The Roswell Conspiracy

degree, but I’ve been studying this for years now. There are eerie similarities among cultures around the planet. Simultaneous development of key technologies. Common structures like pyramids built by the Egyptians, the Inca, the Mayans, the Cambodians, the Indians. I’ve been all over the world and seen them with my own eyes. You can’t just dismiss the strange coincidences. What I find hard to believe is that humans could build such advanced structures and technology with the primitive tools they had.”

“I don’t think that gives much credit to human ingenuity and creativity. We’re a pretty smart bunch of people. I’ve been around the world, too, and I’ve seen things you would have a hard time believing if you hadn’t been there.” Tyler exchanged a knowing look with Grant, who’d been with him to witness those incredible sights.

“And what about my own experience?” Fay said, exasperated. “Are you saying I’m making it up?”

“Fay, I don’t want to sound patronizing, but this was sixty-five years ago. You were ten and probably had never left your county at that point in your life, so anything outside of your experience would have seemed exotic. I’m sure you saw something you didn’t understand, but that doesn’t make it a flying saucer from another world.”

“Then what was it? A weather balloon?”

“It sounds like some kind of aircraft.”

“And the alien?”

“It could have been a man in a flight suit.”

“Then why couldn’t I understand what he said?”

“Maybe he was injured in the crash and that messed with his language skills,” Grant said. “I’ve had a couple of concussions, and I could barely pronounce my own name for a while after each one.”

“And the blue blood?” Fay said.

“Are you sure it wasn’t just water?” Tyler said. “You said yourself there was a storm coming.”

“It wasn’t water. It was bright blue, like glass cleaner.”

Tyler turned to Jess. He knew she would have an equally hard time with the belief in aliens. Time to put her on the spot.

“What do you think about all this?” he said to her.

Jess cleared her throat before speaking. “To be honest, it’s a pretty fantastic story, and I didn’t believe it for a long time.” She looked at Fay with chagrin. “Sorry, Nana.”

“But you believe it now?”

“I don’t know what to believe. But those men thought she had something worth killing for.”

“Fay, you said you were in a video. Can you show it to us?”

“I’ll bring it up on my computer,” Jess said. She left and came back a minute later with a laptop. They all crowded around while Jess brought up the video on YouTube. The user name said UFOseeker0747. According to the stats, it had been viewed over 15,000 times.

“Who was this video for?” Tyler asked.

“A young man named Billy Raymond was filming it for his UFO blog,” Fay said. “When I was in Roswell a few weeks ago for the festival, he was interviewing attendees. I only appeared on screen for a minute.”

Jess started the video and skipped forward to the five-minute mark.

The interviewer was off-camera inside some kind of conference center. Crowds milled in the background, and it looked like he was wrapping up an interview with a woman dressed in a flowing kaftan covered with a field of stars. Then the video cut to Fay in the same location.

“This is Fay Turia,” Raymond said. “Have you ever had an encounter with UFOs or aliens, Fay?”

“As a matter of fact, I have,” Fay said. “I saw the crash at Roswell and met an injured alien who gave me an artifact. I’m writing a book about the encounter now.”

“You were actually there? Amazing! Can you tell me anything about the incident or the artifact itself?”

“I’m not ready to just yet. I also have a piece of the wreckage. I have an expert coming to look at it soon, and I’ll be including his findings in my book.”

Suddenly Tyler felt guilty for not acting earlier on her request. Maybe her house would still be standing if he had.

“Come on, Fay! You’re killing me! Can’t you give us just a hint about what happened to you to convince my viewers that you were really there?”

“Well, I can tell you what the alien told me,” Fay said reluctantly.

“The alien spoke to you? What did it say?”

“Rah pahnoy pree vodat kahzay nobee um.”

“Huh. Any idea what it means?”

“I was hoping someone here could tell me.”

“Any luck?”

Fay shook her head.

“Well, Fay, I hope you find out. That’ll make a hell of a book. Can’t wait to read it. When your book comes out, I’d love to do a follow-up interview.”

“Happy to.”

The video cut to another attendee, and Jess paused the playback.

“After we were done,” Fay said, “I gave him my name, email, and address, but I haven’t heard from him since. I only found the blog and the video because he had transcribed the dialogue and mentioned my name.”

“Did you ever find anyone who had an idea what the phrase means?” Grant asked.

Fay shook her head.

“Anyone could have seen this video or read his blog and heard you talk about the artifact,” Tyler said. “What you said got someone’s attention.”

“But it makes no sense,” Jess said. “The piece of wreckage, the wood engraving, the opalescent metal those men asked Nana about. Why is any of it valuable?”

“The whole scenario does seem extreme for UFO hunters,” Grant said.

Tyler picked up Fay’s weathered piece of wood to examine the engraving again. It was clear that the drawing on one side was a map, detailed enough to pinpoint a location depending on the scale. It could be a city or an island, but without a starting point, it was useless.

Tyler flipped the wood over and ran his fingers across the grooves etched in the surface.

“If I didn’t meet an alien,” Fay said, “how do you explain that?”

The four primitive etchings were of a monkey with a spiral tail, a tarantula, a condor with its wings spread wide, and a human-like figure with one arm raised.

Tyler had recognized the images immediately, remembering the Chariots of the Gods TV special from his youth that speculated about gigantic messages drawn in the desert. The 1,500-year-old drawings — many of them hundreds of feet in length — could only be seen in their entirety from the air, so the theory was that the multitude of animal symbols, straight lines, and wide pathways were actually created to signal ancient aliens about potential landing sites.

The four images on her piece of wood were identical to ones that were part of an ancient archaeological enigma: the mysterious Peruvian geoglyphs known as the Nazca lines. Fay believed that Tyler was holding in his hands proof that aliens had visited Earth.

ELEVEN

Morgan could tell that Vince was not happy with the flight arrangements, mostly by the way he’d been bitching about it ever since they were changed. Even though the United flight from LA would have been more comfortable, the military would have had to shell out big bucks for the full-fare coach seats. Not only was the Air Force saving money by having them travel on the C-17 carrying the Killswitch to Pine Gap, but the two of them could do it without being noticed as extra security. The flight would make one stop at Hickam Field in Honolulu and then it was straight on to the Alice Springs airport, with in-flight refueling from a tanker on the way.