrestrial. Next thing, I’ll bet you’ll tell me it had rubber tires.”

  “Exactly! You must have read about this. Tad described the ‘landing gear’ as airplane-type, such as you’d see on a very small plane, maybe a Piper Cub—with rubber tires, just as you say.”

  Like the Woodrow Derenberger case, which also occurred on an incompleted interstate highway, near Parkersburg, about a hundred miles to the north, here was an opportunity to obtain many substantiating witnesses—for this road must certainly be well-traveled.

  Jarrett explained that Jones had noted several passing cars, but observed that most people would not stop when they saw something unusual in the road. As was Jones’ first impression, they probably thought the object was some ordinary piece of road equipment. and were thoroughly accustomed to objects in the road because of the many construction projects they encountered during the building of the new highway. He did say that one man, a barber, had told friends of seeing an unusual object, and that he was trying to locate the witness, so far without results.

  “Tad’s story is backed up in other ways,” Ralph added. “There is this fellow who lives near Bancroft. I had a difficult time getting him to talk, and was successful only after telling him some of my own experiences.”

  The same night Jones has observed the sphere, the man had gone home and masked his fear by informing his wife, “You can’t guess what happened to me. I’ve just been buzzed by a water tank on the interstate!”

  He was driving east, in the opposite direction from that traveled by Jones. A brilliant orange light appeared in the sky ahead of him, rapidly descended and changed to purple as it reached road level and approached him on a collision course. He slammed on the brakes of his truck, ran it onto the shoulder, and crouched down. As he did so, the thing suddenly rose and passed over him, barely clearing his vehicle. It was then he could see it was not just a light, but a well-defined spherical object. He watched as it again descended to road level, speeded along for a few hundred yards, and then rose and disappeared as a brilliant light, changing, again, from purple back to orange.