Earth (19 page)

About fifty feet by forty, the glass room was divided in two by a dark glass partition. Normal daylight was adequate, but strip lighting was used at night. Other rooms in the hangar were color-coded differently, each with windows looking into the hangar. “Security was very tight. We could see two men on a high platform facing the hangar doors…. During a practice security drill, we had seen a row of vertical bars shoot up from the ground
[and] at that instant two armoured vehicles appeared….”

When the crate had been positioned in the hangar and the lid taken away, the day after its arrival, the team was allowed to inspect it. “Almost touching the sides was a gray, glistening metallic saucer of perfectly circular shape,” Thomas describes. “It had what looked like a window all the way around but with no panes, just one strip of glass-like material, and we could see within to panels of instruments, screens, and three seats. At a nod from the group captain, four men in overalls ran across and within minutes the sides of the crate were on the floor.”

It looked, said Thomas, like two saucers, one in the usual position with the other upside-down on top of it. “Strange though it may seem, I felt it was alive and thinking, silent but as if brooding. It was more ‘alive' than any other inanimate object I had ever seen.”

Three small seats with seemingly molded curved-topped backs—evidently not designed for adults of normal human stature—could be seen. No seat belts or any obvious “driving” apparatus were noted. As Thomas reveals:

“The panel of instruments facing the seats swept around the front half of the craft and was black or [very] dark gray. There were scores of ‘keys' of the shape and size of our modern computers plus several screens of about one foot by six inches (30

15 cm), some vertical, some horizontal. Along the lower length of the panel was a ‘desk' with more keys in neat rows and at each end a pale gray-colored list in some printed form of hieroglyphics … above the main panel was a larger screen, again dark, and of about three feet by two feet and fitted as a horizontal, like a modern TV screen.”

The area behind the seats was relatively bare, with the exception of half a dozen circular “switches,” almost flush to the wall.

Asked if the team could enter the craft, the group captain began by expounding on the actual event that had led to its recovery. The one in the hangar had followed two others down, one badly damaged with “bits strewn over the desert, the other badly damaged but intact,” he explained. “This one came down of its own volition, that is, it was not shot at…. At that time it was on a set of tripod-type legs with a small disc at the end of each.”

The group captain went on to explain that the craft had been opened
by its occupants at the crash site in New Mexico. Two aliens were seen to emerge but a third remained inside—then simply stood up and “disappeared” and hadn't been seen since, despite the area having been searched for a week. The other two aliens were “seemingly unwell,” said the group captain. They were easily apprehended and had no weapons. “If all three craft had three occupants, we have dead and alive evidence of six. It is known that one, apparently unhurt, left this craft and has since escaped detection somehow. The other two may have been thrown out from the two crashes and lost, or they also escaped…. On the third occupant's disappearance, the exit-cum-entrance facility was seen to close itself. It has not opened or been opened since. We just can't bloody well open the thing. The seal is absolute perfection. The metal and glass are absolutely unknown to us.”

The other two damaged craft were kept in great secrecy at a certain U.S. base, the group captain revealed. “All I know,” he said, “is that parts of its amazing system of navigation, and some sort of tiny technological ‘brains,' which have to do with communication and pretty well everything else, are hastily being examined by various world scientists to see how we humans can benefit by them.”

Later that day, the group captain explained to the team that visits to the craft at Merryfield were permitted, provided they were dressed in their “whites”—white overalls unique to the team—and that authorization had been obtained by their Code Orange contact. At Weston Zoyland—where the aliens were to be housed—the team agreed to eight-hour shifts with three men on and three off, with one of each three always by the phone. “So it was 0800 to 1600, 1600 to midnight, and midnight to 0800,” explained Thomas. However, two officers and a scientist came on duty during the early shift's lunch break, allowing the team a two-hour respite.

Not of This Earth

Some days later, an RAF “V” bomber—either a Valiant, Victor, or Vulcan, capable of delivering nuclear weapons but in this operation delivering two aliens—landed at Weston Zoyland with a two-fighter-jet escort. Thomas told me he was fairly certain that the bomber was a Vulcan. The team was told to remain in their office and await further orders. A few hours
later, they were summoned, two by two, to meet the alleged aliens, now ensconced in a specially constructed glass container in the hangar at Weston Zoyland. Thomas and his colleague Alan were first. “Emotions welled up in me that I feel to this day,” Thomas admitted.

“Two thin little people lay side by side. They were gray-colored and their heads seemed rather large for their bodies and were oval, or egg-shaped, with the large end at the top, a large cranium leading down to a small chin, and their eyes were large, limpid, and dark with no iris visible. Just dark, lustrous pools, wide open, rather like those of seals, I thought. There were nostril holes but no nose projecting from the face, and I could see a small mouth beneath. There were no visible projecting ears as we have.

“Sinewy arms stretched alongside their bodies and the legs looked skinny. They were very still. Unreal, I thought…. I looked at their hands. Four long fingers similar to us. But no thumbs. And four-toed feet.

“Just beneath the small chin of the body nearest to me a pulse was beating, and looking at the other being I could see the same…. I was actually looking at two people from somewhere else. Not of this Earth! I glanced across at the officer and met his eyes. He smiled and nodded, as if to say ‘yes, this is real—they are alive.'”

Shaking, Thomas made for a chair and sat down, followed by Alan. They didn't feel it was appropriate to stare at the aliens too much. “They look so dignified,” said Alan. One appeared slightly shorter than the other. They seemed frail, though Thomas sensed a latent strength about them.

Half an hour later, all of the team having seen the beings and returned to the office, the officer/instructor declared that he didn't know which sex the aliens were. He thought they wore a membranous covering, but added that the Americans hadn't been very forthcoming with their information. He suggested that the team gave names to the aliens if they wanted, but that officially they were referred to by their American captors as “G32” and “G33.” Thomas speculates that the numbers might relate to the 32nd and 33rd aliens recovered by the U.S. military. The team elected to call them simply “G” and “L.” (Much later, it was determined that G was male, L female.)

