Sergeant Jon Kaley feels his body jostled around, but it seems to be a controlled jostle, like he is strapped in tightly to a moving car, with frequent and gradual turns. Still, he does not particularly enjoy the disconcerting and nausea-inducing feeling, and he attempts to open his eyes in order to rectify the situation.
He sees a flash of bright lights, but his eyes are too sensitive and they involuntarily close. The brief glance allowed him to see he is lying prone in what appears to be a hospital gurney, his arms and legs seemingly immobile. He feels a pair of warm tears escape his eyes and roll down the side of his face until they disappear into his hair. He tries to open his eyes once more, but again, they reflexively shut before he can focus on where he is and assess his surroundings.
Suddenly, he feels like he is on an angle, and indeed, he seems to be traveling up an incline. He hears an engine rumble to life and what he thinks is the sound of propeller blades batting at the air.
Am I being loaded onto a plane? A helicopter?
Then he hears a voice, one that sounds familiar to him. The voice is gruff, terse, someone he knows from the military. It is a voice that does not conjure pleasant memories. After this voice, he hears another distinct voice, one he definitely recognizes. Kaley is unable to comprehend what the voice is saying at first, but suddenly the man is right in his ear.
With a sinking feeling, he hears the voice of his commanding officer, Colonel Malcolm Fizer, whispering, “You should have listened to me in the beginning, Sergeant Kaley. Now you’ll see.”
A few moments later, Kaley hears several clicking noises, and his arms and legs suddenly do not feel restrained. It is only temporary, however, as his hands are clasped together in front of him and a set of handcuffs are placed on them. He is roughly tossed into a seat and feels a slight prick in his shoulder. Next, he hears the whine of the engines, and the plane suddenly accelerates and lifts into the air in a matter of seconds.
As the plane ascends, he begins to drift back into unconsciousness, but before he is fully immersed in it, his final thought is a melancholic one, full of despair and hopelessness: he feels like the loneliest person in the world, with no one who knows where he is and no one coming to help him. Little does he know there is someone on his side, and she remains determined, albeit slightly cramped, only a few feet below him.
THREE
“In the last days of June and first few days of July 1947,” Sloan begins, “the country was in a ‘flying saucer’ frenzy. A man named Kenneth Arnold witnessed nine flying discs cruising through the Cascade Mountains on June twenty-fourth. Early on the morning of July ninth, in Chicago, two men, Tommy O’Brian and Tim Donegan, saw what they described as four or five dimly illuminated objects moving southwest. About 15 minutes later, a man named William Valetta reported five or six domed discs in flight, heading east over Lake Michigan. These men all reported hearing a strange swishing noise, a blue light that surrounded the objects, and a wisp of smoke in the discs’ wake.
“Also on the same day, in Springfield, Illinois, Marvin Wright and John Alinger reported one single, shiny gray disc flying in the sky. In Idaho, a man named Dave Johnson was flying in his private plane when he reported seeing one flat disc briefly flash by him. He attempted to film the object, but when he developed the film, no image appeared.
“And of course,” Sloan says, with a sly smile, “anyone who possesses even a cursory knowledge of UFOs knows about the mysterious ‘weather balloon’ that crashed on William Brazel’s ranch outside Roswell, New Mexico, which he reported on July fifth.”
“Is that funny, Ms. Sloan?” Sean asks. “You look like you know where the ace is hiding,” he adds.
“I’ll get to Roswell in a minute, Professor.”
“You can just call me Sean-”
“There were a total of 800 sightings reported,” Sloan continues, “some corroborated and some obviously not. By the middle of July, however, the sightings and reports had diminished, but that’s when the paranoia set in.
“The newspapers and a vast number of people were convinced the government was up to something. Certain members of the press did their part to play up the sightings, and the government’s unusually tight lips about the incidents further strengthened conspiracy theories and allegations of secret military projects involving these objects. Eventually, the stories lost their momentum.
“But a new branch of science was born from the phenomenon, ufology, and this created an entirely new culture of people. These people sincerely believed the objects were from another world, and because the government appeared so secretive about the sightings, it was suggested that they were working in collusion with extraterrestrial beings. An emerging ideology of distrusting the government and other authorities began to pervade society at every level.”
“To be fair, Ms. Sloan, it also created a bunch of raving nutbags,” Sean remarks.
“That’s true, Mr. O’Connell,” she acknowledges, “but once in a while even crazy people hit the nail on the head.”
Sean hesitates a moment, then slowly says, “You mean . .”
Sloan slyly smiles.
“. . extraterrestrials?” Sean asks incredulously. He immediately thinks of Rosenstein and Abraham’s treatise he read in the coffeehouse only hours before.
“Extraterrestrial biological entities to be exact, or EBEs. And not only that,” Sloan indicates, “but contact.”
Sean is too speechless to even respond. The last few years of his life have been immersed in discussions of conspiracies, theories, and speculation about a number of major events in history. Some of the arguments raised were rooted in fact, while others took a more scenic route around the facts. Regardless, since his dismissal from the military, his perspective, and indeed his life, has taken on more suspicious undertones. His distrust of the government and his wariness of its good intentions are deeply ingrained from experience. This distrust will likely never diminish, and his hatred continues to burn ever more fervently at the way he was treated by an institution he believed was entirely pure and just, one in which he placed his faith in wholeheartedly.
Actual alien contact, however, is on a completely different level. The amount of indisputable, concrete facts associated with extraterrestrials is minimal. Sean had, of course, included the subject in many of his conspiracy courses, given that it is one of the most widely recognized and popular topics linking the government and a potential cover-up of epic proportions. However, he never truly delved into the subject in his courses with as much enthusiasm as what he deemed more material topics. When he did, he usually presented any discussion of extraterrestrials with the proviso that the government was using “little green men” as a front for their own secret manipulations. His suspicion of the government on this topic never fully ripened because, frankly, he does not believe in the existence of aliens or the idea they have been visiting our planet for some time with the government’s knowledge. Next to the JFK assassination, however, the notion of a government cover-up regarding the existence of extraterrestrials has to be the matriarch of all conspiracies.
“One of the discs Mr. Valetta saw heading east over Lake Michigan crashed, Mr. O’Connell,” Sloan explains. “Of the three-member crew, two were uninjured, while the remaining being died from its wounds, proving once again that seatbelts do save lives.”
“What happened to the other two?” Sean asks.
“They were captured,” Sloan answers.
“By who?”
“Naval intelligence actually located the ship and captured the extraterrestrials,” Sloan indicates, “but the EBEs quickly found themselves in the hands of a group known as the Foundation.”
The name instantly registers with Sean, who whispers more to himself than to Sloan, “The Foundation.”
Sloan looks at Sean and asks, “Have you heard of them?”
Sean