The UFO Conspiracy Trilogy

by David Bischoff

  “The crash at Roswell…?” said Scarborough.

  “Yes—I saw remains at Wright-Patterson.”

  “Indeed you did. And yes…” James sighed. “The significant occurrence that set us back and revealed us to a faction of the U.S. government… A tragedy... But only the beginning...”

  “What happened? Were you shot down?”

  “Mechanical malfunctions. But technological details are not what we mean to give you here... Suffice to say that, yes, the crash at Roswell is a fact. However, because of the secrecy of our mission, our bodies have been genetically adjusted so that upon death, decomposition is swift. Scientists were left with very little to examine. And what they found in the way of engineering, they were not advanced enough to comprehend.

  “However, the incident at Roswell led to two significant decisions: one on our parts; the other, unforeseen, on another faction’s part.”

  “The people behind White Book and Black Book. The people who made Blue Book up as a cover.”

  “Yes. Alas, we had no idea of their existence. An occasional sighting, even the hysteria was normal in such an investigation. Indeed, it is often helpful. Blending into modern mythology helps the average citizen… to say nothing of the leaders and scientific community... to accept the possibility of extraterrestrial visitation, opening things up to when it actually happens. However, an actual crashed vessel is proof positive. We knew that the United States government had been able to cover up the crash to the public... But what we did not know was that a faction within the government was at work to cover it up to the legitimate higher echelons as well.”

  “You mean Presidents Truman... and then Eisenhower.”

  “Yes. We assumed that they knew about our existence, and so when our survey was complete, a decision was made. In your year 1953, contact was made. A meeting was arranged between representatives—including myself—and President Eisenhower, to be held at a secret government installation in Colorado. What we did not know was that this meeting was a sham, a set-up, a trap. A trap set up by an organization known to you now as the Publishers... and to themselves as various other names, including the Colleagues.”

  “The conspiracy...” whispered Marsha in hushed tones.

  “A further-ranging, more secret conspiracy than any we had even contemplated,” said James.

  “What happened then?” said Scarborough, studying the alien man’s face—noting that some kind of emotion shone in his eyes.

  “What happened then,” said James. “Changed the course of our mission here… And the course of Earth’s history...”

  And he told them.

  Chapter 25

  Somewhere in Colorado, 1953

  The tea cake was particularly excellent that day, and the kitchen had outdone itself on the scones, the biscuits, and the assortment of jellies, jams, and marmalades. The tea service fairly gleamed with its recent polishing, and the tea poured hot and fresh, mixing its Earl Grey and Jasmine and Pekoe perfumes into the air bracingly.

  However, Mitchell Cranston, pleased as he was by the efforts of his staff, hardly tasted anything.

  After all, high tea with beings from another planet simply didn’t happen every day. Although Cranston prided himself on his almost English reserve and self-control, he had to admit to himself that these characteristics were receiving a heavy testing today.

  Cranston was not English. He was from a venerable Massachusetts family. There was a Cranston listed on the roster of the Mayflower, in fact, and Cranston’s father had bribed a genealogist to forge papers and create a report which stated that his family’s lines were linked somehow with that Cranston. However, from the time he could remember, Cranston had idolized the English. So much so that, with of course the help of his politically powerful industrial father’s influence and money, he’d attended Oxford in the early thirties (which, what with the Great Depression was a good time to be out of the dreary old States), and lived there long enough to collect and divorce a wife. It was his father who’d called him back when war loomed—and it was his powerful father who’d revealed his own participation with the Colleagues. Mitchell Cranston’s career, it seemed, had been planned long in advance. He accepted his duties in Washington at first with stoicism. However, it didn’t take long at all for him to realize how much he enjoyed the sense of secret power that coursed through him even from behind what would seem to others merely the normal desk of a bureaucrat. Still, it had been his private passion to “keep things British,” as he was wont to say—resulting in his co-workers’ nickname for him, “Lord Cranston, Duke of Discipline.”

  The aliens, however, did not seem to notice that he was different from other Americans. They seemed too intent upon their own particular mission.

  “We wish,” said the leader, “to announce our presence on the planet Earth and to help as best we can to aid your countries in disarming yourselves of the terrible weapons you have developed. We wish to educate the citizens of your world as to the presence of other civilizations in the galaxy. In this fashion, we believe that an advance in consciousness can be made amongst your peoples.”

  Cranston’s tea, with milk and two sugars, sat before him, steaming and untouched.

  “I see,” he said, noncommittally.

  “Where is your President Eisenhower? We requested that he be in attendance.”

  “He—er—had a medical emergency. Dental, I believe,” Cranston lied. Actually, Eisenhower knew absolutely nothing about this meeting. He’d been kept purposely in the dark about this aspect of the situation by Cranston’s iron control on his part of the MJ-12—keepers of the Roswell secret, amongst other secrets. “Naturally, because we were unaware of your location we were unable to inform you at the last moment. However, be assured that I have been appointed his direct representative.”

