Independence Day: Silent Zone (14 page)

Thirty minutes later,
Johnson pulled up to the front gates, expecting to check in with the
Public
Affairs Liaison. To his surprise, the guard directed him straight to
Ramey's
office. He was shown in immediately. Laid out on the floor were big
sheets of
butcher paper upon which rested a gnarled combination of rubber, steel
cable,
balsa wood, and something that looked like dirty aluminum foil.

"This is what all the
damn excitement's about," Ramey said, shaking his head. "There's
nothing
to it. It's a rawin high-altitude sounding device. I must have seen a
dozen of
these in the Pacific. The Japanese launched them all the time from
Okinawa. My
instructions were to examine it, then send it on to Wright Field. But
the
minute I laid eyes on it I knew what it was, and now I'm not going to
bother." The general was, however, quite anxious to put a stop to the
rumors about spaceships and men from the moon. He had Johnson snap a
dozen photos
of the balloon, then sent him speeding back to the office to develop
them.

At
one
minute before midnight, one of Johnson's photos was sent out on the
Associated
Press news wire. The caption read: "Brigadier General Roger M. Ramey,
Commanding General of the 8th Air Force, identifies metallic fragments
found
near Roswell N. Mex. as a rawin high-altitude sounding device used by
air force
and weather bureau to determine wind velocity and direction and not a
flying
disk. Photo by J. Bond Johnson."

The next morning, the
story was dead. Newspapers across the country and many overseas ran
tongue-in-cheek articles about Major Marcel, who had apparently leaped
to
cosmic conclusions. None of the writers bothered to learn that the
major had
previously been assigned to a meteorology station and had extensive
familiarity
with both weather balloons and high-atmosphere balloon bombs. Marcel
was angry
and humiliated.

But
Ramey
wasn't done with him yet. He ordered the major to fly to Fort Worth,
which he
did the following day. Before he came, he stopped by the sheriff's
office and
retrieved a few pieces of the debris still locked up there. Marcel
brought the
fragments into Ramey's office and demonstrated some of the material's
exotic
properties. The only logical conclusion, as far as Marcel was
concerned, was
that the stuff had not come from earth. The men left the material
behind as
they went to a map room to try and pinpoint the exact location of the
craft.
When they returned, the material was gone. Instead, a ruined weather
balloon
had been brought in and laid out on the floor. On the general's orders,
Marcel
knelt beside the balloon to have his picture taken. Then, a few hours
later, a
dozen reporters were invited into the office for a good look at the
"flying disk" Marcel had discovered. The newsmen wanted to ask the
major questions, but Ramey had given him strict orders not to utter a
single
word. He was going to be the goat, the overexcitable idiot who had
caused all
this fuss, and Ramey was going to play the role of his benevolent
commanding
officer, speaking to the reporters on his behalf to spare him any
further
embarrassment.

Back in Roswell, Mac
Brazel was also speaking to the press. A few of the local newspeople
had
gathered outside KGFL's audio room to watch Wasserman interview the
craggy old
rancher. An unmarked car with two intelligence officers inside had
dropped him
off and was waiting to take him away as soon as the interview was
completed.
Mac had spent the last two days in a guesthouse on the Army base.
During that
time, a large group of MPs had invaded his ranch, allowing no one to
enter the
property. Before they were ordered away at gunpoint, his neighbors had
caught
glimpses of soldiers working on hands and knees in the debris field.

Brazel
told
Wasserman a different story than he had during their first interview.
He had
been out inspecting his herds with his wife and son when he had come
across the
debris, he said. It was scattered over an area of about two hundred
feet and
seemed to be composed mainly of a rubbery gray material. Smaller pieces
of
heavy-duty tinfoil were strewn around the central hunk of the wreckage.
He had noticed
pieces of Scotch tape attached to it, as well as tape of another sort
with
little flowers on it.

He spoke softly the
whole time and kept his eyes anchored to the ground. Before he was
finished,
Wasserman switched off the microphone. "This is all a load of bull,
Mac,
and you know it. These Army guys got you to change your story, didn't
they?" Wasserman continued to pester Brazel for an explanation as he
headed back outside. When they were out of earshot of the others,
Brazel
pleaded with the man, whispering, "Don't make me talk about it. It'll
go
hard on me and my family."

