Majestic (3 page)

And then, quite suddenly, there was silence. And the night returned.

And that's how it began, pretty much. In the secrecy of that late hour, thus did our innocence perish.

From the Roswell Daily Record, July 8, 1947:

ROSWELL HARDWARE MAN AND WIFE REPORT DISK SEEN

Mr. and Mrs. Sam White apparently were the only persons in Roswell who have seen what they thought was a flying disk. They were sitting on their porch at 105 North Foster last Wednesday night at about ten minutes before ten o'clock when a large glowing object zoomed out of the sky from the southeast, going in a northwesterly direction at a high rate of speed.

White called Mrs. White's attention to it and both ran down into the yard to watch. It was in sight less than a minute, perhaps forty or fifty seconds, White estimated.

White said that it appeared to him to be about 1,500 feet high and going fast. He estimated between 400 and 500 miles per hour.

In appearance it looked oval in shape like two inverted saucers faced mouth to mouth, or two old-type washbowls placed together in the same fashion. The entire body glowed as though light were showing through from inside, though not like it would be if a light were merely underneath.

From where he stood White said that the object looked to be about 15 feet in size and making allowance for the distance it was from town he figured that it must have been 15 or 20 feet in diameter, though this was just a guess.

The object came into view from the southeast and disappeared over the treetops in the general vicinity of Six-Mile Hill.

White, who is one of the most respected and reliable citizens in town, kept the story to himself hoping that someone else would come out and tell about having seen one, but finally today decided that he would go ahead and tell about seeing it.

Chapter Two

Even after all these years I could see the terror in Ellie's face as she told me her story. I sat across from her in her home, and listened to her remarkable tale.

Hers was a humble place, with a cigarette-marked Formica table in the kitchen, a couple of chairs and an enormous television dominating the tiny living room. As we talked and sipped coffee from big mugs,

"Jeopardy" rollicked along in the background.

"I remember that noise was real loud, Mr. Duke." . It took some little time for their ears to adjust to smaller sounds. When they could hear again, they realized that the sheep were actually shrieking. Ellie thought the plane had hit right on top of them.

"One of them big bomber planes crashed," she said to Bob. "Lord, woman, I know it."

"Go out there! Saddle up Sadie and go out there!" He pulled on jeans and boots and threw his slicker over his T-shirt. Grabbing a hat, he dashed out to the barn to get the horse.

She was skittish, rolling her eyes back at him as he worked. " 'S all right, baby doll," he murmured, " 's all right, babe." He got the saddle thrown and cinched and led her out of the barn. She snorted when the sheets of rain hit her, and she looked at him like she thought he was absolutely crazy.

The night was filthy black and he hadn't brought a lantern. He made it up the hill behind the house by using lightning flashes. Sadie couldn't help him, she had no way to know where she was going.

I can see him now, his hard, stoic form in the lightning flashes, a shadow on a horse beneath the streaming brim of an old hat.

Being with his widow, surrounded by the shabby objects of their lives, looking at the stern, deeply humorous photograph she has of him, I chose him unreservedly as the man I would want to represent me to a higher world.

Human society and government being what they are, Bob Ungar never saw more of our visitors than a little wreckage. Instead their first encounters were with the likes of Will Stone.

If Bob Ungar had met them living and vital on that night, everything would surely have been different.

Once he reached the top of the hill the screaming of the sheep was louder, reaching his ears clearly through the peals of thunder and the soughing of the wind.

Then he heard another noise, something completely new. It was a terrible, ragged wailing. Sadie flared her nostrils and tossed her head and stomped.

What was that? It was the strangest, most savage noise he'd ever heard. Nothing made a sound like that, not a fox, not a coyote, not a bobcat being soaked by a storm.

I suspect that at least one of the unknown beings was on the ground at that time, probably blown out of the craft by what was later found to have been an explosion that hadn't destroyed the whole thing.

Wilfred and his associates later found three bodies, but they were miles from the Ungar ranch. I don't think anybody ever found the fourth one, who fell on the ranch.

And who probably lived a little while.

If so, then we came very close to having Bob Ungar be the first person to meet the visitors in full consciousness and in the flesh.

