PHOENIX: (Projekt Saucer series)

by W. A. Harbinson

  Yet his heart started racing.

  He glanced left and right, convinced that something was out there. Seeing nothing, he glanced up, where there was nothing unusual, so once more he concentrated on the road straight ahead, uncomfortably aware that he had started sweating.

  ‘Damn it, Dwight!’ he whispered to himself. ‘It’s just your overwrought imagination – that’s a dangerous thing.’

  Talking to himself... Speaking aloud to calm his nerves... There was nothing out there but moonlit darkness, starlit sky, shifting shadows...

  No, something was out there... What was that? Something moving... A flashing light... Growing bigger... Approaching.

  Yes, damn it, approaching!

  He saw the light, then it was gone, though it hadn’t flashed on and off. It had flown from east to west at tremendous speed, then maybe shot upwards – so fast it just disappeared.

  Where was it now?

  Dwight felt his skin crawling with a dreadful, clammy fear. He was aware of something out there. He couldn’t see it, but he could feel it, and his hands became slippery on the steering wheel as his heart raced in panic.

  ‘Imagination!’ he whispered again, trying vainly to convince himself that this was the truth... Then, as his helpless fear deepened, something flashed in his eyes.

  He almost swerved off the road, but blinked and straightened out. He squinted into the darkness, trying to see between the headlights. Seeing nothing, he looked to the side.

  A pool of light was brightening on the road beside the car, keeping abreast of it, speeding along and growing brighter and wider until it covered the whole road.

  Dwight glanced up and was blinded by dazzling light... then he lost control of the car.

  ‘Damn!’ he exclaimed, his voice reverberating in his head as he fought with the steering wheel and the car swerved off the road, out of the light beaming down, then back onto the road and into the light again. ‘Jesus Christ! What the...?’

  The light disappeard abruptly. The car barrelled into the darkness. Its headlights had gone out and Dwight frantically worked the switch... and then a bass humming sound, an infrasound, almost physical, filled the car and tightened around his head as the engine cut out.

  Dwight slammed on the brakes. He went into a skid, managed to straighten out, and was slowing down when something passed above him, shot into the darkness ahead, then became an enormous, burning globe that froze right in front of him.

  The car came to a halt. It just rolled to a stop. Dwight sat there, hardly believing what he was seeing, but too stunned to move.

  He was looking at a huge, slightly glowing flying saucer that was hovering in midair farther along the road, almost as wide as the road. It had a silvery, metallic appearance, no surface protuberances, and possessed a perfectly seamless surface beneath that eerie white glowing.

  Dwight sat in the car, too stunned to move, mesmerized as the flying saucer sank lower and settled on the ground. It didn’t appear to have any legs – it just settled down on its base. No, not quite on the ground: a few inches above it; hovering just above the ground. Then the bass humming sound increased, tightening around Dwight’s head, as he saw a large panel opening up in the sloping surface of the saucer, emitting a brilliant light, then falling forward to form a ramp that led down to the ground.

  Three figures walked down the ramp, the smaller two moving awkwardly, to spread out across the road and make their way to the car.

  Dwight was terrified. The middle figure was a tall, slim human being dressed all in black, but the other two, one on each side of him, were creatures little more than fourfoot tall, wearing silvery-grey coveralls, but with studded helmets on their heads, lower faces made of moulded metal and devoid of noses or lips, and hands that looked from Dwight’s point of view like vicious steel claws.

  They looked like creatures from another world.

  As they deliberately advanced upon Dwight, spreading out as they came closer, emerging from silhouette, he wanted to get out of the car and flee, but he felt paralysed.

  Then the infrasound faded away and the tightness left his head. Instantly, he reached out for the ignition key and turned it, but heard only a dead click. Jerking his hand away, imagining that it had been scorched, he tried to still his racing heart as he waited for the two alien creatures and the man in the middle to reach the car.

  One of the alien creatures stopped right in front of the car, the other went to the far side, and the tall, silvery-haired man dressed all in black walked around to stop by Dwight’s door.

