Sherlock Holmes and The Roswell Incident

by Michael Druce

  “For no longer than he has been on the job, he sends his reports on time. He has yet to provide a lot of information; what he has provided seems accurate and authentic.”

  “Put Cherepanov to the test. I want to know more about this Roswell incident.”

  “Will there be anything else?”

  Sokolov thought for a moment.

  “If the crash in Roswell is a Project 1794 prototype, we need more detailed information than we have received so far from Shubin’s mole. Get in touch with Shubin and make him aware of the Roswell incident, should he not know. Have him instruct his mole in Ohio to become more aggressive. At the pace we are currently proceeding, it will be the turn of the century before we have an operable saucer.”

  Yuri Olenev saluted and exited his superior’s office.

  Eyewitness Account

  Roswell

  July 11, 1947

  The initial account of a spaceship crashing into a remote area of Chaves County first appeared in the Roswell Daily Record the day after the crash. The story was attributed to a local miner. In the early confusion of the incident an Army Air Forces official confirmed that the object that had crashed was indeed an alien ship and that pieces of the wrecked craft were in government possession. Shortly thereafter reinforcements arrived on scene, sealed off the area, and imposed a press blackout. Clarifications were issued and the following day a revised story appeared in the press debunking everything that had been previously reported. The object in question was not an alien spacecraft. It was in fact a high-altitude weather balloon that had exploded in the atmosphere and crashed back to Earth. As members of the public would not be familiar with such a weather-monitoring device, it was understandable how it could have been mistaken for something else. The crash area had been thoroughly investigated and cleaned up. Crews had worked tirelessly to restore the area to its previous condition.

  No mention had been made of the unusual looking creatures. Abe Carl wasn’t surprised. It seemed impossible that the swarm of government agents who first arrived would not have seen the creatures. No mention had been made for a reason. The government had something it wanted to keep quiet. Passing off the object as a weather balloon was proof of that. The story he had given to his friend at the newspaper had already been retracted and replaced with a lie. So be it. What he knew, he would keep to himself.

  A few days later a story appeared about a pair of high school sweethearts gone missing. The last time anyone had seen them was the night of the crash. Earlier that afternoon they had driven from Roswell to Corona to visit the grandparents of the young man. The couple had left around six in the evening but never arrived home. Local authorities did not seem particularly concerned, as it was well known the couple had been dating for several years and most likely had run away from home to get married. No doubt they would soon turn up as happy newlyweds.

  Abe Carl lingered over this new development for some time. He thought he might have seen two other people that night. Was the missing young couple the ones whose light he had seen before the cars arrived? He couldn’t be sure. He had no way of proving what he saw. Officials had scrubbed the area clean. If the young couple had been out there that night, they would surely have been found.

  A week later another newspaper known for running sensational stories interviewed Abe Carl to see if he had anything to add to his original story. The old miner was smarting over local gossip. In a few days he had gone from Local Miner to Loco Miner. What the hell! Abe Carl was only too happy to set the record straight. Let folks chew on this. The time had come to share the secret he had been keeping.

  “I was in the mine when I felt the crash. I thought it was a tremor, so I figured I better hightail it out. In the distance, I could see flames. That’s when I figured it was a fireball, you know, a meteorite. We see a lot of them out this way, but it wasn’t that. It was a disc of some kind. Only it was on fire. I know what the guys in the black suits are saying, but it wasn’t no weather balloon. I can guarantee you that. By the time I got close enough to it, it was pretty much engulfed in flames. And that’s when I saw them. There was two of them. They was like nothing I ever seen before. They was green and lizard-like. They appeared shaken. When I shined my light on them, they took off. What happened to them after, I can’t tell you. You should ask the feds, but my guess is you won’t get a word out of them.”

  * * *

  “Preposterous!” I tossed the newspaper I had just finished reading onto the side table in Holmes’s apartment.

  “What’s that, old chap?” Holmes was studying an object on his desk with a magnifying glass.

  “This newspaper account of that object in Roswell. I see now the cause of Colonel Patterson’s consternation. It seems an eyewitness is claiming the object is some sort of alien spacecraft. A flying saucer, he calls it. He says he also saw lizard men. Absolute tommyrot. We were there. I saw no spacemen. I imagine it is exactly what the Americans say it is, a weather balloon that exploded and fell back to earth.”

  “Hmmm,” said Holmes, clearly distracted.

  “It is utterly ridiculous, don’t you think, Holmes?”

  Holmes picked up the object he had been studying under the magnifying glass and held it up to the light. “I’m not so sure, Watson.”

  “What? What’s that then?” I asked, indicating the object Holmes was holding in his hand.

  “It is a piece of material from the crash site. I retrieved it when I bent down to pick up my pipe.”

  “A piece of the weather balloon?”

  “I don’t think so, Watson.” Holmes turned the pliable piece of metal in his hand. “I don’t believe it was a weather balloon at all.”

  Update

  Kapustin Yar

  July 15, 1947

  The red light on Dmitri Sokolov’s intercom blinked. “Yes, what is it?”