  The alien did not register any facial expression that Cranston could interpret in human terms.

  Otherwise (and this was the truly incredible thing about the aliens), they looked just like human beings. Same amount and quality of facial hair. Nose, chin, eyebrows, eyes with pretty much the same iris/cornea/sclera configuration; ears; etcetera, etcetera. However, although physically identical, Cranston had noticed that they moved slightly differently; their carriage was different. And when they looked around, when they looked at him, they seemed to be looking at different things than humans usually did. They seemed to notice different things.

  Except for this eerie lack of facial emotions, they appeared quite human.

  There were four of them.

  They were predominantly in shades of black.

  The speaker, the leader, seemed to be the eldest, with touches of grey at his temples. He spoke with a slight accent that, at first, seemed vaguely Eastern European in origin. He looked awkward and uncomfortable and yet not precisely nervous in any way that Cranston had observed anxiety in human beings.

  The others seemed almost younger models of this older creature, and their behavior almost exactly echoed their leader’s. A synchronized delegation.

  In God’s name, what sort of place are these creatures from?

  “You are the appointed representative,” repeated the leader, his face still expressionless. “The meeting of worlds, with an appointed representative? This seems quite odd,” he said in monotone.

  “You know the ways of our people that well?”

  “Your customs and practices have been under study for a very short time, true.”

  “Then perhaps you are familiar with the concept of a ‘preliminary meeting.’ Of course, the actual meeting with our President is of paramount importance. However, so that that meeting may be streamlined, we are having this meeting. A nuts-and-bolts meeting... I’m sorry, but you have not supplied me with your name.”

  “Names are unnecessary. Nuts and bolts?”

  “The President, despite his power and importance, is largely a figurehead for the democratic processes of our system. His advisors, generally invisible to the public, undertake the bul
k of his duties. What will result from this meeting is a report, a summary of what transpires at this meeting, transcribed from those audiotapes there!” Cranston nodded to the head-phoned technician at one end of the table, sitting by a large upright reel-to-reel tape.

  Our technology must look like children’s tinker-toys! thought Mitchell Cranston. A wave of insecurity passed over him. However, not one little bit showed on his smooth, bland face.

  But what if they can read minds? screamed his paranoia.

  If they could indeed peer into his brain, however, if they could scrape out the lewdest, deepest, most awful secrets that clustered deep in his soul like fungus thickly carpeting a dank basement; if they had those so-called psychic powers so popular in science fiction and Raymond Palmer’s magazine, then they gave not an inkling that they could tell what was going on in his head.

  Then again, if they could ferret out his thoughts, they’d be making every effort now to escape.

  “So, in effect, we now speak to your President indirectly,” said the leader without showing pleasure or displeasure at this news. “Why was it not indicated that such was what was needed from your government—a mere recording?”

  “We needed to corroborate your presence, your appearance,” said the government official. “And we need to ask you questions.”

  “Questions?”

  “Yes.” Cranston played with one of his gold cufflinks: a nervous habit of his that he somehow made casual, elegant, and unaffected. “What, exactly, do you want?”

  There was a pause as the unblinking man stared across the table. “I thought that was understood: We wish to formally notify the government of your country of our presence in the world. And of our peaceful intentions. And of our mission here.”

  Cranston nodded thoughtfully. “Why have you chosen the government of the United States of America?” He raised an eyebrow. Here was one of the important, the vital questions that needed to be answered. Were there other delegations of these very humanoid aliens meeting now with the government of Great Britain? Of France? Or, heaven help them, the Soviet Union?

  If so, then plans would have to be altered.

  Drastically.

  “Our investigations indicate that not only is the United States the most powerful and influential country and culture in your world today, it shall be for some time to come. We are members of a small force assigned to your planet.

  Our numbers are limited at present.”

  “To just you four?”

  “No. There are others. But that is not pertinent to the matter before us now.”

  “And just what is your purpose, then,” said Cranston in a smooth, casual, even almost friendly voice.

  “Through the United States government, we wish to notify the other peoples and governments of the world as to the existence of other civilizations in this galaxy. We wish to educate the entire planet Earth.”

  “Educate?”

  “Yes. This will be a two-fold service. On one hand, our research indicates that it will break down the divisive barriers between your cultures and countries, further the efforts of your United Nations. On the other, properly educated, the eyes of the citizens of your world will be turned toward the stars, perhaps away from war and strife. You may begin to build a world government worthy of membership in our Stellar Union. That is, once you have developed interstellar travel.”

  “We can’t even travel beyond our atmosphere yet! Do you intend to bestow on us the secrets of inter-spacial rocketry?” said Cranston.

  “No. However, our technological extrapolation based on your present development indicates that you will be capable of interstellar travel within the next century, your time. And as for travel beyond your atmosphere—thanks to the work of Robert Goddard and the German rocket-scientists such as Werner von Braun—that goal is at your immediate doorstep. Already your enemies the Russians are developing—however, you need not be alarmed. With your resources and scientists, your people are far more likely to succeed in the conquest of your local spacial areas.”