But for a horse . . .

With no warning Sadie bucked. It was the last thing he was expecting out of his docile old lady horse and he found himself rising into the air before he really knew what had happened.

He came down sideways in the saddle and she bucked again. This time he ended up in the mud. He hit so heavily his jaw snapped and he saw stars. Before he could get up Sadie was heading back to the barn at full gallop. Her hooves rattled off into the dark.

The screaming of the sheep mixed with that savage noise. "God," Bob said, "oh, God."

He turned and went back down the hill hobbling and slipping along after his horse.

Half an hour later he slammed through the screen door into the kitchen and pulled his 12-gauge out of the gun cabinet. He tucked a couple of lead solid shots into the chambers. Ellie grabbed his shoulder. "Bob!"

"Somethin's out there, honey!" "What? A coyote?"

"It scared that old horse so bad she bucked me off!" "Bucked you off?"

"Come on, Ellie, wake up! Somethin's out there!" "A cougar?"

"No cougar ever sounded like that."

Then there was a lull in the storm and they both heard it. Ellie I grabbed Bob as the children came rushing out of their room I bawling. The family huddled together in the kitchen. When lightning flickered the shotgun shone blue and mean, and gave them all comfort.

The sound was full of agony and incredible sorrow. "Is it a man?" Ellie whispered. "I don't rightly know." He held her tighter. "They found us," Billy said. His voice was so solemn and quiet and firm that both of his parents looked at him with surprise in their faces. But he said no more.

When Billy grew up he joined the Navy and told all who cared to listen just exactly what had happened on the Ungar ranch. About a year after he had finished his tour his car was found abandoned on a road in northern California, and that was the end of him.

I asked Will Stone whether or not he had been responsible for the death of this talkative young man. His reply had an eerie resonance. "People go with them," he said. He would say no more.

The gaps that Ellie had left in her interview with me were filled in by Will, working from the yellowing transcripts of old interviews with the family.

"I hope it's not some poor flier burned in the crash," she remembered telling Bob. She did not ask him to go back out and he didn't move. He felt guilty. He thought, "I am probably letting some poor soul die."

Over the next hour the storm raged and the cries slowly died away. The more he heard them the more Bob became convinced that they weren't human noises. No human being could make a sound like that, not even a man burned and in agony.

It had to be an animal, he thought. Some poor, hurt animal.

He was surprised by dawn. It didn't seem like he'd been asleep, and here it was pushing six. He stirred himself, sat up from the couch and stretched his neck. He still had his boots on and his legs were stiff. When he straightened them his knees cracked and he felt better. Ellie and the kids slept huddled together, their faces as soft as dew. Compared to them he was like a big old mesquite tree, all bark and thorns. He went into the kitchen and opened the breadbox, cut off a slab of bread and spread it with grape jelly. He pumped up some water and drank it in deep, grateful draughts. He would have liked coffee, but he was in a hurry to see what had happened last night.

He felt guilty. A plane had crashed and he hadn't gone out to help the poor bastards. A howling animal had scared him away. By the thin light of morning he was just plain ashamed of himself.

I know this because he admitted it to Joe Rose, the man who interrogated him while he was being held in the brig at Roswell Army Air Force Base.

He was even more ashamed when he went into the barn and found Sadie standing there still in her saddle and bridle. She gave him a sad, accusing look. How could any man who worked with animals ever leave a horse saddled half the night?

He would have unsaddled her immediately, but he couldn't do that. He had to use her right now.

As he mounted her he mumbled that he was sorry. Then he headed up to the pastures to see what he could see. She trotted right along; she was a faithful animal.

He went first to his sheep. In spite of himself he pressed Sadie to a canter. It was his expectation that he was going to find that a plane had crashed into his flock.

The morning was as quiet as the night had been noisy, and he didn't like that. Were they all dead? Was it that bad?

Sadie cantered smartly. Her ears were cocked forward as if she, also, was listening for the sheep.

Then he saw them bunched up in the shallow draw. There was no crashed plane, in fact no sign of damage at all. He couldn't see any carcasses. The sheep were grazing, some of them milling.