  “We have received some additional information from America about the Roswell incident,” Yuri Olenev replied. “As the Americans would say, the plot thickens.”

  “Bring it to me.”

  A moment later Yuri Olenev entered Sokolov’s office with an attaché case and a tape recorder. He placed both items on his major’s desk, stood at attention, and saluted.

  Sokolov brushed off the salute. “Yuri, it isn’t necessary to keep saluting me. There are no hidden cameras here. Now, what is this new information? Does it come from Cherepanov?”

  “No, this information comes from a telephone intercept. It was passed along by Director Shubin’s office. It is a recording of an American Army Air Forces colonel. His name is Patterson. He is married, but he has a mistress in Texas.”

  “Shubin’s operatives have managed to bug the telephone of an American colonel?”

  “The bug is on the telephone of the mistress. It is easy to tap the telephone of a hairdresser in a small Texas town. Tapping the telephone of a colonel on an American military base is impossible. Patterson uses a pay telephone when he calls. He is one of several officers we follow whose extracurricular activities make them vulnerable. At some future point the threat of exposure might prove useful. He and the woman speak once a week. Usually it is about nothing important.” Yuri switched on the tape recorder. “Listen for yourself. I will play the relevant part, unless you want to hear all of it.”

  “No,” Sokolov said.

  The recording began with the woman laughing. Then she said, “You have been a very bad boy. Mommy will have to spank you when she sees you again.”

  Sokolov rolled his eyes.

  Patterson spoke with a clear Texas accent. “You’ll never guess who I met a couple of days ago.”

  “How would I know? Tell me!”

  “Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.”

  The woman laughed. “That English detective?”

  “The one and only.”

  Sokolov raised his ha
nd for Yuri to pause the recording. “Did I hear that correctly?”

  “I thought you would be interested.”

  “Turn it back on.”

  The woman continued. “Go on, you didn’t. Where did you meet Sherlock Holmes?”

  “Roswell.”

  “Roswell? Was the King of England with him?”

  “Charlene, I’m telling you, it’s the truth.”

  “Did you get a picture?”

  “No, it was official business. It wasn’t the kind of thing where you could take pictures.”

  “So, what is he like?”

  “He’s okay. Not especially talkative. Dr. Watson you can talk to.”

  “How did you meet them?”

  “I can’t talk about that part.”

  “Hell, Jimmy, it doesn’t take a genius. You said Roswell. Nobody ever heard of that place until that flying saucer crashed. Is that what it was about?”

  “Charlene, it wasn’t a saucer. It was a weather balloon.”

  “Jimmy, I may be just a simple hairdresser, but nobody believes that story. The old man who said he saw space aliens, he’s the one everyone believes.”

  Sokolov signaled for Yuri to pause the tape.

  “What is she talking about?”

  “We’re getting to that.”

  The tape resumed.

  “That old man, he’s just an old drunk.”

  “Everyone who comes into the shop believes him.”

  “Forget that nonsense,” Patterson said, quickly changing the subject.” I got you a present.”

  “You did? Tell me, what did you get me?”

  Yuri switched off the tape recording.

  “Should you be wondering, the gift was lingerie.”

  “Of course. The only thing men buy women is something for themselves.”

  Yuri couldn’t help but chuckle. Sokolov was the only senior officer with a sense of humor.

  Sokolov lit a custom blended cigarette. “This weather balloon story that even a simple hairdresser does not believe is beginning to look very suspicious. If it were nothing, why would the Americans bring in Sherlock Holmes? On the other hand, if the crash was the 1794 prototype, we may ask ourselves the same question. What can Holmes tell the Americans they cannot discover for themselves?”

  “That remains to be seen.”

  “What is this business about an old man?”

  “Here is where the story gets very interesting. She is speaking about the miner who first reported the incident. He has amended his story.”

  “Retracted, you mean?” Sokolov said.

  “Amended. He now claims to have seen two alien beings that night. As you may well imagine, this story has taken on a life of its own. One might pass the story off as the ravings of a lunatic, but there may also be other witnesses.”

  Yuri pulled a copy of an American newspaper from his attaché case. Next to a follow up story of the Roswell crash was a photograph of a young couple.

  “This boy and this girl may have been at the scene that night. The boy’s car was found incinerated. The couple has yet to be found. They are listed as officially missing.”

  “Presumed dead?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Is there a reason to doubt that conclusion?”

  “The miner believes he may have seen the couple alive that night.”

  “The same miner who believes he may have seen space aliens?”

  “To be sure, he has little credibility. But what if he did see what he reported? What if the missing couple is alive? Might they not be in protective custody? If so, what had they seen that the Americans wish to keep secret?”

  Sokolov thought for a moment. “By keeping the boy and girl hidden, there is no one to corroborate the miner’s story.”

  “Correct,” Yuri said.

  “But we do not know if the boy and girl are alive.” Sokolov said.

  “Bringing Holmes and Watson to the crash scene suggests there is more to this story than a weather balloon covering up an ordinary crash. The Americans are trying to keep something secret.”