  When he bent down to look through the window, Dwight wanted to scream.

  ‘Roll the window down, Dwight.’

  The man’s voice was almost a whisper. It was also oddly flat. It was the voice of a man with no feelings but a lot of authority. Dwight did as he was told. He didn’t seem to have a choice. That voice, though quiet and unemotional, would brook no disobedience. Dwight rolled the window down, his hand shaking, then he stared at the man.

  He had silvery-grey hair, unnaturally smooth white skin, curiously immobile, handsome features and icy blue eyes.

  ‘You’re Dwight Randall,’ he said.

  ‘That’s right,’ Dwight responded.

  ‘You were with Project Blue Book at the ATIC, then you worked for the APII.’

  ‘That’s right as well,’ Dwight said.

  The man smiled without warmth. ‘You also flew over a construction plant in British Columbia and saw some of our saucers.’

  ‘Yes,’ Dwight confessed.

  ‘You will stop this, Dwight. From this moment on. You’ve already done considerable damage to your wife, and could do a lot more. As for your friends, Tony Scaduto and the meddlesome Dr McDonald, you’ve seen the state they’re in – and let me assure you that they’re going to get much worse. Is that what you want for yourself, Dwight?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘For your wife?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Your daighter?’

  ‘Please, no!’

  ‘Well, if you don’t want that to happen to your wife and daughter, not to mention yourself, you must stop your involvement with UFOs and never return to it. Do you understand?’

  ’Yes.’

  ‘Good. However, just as a precaution, Dwight, to ensure that you keep your promise, I’m going to give you a final warning. Not right now. Not this year. Maybe next year. It will happen when we feel that you’ve had enough time to consider all this and have to make a decision about whether or not to stay silent about us. This warning will help you make the right decision should you be feeling less fearful.’

  ‘What kind of warning?’ Dwight asked.

  The man offered his chilling smile. ‘Wait for word about your friend Dr James E.McDonald. When it comes, you will know. That will be your final warning. The next in line will be you and your family, should you ever again displease us. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then return to your home and look after your family. Goodnight, Dwight. Goodbye.’

  Dwight felt that he was dreaming. In his dream the fear returned. He kept thinking of Beth and Nichola, of that warning, and then he knew for certain that he would stop here.

  ‘Goodnight,’ he replied.

  The tall, silvery-haired man with the oddly immobile features offered another chilling smile and a nod before walking away with his two hideous cyborgs, back to the enormous flying saucer. He and the cyborgs walked up the ramp and disappeared back into the saucer’s brilliantly lit holding bay while Dwight sat on in the car, still unable to move. The saucer’s ramp lifted up and folded back in until it again became part of the seamless body, cutting off the light and leaving the saucer to reflect the moonlight from its metallic surface. Then Dwight heard the bass humming sound, almost felt it, an infrasound again, and as his head started tightening, as his skin turned numb, the flying saucer started glowing, its silvery body brightening magically, until it became encased in a cocoon of pulsating white light and lif
ted off the ground.

  Dwight heard the noise, felt it, was surrounded by it and became part of it, as the saucer ascended slowly, gracefully – yes, even majestically. Then it abruptly shot upwards, about a hundred feet up, but stopped again, just as abruptly, as if by pure magic, to hover high above and to the side, where he could just about see it.

  The infrasound cut out, allowing Dwight to move again, though he didn’t dare get out of the car. The saucer looked small up there, about the size of a dime, and it seemed to be spinning on its vertical axis and filling the sky with light. Then it shot up even higher, shrinking rapidly, but still shining, until eventually it merged with the stars and suddenly blinked out.

  Dwight saw the moon and stars, the vast web of the cosmos. They made him think of the beauty and terror of life... and of those whom he most loved and who were obviously most threatened: Beth, Nichola, and Nichola’s baby, still only eight months old.

  Determined to protect them, he turned the ignition key, heaved a sigh of relief when the engine came on, and drove home as quickly as possible, obsessed with the notion that his family might have been visited by the man who had just left and, even worse, that they might be captives in that flying saucer this very moment.