  Cranston cleared his throat. “Hmm... Well, I must say, that is nice to know. And do you have some sort of special instruments that predict these kinds of things? Or are they machines that peer into the future?”

  That alternative would be particularly problematic, considering the most immediate future, thought Cranston.

  The alien looked at him blandly. “Simple observation, extrapolation and comparison to other cultures in the galaxy are all that has been necessary, Mr. Cranston. We are not creatures from your more fantastic imagination. Indeed, we are creatures much like you—only, of course, progressed several centuries ahead of you, culturally and scientifically.”

  “This is why your galactic council or whatever chose you to come to us?”

  “Your conceptions of our operations are primitive. There was no decision as such, nor is there a ‘galactic council.’ This lies in the realm of your Astounding Stories magazines, which are, after all, merely elaborate reflections of Earth, human science, and human psychology.”

  “But they know you are here. They know what you are doing.”

  “This sort of operation is being performed on many other planets, has been performed before, and will be performed again. It is the natural expression of interstellar spread of enlightened intelligent consciousness.”

  “How fascinating. And we are deemed ready for an ‘assist’ then, into that hallowed company?”

  “That is correct.”

  “This, then, is a great honor!”

  “It is a necessity. Your world status is presently in a highly volatile situation. Indeed, near combustion. You tread a very narrow line between a troubled violent peace and virtual obliteration of your populace, indeed your civilization.”

  “Wait a minute. You’re saying we need aliens coming from the skies, meddling in our business?”

  Cranston caught the slightest of expressions: the lifting of an eyebrow. Response to the raised level of his voice, the leak of anger he’d emitted? Inwardly, he cringed. Outwardly, however, be maintained the same cool, collected veneer as always.

  “The term appropriate to your understanding, I believe, is ‘altruism.’ Our purposes are entirely altruistic, Mr. Cranston.”

  “What proof do we have of that? I am supposed to report to our President that you are a harmless race of creatures from another planet who merely wish to lend us the wisdom of the stars? If you’ve studied our race long enough, sir, you know that our inclinations are to be distrustful.”

  “This is understandable. Your background is tribal savagery and deceit. Indeed, your governments are presently little advanced in principle from their more primitive counterparts. For instance, you call your own system ‘democracy,’ and yet clearly the power is exercised by many people who are not at all ‘duly elected officials.’ Indeed, by your own terminology it may well be a kind of ‘hidden theocracy.’ However, we have not come to discuss systems of earthly government. We have come to impart knowledge, ideas, and possibilities. But the largest impact, I believe, will be upon the worldview of the peoples of your world. “

  “Indeed,” said Cranston.

  He’s right, damn him. He knows his stuff. We present these guys to the world, we give people proof... and religions, philosophies, foundations of reality will crumble…

  And that wasn’t all that would tumble.

  “Previous similar situations with peoples like your civilization have shown that although it will be difficult for many organizations and individuals to accept, the knowledge will affect all for the eventual good. During this century alone, human beings have been affected by wars, and crushing changes. After much study, we have concluded that you are an amazingly resilient breed of life.”

  “You took your sweet time deciding that, didn’t you? You’ve been snooping around for quite a while. With your strange flying machines, your saucers.”

  “There was an unfortunate accident some time ago, which set our schedule back. You hold
the detritus of that. We should like it back.”

  Cranston nodded. “The crashed saucer at Roswell, New Mexico. Yes, of course. You’ve been involved for quite some time in reconnaissance. You must hold a great many of our secrets.”

  “Your so-called secrets have been the common domain province of our people for a very long time indeed, Mr. Cranston. They merely measure the advancement of your civilization.”

  The bastards had been spying. But exactly how much did they know? How many of the really important secrets had they penetrated?

  And did they know who Mitchell Cranston really was—and what he represented?

  Cranston sipped at his tea. It was more of a bid to buy time to think than due to any call of thirst. Whether the tea was sweet, bitter, or even brackish in his mouth, he could not say. A lull of silence ensued, except for the quiet clicking and whirring of the reel-to-reel.

  Button-down agents all around, crew-cut, serious, silent, frowning. The visitors did not show any kind of awareness that something other than a meeting might be taking place.

  Should I call it off? Cranston wondered. Should I just take these people at their word?

  But of course that was impossible. They weren’t people. They were creatures.

  And even if their intentions were as golden, as altruistic as they claimed, they were the most incredible threat the Colleagues, the Publishers, had yet encountered.

  “Yes,” said Cranston, placing the teacup back in his saucer. The smell of the tea, the smell of the cakes, rose up from the table, a savory miasma of dessert treats. But none of the visitors had touched their tea or their cake. Although they did, somehow, seem to appreciate the pains of formality and etiquette that Cranston had taken. “So then... continue. The tape is running. You’ve got refreshments. You’ve got plenty of time. As I mentioned, President Eisenhower and the appropriate people will hear your message in full, unedited. Please continue with all the details.”