Thomas remains amazed at the aliens' ability to convey a sense of humor, or sadness, for example, without such feelings manifesting facially. As time went by, it became possible to “feel” their thoughts, and it was always clear
what they meant. They did speak audibly on occasions—not that it helped. “The problem in our inability to converse by voice was that their language contained no vowels,” he explained; “thus, if they spoke to us we would hear a series of unintelligible sounds not unlike the chattering of small animals.” (However, the airmen later learned from their duty officer that although official communications from G and L did not involve actual spoken words, the Americans confirmed that they do have voices—presumably capable of communicating in English and other languages.)

Thomas and the others liked the aliens from the outset and grew to care for them deeply over the approximately twenty-month period involved.

One lovely summer's day, Thomas and Alan were sitting beside “the Grays” (as they apparently were referred to occasionally by the military, even at that time), surveying the countryside through the large window of their enclosure. “What is worrying you both?” “said” the aliens. “Is this not the kind of day when you should feel all is well?” The men were indeed worried—about the aliens. “Thanks to you airmen, we are doing well and recovering,” the Grays responded. “You need not worry about us.”

When communicating, G and L would put one hand on their chest, to convey who was “speaking.” Then began a discourse, warning of Earth's future overpopulation, the poisoning of its environment, and so on. “We know your instructions are to inform your seniors of all we say. Do so. We will be telling them all we have told you when they pay their regular visits….”

Like other alien groups, they confirmed Man's extraterrestrial genetic links.

“The majority of flora and fauna on this planet have evolved over millions of years. Humans were one of those that were genetically manipulated and thus you are related to another species as a planned experiment by beings from another world. Our presence here is of right, and we have visited before this time, many times. Our present role is to observe others who are here, to see that they are not destructive and to give you some of our technology in order that you will survive—if you have earned the right to survival as we judge it. That was the core of our message to Earth people and part of the reason for our arrival in your time of 1947, though we reneged upon that in that July month, and here two of us remain—at
least for a little longer.”

At this juncture, G reached out and clasped hands with L. “I felt there was significance in the comment ‘at least for a little longer,' linked with the hand clasp,” writes Thomas. “The two aliens had been held captive for at least eight years. Not much of an existence for people who know how to travel light years' distance, and had somehow done so to reach Earth.”

The Code Orange team were never present when the aliens took their meals. Although some thin tubes were present in their glass enclosure, their purpose was indeterminable. Waste matter, perhaps? Eventually, G and L, having picked up the men's bewilderment, communicated some details. “You have been wondering if we feed, and how we do so. We know your seniors have not told you. Knowledge is important to all life….

“We feed on blood, and water. Yes, I can feel your reaction, but our race does not digest solids…. Both liquids are available on this planet and we partake of small amounts of each in order to survive. We also breathe your air, though it is clearer in some regions of your planet than others. Your seniors obtain enough food for our needs and provide us with it in your absence.”

Thomas told me he recalls that the blood—presumably from slaughtered animals—was obtained from a local farm. In an interesting letter to a magazine, written in 2001, he made some apposite references to the consumption of blood—without, of course, citing his own experience. “Over the years, certain peoples have been vilified by modern attitudes against the terrors of blood sacrifices,” he wrote. “However, if genetically modified humans, ruled by their makers up to a time when they, our makers, leave the planet [and] have had at times to ‘entertain' and consort with said makers, then they would have to provide the necessary correct food….

“What if there was, or is, a race of beings which have evolved to feed on blood? As simple as that. It may appal some of us, even possibly most of us, yet we are talking alien creatures here. A race apart. Light years apart. Evolving on a planet or planets away from and not far from this Earth…. So along comes a race of beings which lives on blood from animals rather than the meat. And when they arrive as ‘gods' or powerful beings, we in due deference feed them with what they require.”
4

In this context, G and L related how their people had influenced the
Inca, Aztec, and Maya cultures.

For nutrition on their own planet, G and L indicated that they also consumed other liquids of varying thicknesses, from water through to heavy soups, plus a variety of what we would term “wines” made from fruits and vegetables growing on their own planet.

Espionage

When Thomas's leave period came up, he went to his home in Barnstaple, Devon. Waiting at Taunton station for the connecting train, he was approached by a well-dressed, well-spoken man who invited Thomas for a cup of tea. “I can always tell an airman,” he said. Acknowledging the fact, Thomas explained that he was on 72-hour leave. Over tea, the man asked Thomas what he did in the RAF. He replied in vague generalities, mentioning Bomber Command and admin work. “Ah, so you are in the RAF but with the Fleet Air Arm crowd? Yes, I know all about that. An interesting posting, no doubt.” Thomas gave nothing away.

As the steam train for Barnstaple drew in, the stranger invited Thomas to join him in a First Class compartment. Sitting opposite this man in an empty carriage, a strong feeling of unease crept over Thomas, particularly when the stranger placed a hand on his knee. “Don't worry. Here's my card. I am an MP [Member of Parliament]. My name is Tom Driberg.”

The notorious homosexual MP for Barking, Driberg (later Lord Bradwell)—a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and a close friend of the traitor Guy Burgess—had links with the Soviet KGB and its Czechoslovakian counterpart. Coincidentally, Driberg happened to be staying for the weekend at the Imperial Hotel in Barnstaple, and Thomas was invited for tea in his room at the hotel to show his paintings (which were never returned). Distinctly uncomfortable at the prospect, he nonetheless turned up and managed to resist Driberg's approaches, not least being his persistence in trying to gather information regarding the nature of Thomas's work.