He got back in the
car with the intelligence officers and drove away. He refused to speak
of the
matter ever again—not with Marcel, not with Wilcox, not even with his
wife.

One
morning about a week after
starting his Roswell
research, Okun stumbled out of
bed at about eight o'clock. He was trying to remember his dream. It had
something to do with him being a roadie for Frank Zappa and having to
chase a
grizzly bear away from the backstage area during a concert out in the
forest.
He had repeatedly yelled at the animal that it didn't have a pass.
Without a
pass it could not go backstage and would have to move away.

He
put on
the robe and slippers the other scientists had given him, unlocked the
door,
and started off toward the bathroom when he stepped on something lying
outside
his door. It was a thick yellow envelope which had been sealed with
masking
tape. He knew what it must be and tossed it on his bed. About twenty
minutes
later, he returned with a cup of coffee and tore the package open. He
was
right. It was the report Wells had written immediately after his
so-called
conversation with the creature from outer space.

On the night of July
5, 1947, Colonel William Blanchard phoned the Los Alamos Laboratories
and asked
to speak with Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, head of the Manhattan Project. He
said it
was an emergency situation with implications for the national security
of the
United States. Immanuel Wells, the mid-level scientist who had answered
the
phone, heard the urgency in the colonel's voice, but explained that all
of the
senior staff were traveling and could not be reached.

Blanchard
was desperate to get some "scientific backup" and ended up telling
Wells that three bodies had been recovered from a crashed airship.
Wells asked
what made that a special situation. After a moment of hesitation,
Blanchard
told him the ship was of extraterrestrial origin and the bodies were
unlike
anything his medical staff had ever seen. He and the examining doctors
both
wanted as much help as they could get without going outside New
Mexico's large
population of high-level security-cleared personnel. Wells left
immediately,
arriving at Roswell Field's small base hospital about nine in the
evening, a
few hours after the three bodies had been delivered from the crash
site.
Soldiers posted outside informed him the entire building was under a
Stage Four
Quarantine. If he chose to enter, he would not be allowed out until the
base
commander lifted the order. Wells didn't hesitate for a second. He knew
he had
been presented with a rare opportunity and was determined to get a look
at
these cadavers from outer space.

Inside, the lobby was
deserted except for a handful of soldiers and a distraught nurse. When
Wells
walked up and put a hand on her shoulder, she jumped halfway out of her
skin.
Something had shaken her up pretty badly. She told him everyone had
gone into
the observation area because the doctors were just beginning the
autopsy on the
first "eebie." She had just come from another room, where she was
helping prepare the other two bodies to be embalmed and airlifted away,
but the
sight of them had been too much for her, and she'd come into the lobby
to get
some air. When Wells asked what an "eebie" was, she explained it
stood for EBE or Extraterrestrial Biological Entity.

The
observation area was a darkened, L-shaped corridor with windows looking
into
the hospital's primary operating room. Wells could see the medical team
hovering around a bulky shape lying on the table. At first glance, it
looked
like something dredged up from the depths of the ocean: an enormous
clamshell
surrounded by a mop of limp tentacles. Wells paced the length of the
enclosure
and studied the cadaver behind the glass partition. He soon became
impressed
with how similar, morphologically speaking, the creature was to humans.
It was
seven or eight feet tall and looked as if it might be capable of
standing
erect. The majority of its weight was contained in a very large
head-chest
region, which, even at close range, with its flared design and
scalloped
ridges, reminded him of a mollusk shell. This main shell was composed
of two
symmetrical halves which came together at the front, so that the seam
between
them created a long scar running from the crest of the head, down the
center of
the face, all the way to the pointed, coccyxlike projection at the
bottom of
the chest. The face itself was nothing more than a blunt slab of bone
and
ligament, with four short feeler-tentacles hanging off the sides. The
eyes were
hidden deep in narrow black sockets that looked like long gashes
chopped into
the surface of a rock. The creature could not be laid on its back owing
to the
presence of six rounded appendages, eight-foot-long tentacles, which
sprouted
from the back of the shell in the area of the shoulder blades. In
contrast to
the rigid exoskeleton, which protected the rest of the body, these long
tentacles looked soft and pulpy, like thick ropes of flesh.

