Journal of a UFO Investigator by David Halperin

have a card. And I said ‘take,’ not ‘borrow.’ That clown who checks bags won’t look under my sweater.... For chrissake ”—in a whisper, with a grimace better suited to a scream—“quit looking at me like that! Such a damn goody-good! You don’t know what I live with.”
    â€œAnd me: do you know what I—”
    She put her finger to a scab by the corner of my mouth, where a pimple once had been. I pulled away. I didn’t want to be reminded of what had made that scab. “It’s not easy for you either,” she said. “I do know; I’m not blind. But listen to me now. There’s something you need to hear.”
    She pulled her chair close. Her voice sank. “It was in one of those old newspapers. From Florida. Don’t worry, I’ve got it all written down for you, the exact place and date and source and all that stuff. It scared me. More than anything I’ve ever seen.”
    My arm, which I might have put around her, lay on the table. Too heavy to lift.
    â€œThere was this disk. Glowing red. Just like the one that came down on top of you last month. The people didn’t see it flying, though. It was on the ground when they spotted it.”
    â€œSo it must have landed!”
    â€œIf it was ever in the air. Shhh—in a minute you’ll see what I mean. They saw it sitting in a field. For a while it didn’t do anything. One guy got into his car, to go for the sheriff. And then the disk—it—it—”
    â€œTook off?”
    â€œNo. It didn’t take off. It sunk into the ground.”
    She took a deep breath. She’d never looked this shaken. Not even that time in seventh grade, lifting her skirt to show her wounded legs. Was it really the newspaper story that had spooked her? Or was it me, and what I’d just been through, which she understood even though I had not?
    â€œDown into the ground,” she said. “Like an elevator, they described it. And I thought of that story you and Jeff tell each other, like it’s some big joke, about the elevator in Chicago—”
    â€œInto the ground?”
    â€œLike it was sitting on the ocean, and it went down into the water. Only there wasn’t any water. Just solid ground.” She closed her eyes; she breathed. “Danny. You’ve got to promise me—”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œIf your UFO comes back and drops all the way down and stays there, you won’t—you won’t—”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œGet inside.”
    â€œ Attention. The library is closing in ten minutes. Closing in ten minutes . . . ”
    She jumped up, sparing me the need to promise. When I make a promise, I don’t break it. “My things are downstairs,” she said. “I’ll get yours too. You shouldn’t move. You look sick.”
    â€œI’m all right.” But already she was gone.
    Before me on the table were the three Jewish calendars. Also my copy of Flying Saucers and the Three Men . A business card protruded from it like a bookmark. Of course—Julian’s. The one I’d left behind. I pulled it out and quickly turned it over, so I wouldn’t have to look at those eyes. On the back was written, in an ornate, nearly Gothic script: SSS—Super-Science Society. “Science is a turtle that says that its own shell encloses all things”—Charles Hoy Fort.
    I picked up the Bender book. I was about to slide it into my briefcase. On impulse I opened it and turned to the last page.
    There was my “preliminary evaluation,” dismissing the book as a hoax. There was Jeff’s “I agree completely.” And below both, in the same handwriting as the back of the card, was a third annotation.
    There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

PART TWO
    SUPER-SCIENCE SOCIETY
    [FEBRUARY 1966]

CHAPTER 6
    â€œ SO YOU DON’T BELIEVE IN THE