  He was therefore overwhelmed with gratitude and love when he found that Beth, though telling him that she had been visited by men in black and tormented by a UFO that circled over the house the previous evening, was unharmed, as were Nichola, her husband, Larry, and their baby, named after Bob Jackson.

  Nevertheless, when he took Beth in his arms to kiss her, he knew that both of them were still in danger and would probably remain so for the rest of their days. Though he suspected that he could never hide from that nameless man for long, he was determined to try.

  ‘We’re selling up and going to Oregon,’ he told Beth, ‘where you’ve always wanted to live. It’s time we moved on.’

  ‘I understand,’ Beth responded. ‘It’s all ended, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Dwight said. ‘It’s ended.’

  His kiss told her the rest of it: that love, which could not protect a single soul in the world, could at least heal old wounds and soothe fear. It was a kiss of renewal.

  Chapter Forty-Seven Eighteen months later, in June, 1971, Dwight had settled comfortably into his new life with Beth, Nichola, her husband Larry and baby Bob in a rambling old farmhouse in Vida, Oregon. Out of deference to Nichola’s fears for her own child, as well as for Dwight and Beth, Larry had generously agreed to give up his job as a civilian engineer with Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio, and move with them in relative anonymity to Oregon, where he settled for a job as a maintenance engineer with a private airline that combined commercial flights to local towns with cropdusting. Dwight, on the other hand, was happy to get a job as a truck driver, delivering farm produce to the shops of the various small towns in the area. Nichola looked after baby Bob, while Beth looked after Nichola and the baby, as well as tending the house. All in all, it was a quiet, pleasant life in pastoral, postcard countryside dominated by the spectacular Cascades mountain range where, as Dwight often recalled, some of the earliest and most famous flying saucer sightings had been made.

  Dwight knew in his heart of hearts that if that nameless, silvery-haired man or any of his equally mysterious friends wanted to find him, they would doubtless be able to do so – and, indeed, probably knew where he was right now. Nevertheless, the move to Oregon had not only been made to satisfy one of Beth’s oldest desires – she had always yearned to live in Oregon – but to let ‘them’ out there know that Dwight had moved away from all his former associates and was now living in relative obscurity.

  In other words, he was telling ‘them’ that he had well and truly retired from the UFO business.

  As if being thanked for keeping his word, Dwight was pleased to note that Beth’s nightmares and physical ‘hauntings’ had ceased within days of their leaving Dayton and had not returned in the eighteen months they had been living in Oregon. As for himself, since leaving Dayton he had not seen or heard anything of a disturbing nature, and he was grateful for that.

  During that eighteen months, few days had gone by when Dwight did not think of the many years he had spent in search of UFOs, but he certainly harboured few regrets. Gradually, however, as the more frightening recollections began to dim in his memory – or, at least, to seem less frightening than they had been at the time – he began to think increasingly about finding a way to impart all he had learned about the man-made flying saucers to those who could use the information best, notably Dr Frederick Epstein and Robert Stanford of the APII in Washington DC.

  Mere weeks after he had commenced this line of thought, he was reminded of that nameless, silvery-haired man’s threat to send him a warning through Dr James E. McDonald.

  He started thinking about that warning about a week before the warning actually came. Wondering why, suddenly, he could not get Dr McDonald out of his head, he endured an emotionally troubled week, then decided to take a day off and go fishing in the local lake. Arising just after dawn, he drove into Vida, picked up the local newspaper, then drove on to the lake. Still sitting in his car, he poured a cup of hot coffee from his thermos flask, then settled back at the steering wheel to read the newspaper.

  Instantly shocked, he sat forward again, resting the newspaper on the steering wheel to prevent it from shaking.