He made a little sound of relief in his throat. They were all right, and putting them here had been a good idea.

They'd stayed away from the fences.

Sadie suddenly reared up. She whinnied then came down hard, stomping at what Bob thought was a sizable snake. He knew better than to interfere with a horse killing a rattlesnake, and let her have her way until he realized that the thing she was trampling into the muddy ground was no reptile.

He backed her off and peered down. Her chest was heaving,

and she was extremely skittish.

What he saw down in the mud appeared to him like a thick belt of black webbing. He didn't know what to make of it.

After looking a moment longer to be certain that it wasn't a rattler, he dismounted his horse.

She pawed and snorted. He held the reins tightly; it was a long walk back to the house.

He bent down and with his free hand drew the black strap out

of the mud.

Where were you when the hand of man first touched a thing of angels? I know where I was: unborn in 1947.1

was produced later, in the last, disillusioned years of the baby boom. I wasn't exactly an unwanted child, but I suspect that my dad, at least, would have preferred a new Pontiac.

It looked like burned plastic, but it was floppy. Sadie's eyes rolled and she stomped. She tossed her head, nearly pulling the reins out of his grasp. Holding her tightly, he remounted with the stuff in his free hand.

She began craning her head around. What the hell was the horse so fired up about? It was obviously some burned scrap from the plane.

One thing about the webbing that fascinated Bob was its weightlessness. He squeezed it. You'd think you could just tear something this flimsy to pieces. He pulled at it. The stuff was tough.

Finally he tied it on behind him - and nearly got dehorsed for the second time in as many days. The instant it touched her skin Sadie reacted as if he'd hit her with a hot branding iron. She screamed and bolted forward, straight into the outer edges of the flock.

Her fear infected the sheep at once, and they started running. He'd have a damned stampede on his hands if he didn't watch out. He reined Sadie back hard and clicked his tongue at her. But it was to no avail. The horse was in a first-class panic.

What the hell. He pulled the piece of junk off her back and threw it as far as he could.

She calmed down then. But now the sheep were desperately rearranging themselves to avoid the thing. He sat open-mouthed watching this display of animal craziness.

Rather than get himself into trouble with Sadie, he resolved to wait until the ground dried a little and bring out his old Jeep to get the damned thing.

After inspecting his animals he rode up to the head of the little draw and looked around. There was nothing in the immediate area, but in a distant pasture there seemed to be an awful lot of rubble. Little bits of stuff shining in the morning sun, thousands upon thousands of them.

It was a good thirty-minute ride over there, which meant he wouldn't make it back for breakfast until nine. He wanted some decent food in his belly before he approached that mess. He could have used some whiskey, too, but he didn't hold with drink during the morning. Coffee, though. Ellie's coffee.

At the meal he said nothing about the wreck. He ate a couple of eggs and some Spam, and drank two big mugs of coffee. The kids drank milk and ate Post Toasties. As usual Ellie had coffee and a cigarette. She sang while she was cooking, "It was a long time ago, long time ago. ..." He didn't know the song.

"You see the plane, Dad," Billy asked.

"A lot of little pieces."

"Can we go?"

Ellie turned from the stove. "No."

"Well," Bob said.

"Bob, there might be - "

He thought of that sound. "Your ma says no," Bob said. "Momma, please." Mary's voice was intense. "We all oughta go. Not just Dad."

"If there's a man hurt he might need help." Billy was, as always, a matter-of-fact kid.

Bob looked into his coffee. He should have gone out there last night. Somebody might have died because of him.

"Go on, kids," Ellie said. "But you stay away from dead men. You don't want nightmares."

Bob drove to the sheep, his kids sitting silently beside him. Ellie stayed behind.

The sheep still wouldn't come within fifty feet of the black plastic. Bob got out and went to it, the mud sucking at his boots as he walked through the mire created a while ago by all the stomping hoofs. He picked up the plastic. You closed your eyes, you could feel its texture, but it definitely had very little weight.No weight. And yet when he tossed it into the back of the Jeep, it fell normally. It ought to float in air, like a feather or like smoke.