  “If the young couple is still alive, then they and Holmes and Watson become invaluable assets.”

  “Major, is it possible the Americans really have captured an alien spacecraft?”

  “Yuri, there is not a shred of evidence that these sightings seen the world over are alien craft.”

  “I agree Major. It borders on fantasy. But we cannot prove they are not. For the sake of argument, what if the Americans really are in possession of an alien craft and its crew?”

  “Then for the Soviet Union, the space race is effectively over.”

  Dugway

  Utah, 1950

  Lt. Wes Reed followed in the footsteps of his father. The elder Reed had been a pilot during the First World War, and he himself served as a pilot during World War II. When the war came to an end, Reed remained with the Army Air Forces until September of 1947 when the Air Force was reorganized as a separate branch of the U.S. defense program. Reed’s passion was to fly. Any commercial airline company would have hired him in an instant, but for Wes Reed flying was a thrill; he liked the danger. In the Air Force one was able to fly lots of different craft. Over the years Reed had proved his prowess in all manner of planes. He was known as Air Ace 1. He was widely regarded as the best of the best, an appellation he not only enjoyed, but attempted to cultivate as well. As Air Ace 1, Reed usually received first crack at the latest experimental aircraft that found their way to the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. For a time, Reed was the proverbial golden boy, and then his career derailed.

  During a test flight of a new experimental fighter, Reed pushed the aircraft beyond its limits, causing the fighter to stall. His only option was to eject, which resulted in the destruction of the aircraft. A formal inquiry found Reed had ignored protocols and suspended him from flying for six months.

  Few among the public knew of Dugway. It had been established in secret during the early forties for the development and testing of chemical weapons. Located 13 miles south of the Utah Test and Training Range, a fair number of experimental aircraft that had been tested at The Range were now housed in secret facilities at Dugway, which helped explain the unusually high number of UFO sightings in the Western United States.

  Among the secret aircraft stationed at Dugway was the FD3, the third in a series of flying discs that had been developed by the top-secret Chimera division of the Air Force. The FD3 was the culmination of years of research that began under the name Project 1794. Project 1794 began in Hangar 18 at Wright-Patterson. In preparation for test flights, the FD3 was disassembled and moved in pieces to Dugway.

  At age 32, Lt. Wes Reed and fellow pilot Mark Daniels had been named as the official test pilots of the FD3. For Reed the assignment was a bitter disappointment.

  The FD3 was a huge, cumbersome ship fraught with problems. Resigning his commission to take a position with a private firm was not an option; his six months suspension had seen to that.

  Development of the FD3 was a long and difficult process. The ship had proved far more challenging than conventional aircraft that relied on jet propulsion. The original design for an anti-gravity propulsion power source was scrapped early on. In theory the anti-gravity propulsion system should work; the reality was the technology had yet to catch up with theory. In its place a gravitational electromagnetic system was developed. Known as the GEM, the new propulsion system was promising. The full extent of its range had yet to be determined. The first successful flight had occurred two years earlier. Immediately the Air Force hailed the FD as a success and insisted it be rushed into production. Engineers working on the project did not share that enthusiasm. Caution was warranted. There were still many issues to resolve. Primary among those issues was the concern that the h
igher the craft flew, the less effective the propulsion became. Determining a maximum range for the FD3 was not yet possible. Test flights were of limited range at pre-set altitudes.

  Wes Reed and Mark Daniels both believed the FD3 was capable of a range well beyond the limits imposed by the Dugway engineers, but their arguments fell on deaf ears. Given his history, Reed knew not to press the matter.

  During that two-year period of test flights, Reed and Daniels were limited to flying at night. The tests required landings and take offs, acceleration tests, and maneuverability tests. Landings took place in remote locations, well away from population centers. The routines had become so familiar, both pilots felt they could do their jobs in their sleep. Both the thrill and the challenge of flying had long since passed.

  For Reed, a pilot addicted to speed and danger, he missed the adventure of the old days. Unlike the supersonic fighters he had previously tested, the FD3 had all the appeal of a fully loaded cargo plane.

  The Chimera program was shrouded in secrecy. Yet there were those locals who inhabited the remote areas within the FD3’s regular flight path that knew of the secret aircraft. Every few weeks one could count on a saucer sighting. In the beginning the Air Force received a few citizen inquiries. The excuses and denials were always the same: balloons, clouds, gas formations, and natural phenomena, among other explanations. Eventually the calls tapered off. No one bothered to report the sightings. Nothing had ever come of the Roswell incident. No one ever came to investigate. Why bother?

  Reed and Daniels sat in the ready room smoking and drinking coffee. The FD3 was being moved into position and readied for that night’s flight. Launch was still twenty minutes away. Reed lit a cigarette and unsealed the flight plan envelope. He quickly glanced over the details of the evening’s flight and passed the document to Daniels.

  “When do we get to see what this pie plate can really do?” Daniels asked. “I am tired of all these short hops.”