The Roswell Conspiracy

behind its back and withdrew something from a hidden pouch. It pressed the object into Fay’s hands.

No longer terrified by her savior, she looked down and saw with astonishment a weathered piece of wood no bigger than a schoolbook. On it was an engraving of a rough triangle with a large dot on the left side next to a squiggly line coming from the triangle’s center. Carved on the reverse side were four simple images recognizable as a spider, a bird, a monkey, and a person.

She stared back at the creature. “You want me to give this to someone?”

The creature pointed at her. The gift was meant for her.

“The Army, maybe?”

At the word “Army” it violently shook its head and shoulders and pointed at her again. The piece of wood was for her alone. Then the creature spoke with a voice so warped that Fay could barely understand the syllables.

“Rah pahnoy pree vodat kahzay nobee um.”

Fay shook her head. It sounded like gibberish. “I don’t understand.”

It repeated the phrase again slowly. “Rah pahnoy pree vodat kahzay nobee um.” It gestured for her to repeat it, and she did so three times until she got it verbatim.

With its hand shaking even more forcefully, the thing drew a figure in the dirt. It was an upright rectangle. Inside the rectangle the creature wrote a K, a backwards E, and a T before it was too weak to go on.

It raised one hand to Fay’s face, and she didn’t recoil. The hand stroked her cheek once, then fell away.

The shaking stopped and the labored breathing abruptly ended. The creature that had saved her life was dead.

Fay bawled at the thing’s sudden end. She stayed crouched over its motionless body until the rain began to gush from the sky, washing away her tears.

She couldn’t stay, and she couldn’t move the heavy corpse. She’d have to leave it where it was.

The thing obviously didn’t want her to report what had happened, but she couldn’t just leave the creature there for no one to find for days or even weeks, its body at the mercy of scavenging coyotes.

Fay knew that Mac Brazel and little Dee Proctor rode the fence line every Thursday, so they’d be coming in this direction the next morning. She could leave clues that would lead them here.

She climbed onto Bandit and took one last look at the creature, who now seemed so vulnerable and unthreatening lying against the streambed wall. She kicked and Bandit trotted up out of the arroyo through the water coursing down in a torrent.

As she topped the slope, Fay was amazed to see that virtually nothing was left of the craft but small chunks littering the ground around her.

She picked up a dozen of the silvery metallic scraps and rode Bandit toward the fence line, scattering pieces behind her every few hundred yards. The shiny metal would lead the way back. When she reached the fence, she dropped the last few bits where she knew Mr. Brazel and Dee would see them.

But two remnants of the crash she kept with her, safely tucked into her vest. One was a curved piece of silver craft itself, its jagged edges wrapped in her bandana. The other was the strange wooden carving.

She wouldn’t tell anyone what she’d seen. Something about the way the creature pointed at her gave her the sense that she would get into all kinds of trouble if she volunteered the story.

If the creature wasn’t washed away by a flood, Mr. Brazel would find it. He would come across the wreckage, too, and then tell the government authorities about it. After it made the news, she imagined that the discovery of such an alien craft would be the talk of the town in nearby Roswell.

TEN

After Fay finished her story, no one moved. Tyler stared at his empty plate and mulled over what he’d just heard. Grant had a look like he was trying not to show he thought she was nuts. Jess twirled her knife back and forth in her fingers and kept her eyes on the table.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone about this back in 1947?” Grant asked.

“I was afraid. When Mac Brazel reported the spaceship wreckage, the Army came in, covered the whole thing up, and convinced everyone Brazel was crazy. If people wouldn’t believe the ranch foreman, why would they believe a ten-year-old girl? I don’t even know what they did with the alien body. Took it back to Area 51, I suppose.”

“But you went to the UFO festival a couple of weeks ago. Why?”

“I had tried on my own for five years to find the truth, and I never got any closer to answering my questions. I was at a dead end. I had nothing to lose. Or so I thought.” Tyler felt Fay’s eyes fix on him. “I can tell you don’t believe me.”

He ran his hand through his hair, trying to think of a way to put his next words delicately.

“I like you, Fay,” Tyler said.

“Oh, this isn’t going to be good.”

“You really think you met an alien?”

“He certainly fits the description of other encounters that have been reported: the gray body and huge head, the bulging black eyes, the slit for a mouth.”

“And you believe those stories?”

“I can tell you don’t believe in UFOs and aliens.”

“I believe in UFOs. They’re unidentified flying objects. Anytime someone can’t figure out what something is flying through the sky, it’s a UFO by definition. That doesn’t mean they’re spaceships from another world.”

“How can you be so sure?” Fay asked. “‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’”

“Sounds familiar,” Grant said to Tyler, who squinted as he tried to recall which Shakespeare play the line was from.

“Hamlet, Act One,” Jess said to Grant, then looked at Tyler. “Did you take any English courses at MIT?”

“Just one,” he said. “Science Fiction and Fantasy. I can give you a great analysis of the human compulsion for self-destruction symbolized in A Canticle for Liebowitz.”

“So you’re a science fiction fan who doesn’t believe in aliens,” Fay said.

“It’s the fiction part that’s important. I do believe it’s probable that alien life exists in other parts of the universe. It’s even likely that some of that life is sentient and intelligent. Astronomers are finding new planets all the time. Eventually, we’ll confirm that some of them are capable of supporting life.”

“Then why is it so impossible to believe that some of those civilizations have visited Earth?”

“I didn’t say it was impossible. I’m not an absolutist. Shakespeare was right. I don’t know everything. But I’m also a scientist, so I go by evidence. No one has yet produced incontrovertible video, photographic, or physical evidence that spacecraft have visited us.”

“Don’t we have stealth aircraft that you can’t see on radar?”

“Yes.”

“Then why couldn’t the aliens have something similar but more advanced?”

“They could,” Tyler said, “but then you run into another issue. Current scientific knowledge states that faster-than-light travel is literally impossible. An alien civilization would have to send ships that take thousands of years to get here.”

“Maybe they did,” Fay said.

“But why do the ships always land in Podunk little towns in the middle of nowhere? No offense.”

“None taken. Maybe it’s because they know humans have itchy trigger fingers, so they’re trying to feel us out. Maybe they’ve been in our solar system for hundreds or thousands of years just observing us.”

“Why?”

“They could be waiting us out. Seeing if we kill ourselves. Then they can just move in.”

“They’ve been waiting for thousands of years and have never made their presence known?”

“They have made their presence known,” Fay said. “I may not have a college