  The first page contained an article stating that two days ago, Dr James E.McDonald, B.A. in Chemistry, M.S. in Meteorology, Ph.D. in Physics, Professor of the Department of Meteorology, and Senior Physicist at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the University of Arizona, after suffering from depression and a broken marriage, had committed suicide by driving out into the desert in the middle of the night and shooting himself in the head with a pistol

  Shocked, Dwight let the newspaper slide off the steering wheel, onto his feet, as he stared over the lake, at the Cascades soaring beyond it, thinking about what he had been told through what he had read.

  Dwight was absolutely convinced that McDonald, though he may indeed have shot himself, had not committed suicide – he had merely pulled the trigger. Though the evidence would never come in, Dwight sat there in his car, looking at the distant Cascades, where the whole UFO flap had first begun, and tried imagining the most likely scenario, given what McDonald had previously told him.

  Dwight’s hypothesis, based on his own knowledge of UFO abductions, Beth’s personal experience, and McDonald’s confession to him, was as follows...

  Already in a bad way after a combination of overt Air Force and CIA harassment and inexplicable set-backs in his formerly illustrious career, then suffering additionally from severe depression and a broken marriage, McDonald awakens in the middle of the night, puts on his normal clothes, including suit, shirt and tie, and goes down to his kitchen for a hot drink. Sipping his coffee, he recalls the visit he had from the impassioned Dwight Randall who, like him, had gradually become obsessed with UFOs. McDonald then broods on how a relentless barrage of private and public ridicule is being used against him, to discredit his professional credibility.

  Of all the ridicule he has suffered, nothing has been worse than when the House Committee on Appropriations called him to testify about the supersonic transport (SST) plane and how its use would affect the atmosphere. McDonald had discovered (correctly) that the SST would reduce the protective layer of ozone in the atmosphere and that this could cause an additional 10,000 cases of skin cancer each year in the United States, as well as having other dramatic effects on animals, crops and the weather.

  During his testimony, however, McDonald was constantly ridiculed as a believer in flying saucers and ‘little men flying around the sky’ and treated generally as someone deranged.

  Sitting at his kitchen table in the middle of the night, brooding about this, as well as the loss of his wife and career, McDonald takes a pistol out of a drawer under the table and thoughtfully studies it. As he does so, an almost
palpable bass humming noise, an infrasound, fills the room and an eerie, pulsating light pours in through the window. McDonald clutches his head and moans in pain until the light and sound fade away. He then looks up with tears in his eyes and walks out of the house, still carrying the pistol.

  McDonald gets into his car and then drives into the desert beyond Phoenix, taking the same route he had taken a few years ago when he had first blacked out during a night ride.

  He parks in the middle of the desert and stares up at the vast, star-filled sky. An enormous UFO in a pulsating aura that changes repeatedly through the whole spectrum, filling the night with colour and light, descends until it is hovering just above him, blotting out the glorious sky and revealing only a pitch-black, swirling base that appears to have no depth.

  As McDonald stares up at the terrible beauty of that sight, he has fragmented recollections of being picked up by the same craft when last he parked here...of being carried up to the stars... and of being deposited back on Earth much later, his head as tight as a drum.

  Eventually, as the infrasound increases, deafening him, while making his head tighten even more, creating appalling pain, McDonald obeys an inner voice – the one voice he cannot resist – and helplessly raises the pistol to his head and presses the trigger.

  His last memory – if such it can be called – is of an exploding galaxy.

  He falls forward and dies.

  Dr James E.McDonald was now only an illusion of the mind, a warning to Dwight that he should not change his mind and attempt to pass on his secrets to Dr Frederick Epstein, Robert Stanford, or anyone else.

  Thus, when Dwight, still in his car, managed to regain control of himself and shake off his shock, he lifted the newspaper off his rubber boots, clambered out of the vehicle, threw the newspaper into a rubbish bin and then walked down to the edge of the lake. Once there, he climbed carefully into his boat, rowed out to the centre of that great bowl of water, then unreeled his line and sat down to fish, surrounded by the Cascades. Thoroughly distracted, he let the boat drift where it would as he gazed at the sky above the distant, snow-capped mountain peaks.