to verify
the sentry assignments. But what I was looking at was worth any trouble
I’d get into the next day. This thing was truly fascinating
and at the same time utterly horrible. It challenged every conception I
had, and I hoped against hope that I was looking at some form of atomic
human mutation. I knew I couldn’t ask anybody about it, and
because I hoped I would never see its like again, I came up with
explanation after explanation for its existence, despite what
I’d read on the enclosed document: It was shipped here from
Hiroshima, it was the result of a Nazi genetic experiment, it was a
dead circus freak, it was anything but what I knew it said it was -
what it had to be: an extraterrestrial.
I slid the top of the crate back over the creature, knocked
the nails loosely into their original holes with the butt end of my
flashlight, and put the tarp back in position. Then I left the building
and hoped I could close the door forever on what I’d seen.
Just forget it, I told myself. You weren’t supposed to see it
and maybe you can live your whole life without ever having to think
about it. Maybe.
Once outside the building I rejoined Brownie at his post.
“You know you never saw this, ” I said.
“And you tell no one. ”
“Saw what, Major?” Brownie said, and I
walked back to the base general headquarters, the image of the creature
suspended in that liquid fading away with each and every step I took.
By the time I slid back behind the desk, it was all a dream. No, not a
dream, a nightmare - but it was over and, I hoped, it would never come
back.
CHAPTER 3
The Roswell Artifacts
THE NIGHTMARE OF THE CREATURE I SAW AT FORT RlLEY NEVER faded
from my memory, although I was able to bury it during my years as a
guided missile commander in Europe. And I never saw its body again the
rest of my life except for the autopsy photos and the medical examiner
sketches that would catch up to me, along with the rest of what
happened at Roswell, when I returned to Washington from Germany for
assignment at the Pentagon in 1961. I can remember my first day back
when I was waiting outside my boss’s door for entry into the
inner sanctum. And, boy, was I ever nervous. The last time I remembered
being that nervous in Washington, I was standing in the little anteroom
outside the Oval Office in the White House waiting for President
Eisenhower to get off the phone. I had a big request to make and I
wanted to do it face-to-face, not go through any aides or assistants or
wait for special assistant C. D. Jackson to show up to make everything
OK. I was almost a regular in the Oval Office those days, back in the
1950s, dropping off National Security Council staff papers for the
President, making reports, and sometimes waiting while he read them
just in case he wanted me to relay a message. But this time was
different. I needed to speak to him myself, alone. But Ike was taking a
longer time than he usually took on this phone call, and I shifted
around and sneaked a glance at the switchboard lights on Mrs.
Lehrer’s desk off to the side. Still on the phone, and you could see at the bottom of the switch panel
where the calls were backing up.
I was asking President Eisenhower for a personal favor: to let
me out of my fifth year on the White House National Security staff so I
could pick up the command of my own anti-aircraft guided-missile
battalion being formed up in Red Canyon, New Mexico. Ike had once
promised me a command of my own when I returned from Korea and was
posted to the White House. And in 1957 the opportunity came up, a juicy
assignment at a high-security base with the coveted green tabs and all
the trappings: train and command an anti-aircraft battalion to use the
army’s most secret new surface-to-air missile and then take
it to Germany for some front-line target practice right where the
Russians could see us. In case of World War III, the order of battle
read, Soviet Backfire bombers will drop an inferno of high
the sentry assignments. But what I was looking at was worth any trouble
I’d get into the next day. This thing was truly fascinating
and at the same time utterly horrible. It challenged every conception I
had, and I hoped against hope that I was looking at some form of atomic
human mutation. I knew I couldn’t ask anybody about it, and
because I hoped I would never see its like again, I came up with
explanation after explanation for its existence, despite what
I’d read on the enclosed document: It was shipped here from
Hiroshima, it was the result of a Nazi genetic experiment, it was a
dead circus freak, it was anything but what I knew it said it was -
what it had to be: an extraterrestrial.
I slid the top of the crate back over the creature, knocked
the nails loosely into their original holes with the butt end of my
flashlight, and put the tarp back in position. Then I left the building
and hoped I could close the door forever on what I’d seen.
Just forget it, I told myself. You weren’t supposed to see it
and maybe you can live your whole life without ever having to think
about it. Maybe.
Once outside the building I rejoined Brownie at his post.
“You know you never saw this, ” I said.
“And you tell no one. ”
“Saw what, Major?” Brownie said, and I
walked back to the base general headquarters, the image of the creature
suspended in that liquid fading away with each and every step I took.
By the time I slid back behind the desk, it was all a dream. No, not a
dream, a nightmare - but it was over and, I hoped, it would never come
back.
CHAPTER 3
The Roswell Artifacts
THE NIGHTMARE OF THE CREATURE I SAW AT FORT RlLEY NEVER faded
from my memory, although I was able to bury it during my years as a
guided missile commander in Europe. And I never saw its body again the
rest of my life except for the autopsy photos and the medical examiner
sketches that would catch up to me, along with the rest of what
happened at Roswell, when I returned to Washington from Germany for
assignment at the Pentagon in 1961. I can remember my first day back
when I was waiting outside my boss’s door for entry into the
inner sanctum. And, boy, was I ever nervous. The last time I remembered
being that nervous in Washington, I was standing in the little anteroom
outside the Oval Office in the White House waiting for President
Eisenhower to get off the phone. I had a big request to make and I
wanted to do it face-to-face, not go through any aides or assistants or
wait for special assistant C. D. Jackson to show up to make everything
OK. I was almost a regular in the Oval Office those days, back in the
1950s, dropping off National Security Council staff papers for the
President, making reports, and sometimes waiting while he read them
just in case he wanted me to relay a message. But this time was
different. I needed to speak to him myself, alone. But Ike was taking a
longer time than he usually took on this phone call, and I shifted
around and sneaked a glance at the switchboard lights on Mrs.
Lehrer’s desk off to the side. Still on the phone, and you could see at the bottom of the switch panel
where the calls were backing up.
I was asking President Eisenhower for a personal favor: to let
me out of my fifth year on the White House National Security staff so I
could pick up the command of my own anti-aircraft guided-missile
battalion being formed up in Red Canyon, New Mexico. Ike had once
promised me a command of my own when I returned from Korea and was
posted to the White House. And in 1957 the opportunity came up, a juicy
assignment at a high-security base with the coveted green tabs and all
the trappings: train and command an anti-aircraft battalion to use the
army’s most secret new surface-to-air missile and then take
it to Germany for some front-line target practice right where the
Russians could see us. In case of World War III, the order of battle
read, Soviet Backfire bombers will drop an inferno of high
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