It was a menacing
sight to behold. Apart from the obvious fact that it was unlike any
creature
found on earth, it appeared that it might also be
stronger
than any
creature on earth. Though slender, its limbs showed a highly developed
musculature. Even the muscles in its foot-long hands were visibly well
defined.
If the thing had lived and had proved to be hostile, Wells thought, it
would
have made a formidable opponent—especially in a forest or a jungle
environment
where its profusion of limbs would allow it to climb with ease.

The
autopsy
was conducted by Army surgeon Dr. Daniel Solomon and three assistants.
His
first step was to drag a large scalpel down the long seam connecting
the halves
of the skull, slicing into the cartilage tissue which filled the gap.
When the
incision was complete, efforts were made to pry open the large shell.
This took
some time and was finally accomplished by driving a large spike into
the
crevice. Piercing ammonium fumes poured into the air out of the
head-chest
cavity, forcing the medical team to back away from the body, their eyes
watering. When the air cleared enough for work to resume, the four men
positioned themselves on either side of the creature, twisted the snout
toward
the ceiling, then pulled hard in opposite directions. The shell cracked
open,
and Solomon's team made a gruesome discovery. Where they had expected
to find
the creature's entrails, they found instead another being, fully
formed, tucked
inside under a thick membrane of clear gel. The soldiers posted inside
the
operating room took aim at the ghoulish, glistening biomass. When it
showed no
signs of life, Solomon gathered his courage to come forward again. He
reached
in and prodded the figure with the blunt end of his scalpel several
times.
Eventually, he used a towel to wipe away some of the thick gelatin ooze
and
examined the thing more closely. He soon determined that it, too, was
dead.
Unclear whether this was a fully developed embryo or some sort of
parasite, the
medical technicians carefully lifted the smaller creature out from its
hiding
place, the gelatinous substance causing a loud slurping smack as it
finally
pulled free. Two puzzling discoveries were made. First, the smaller
alien
appeared to be of a completely different species than its host. Second,
the
larger animal appeared to have been gutted; there was a complete
absence of
anything the doctors recognized as internal organs.

While they were
discussing these new revelations,
someone standing near Wells in the observation hall called through the
glass to
Dr. Solomon, asking about the other two creatures. Immediately, the
medical
team went to the room where the other bodies were being prepared for
shipment. Solomon
put a stethoscope against the hard chest of the exoskeleton and, after
listening for a moment, looked up and announced, "This one's still
alive."

It
was
during the exhumation of the second alien that Wells became centrally
involved.
The second exoskeleton remained lifeless as it was lifted onto a gurney
and
wheeled into the operating room. But when Solomon inserted his scalpel
into the
seam and began slicing away the ligament holding the skull halves
together, the
tentacle-arms lifted weakly off the ground and tried to push the doctor
away
from the table. Suddenly Solomon understood the relationship between
the two
types of alien beings, explaining to his crew and the onlookers that
the EBE
inside seemed to be manipulating the larger body, which , was being
used as a
biological suit of armor. Intent on reaching the hidden creature before
it
died, he called for help from the observation gallery. He wanted
volunteers to
restrain the extremities while he split open the torso. Wells was among
the
volunteers. He was given a pair of gloves and assigned the task of
holding a
tentacle against the tabletop. He grasped the serpentine appendage in
two
places, sinking his fingers deeply into its spongy flesh. As Solomon
resumed
work with his scalpel, Wells could feel the thing writhing weakly
beneath his
hands—a sensation which caused him to grow increasingly lightheaded. He
was on
the verge of fainting when the ammonia vapors lifted into the room and
momentarily cleared his head. The creature inside began to struggle
harder.
There was a loud sound of cracking bone as the shell was fully
retracted. Wells
glanced at the tabletop and saw the goo-slathered alien wriggling
around the
chest cavity of its host animal. He felt his fingers losing their
strength and
his knees beginning to buckle. Fighting to maintain control, he focused
his
eyes on the edge of the table and began to hum the first melody that
came into
his head. Concentrating on his song, he kept himself conscious long
enough for
the medical crew to begin lifting the smaller body out of the larger
one.
Taking a deep breath, he raised his eyes to watch this part of the
operation.