The Goldilocks Zone

by David D. Luxton

  Daniel was lying in a rustic four-post bed under a handmade quilt with multi-color patches, his head propped up by two pillows. The curtains were drawn so the room was dimly lit by one lonely bedside lamp. An oil diffuser on an oak dresser was spewing out lavender and frankincense. Quickly, I took a detour into the bathroom. Beside the porcelain claw-foot tub was a counter with marble his-and-her sinks in it. A contact lens box read, Deep Azure Colored Lenses. They had to be Nadine’s, which explained the glowing blue tone of her captivating eyes. Not a big deal, I thought. A lot of people make enhancements.

  After my bathroom visit, I softly approached the bed. Daniel’s eyes were closed, and the blue tooth earpiece in his ear flashed in standby mode. Was he awake? An odd metallic object about the size and shape of a grape was on a plate next to a glass of water on the bed stand.

  Daniel’s eyes opened. “Hello, Ben.” His voice was weak. “Pull up a chair and sit next to me.”

  I grabbed the chair from a small desk by the window.

  He propped the pillows against the wooden headboard and sat up. “Thank you for helping out with things last night in my absence. We had a lot of upset people, didn’t we?”

  “Yes. What happened exactly?”

  “It’s not good, not good at all. I need to do a press release immediately. We should do a video. Do you have your phone?”

  “Yes, always.” I pulled it out.

  “Let’s do it right here.”

  He straightened up, drank some water, and cleared his throat. I got him in view and waited for his okay before I hit record.

  His expression was dour. “My friends, I have important news. Extraterrestrial Biological Entities from the Proxima system abducted me last night with a dozen other people completing my viewing workshop. These beings were not government MILAB fakes. They were black-eyed Proximians.”

  The mere mention of the EBEs and their dark, empty eyes triggered me. My hands began to shake uncontrollably. I steadied the camera, keeping Daniel in focus.

  He continued. “While I was on their ship, they revealed their true intentions to me. They are not our friends. They have come to do evil. My warning is serious and real. This is no joke. We must cease our contact protocols and all experimental projects immediately.” Daniel’s voice cracked. “I’m exhausted and still in shock.” Tears were forming. “Terrible things they did to me.” He took a deep breath and gathered himself. “I’ll be making more announcements over the next couple of days. Thank you.”

  He nodded, and I saved the video. “Get that uploaded to our social media sites immediately.”

  “I will.”

  I sat back to take it all in. Daniel was abducted and completely flipped his position on aliens. No longer were they angels here for good; they were now demons here to harm. I thought about the Phoenix lights and my father’s link to the Aurora Project and MILAB. Were they government fakes or Proximians? I also thought about the voices I’d heard that had said, We will be back for you. My stomach tightened.

  “When did they say they would return?” I asked Daniel.

  “On or before winter solstice this year. I’m to be their liaison—under duress. They said if I try to resist or hide, they will come for me.” He shut his eyes in agony. “Oh, this is terrible, Ben. There must be people in our government colluding with the Proximians. They must have been doing it for years, since before the 1990s. It’s going to be difficult to know now what was a fake abduction and what was real, who is on our side or with the Proximians.”

  “This is like the TV show and movie V.”

  “Except this is real, Ben, everything has changed.” He pulled the sheets and quilt up to his chin.

  I picked up the metallic object and inspected it. “What’s this?” I asked, passing the shiny object under my nose for a quick sniff. The scent of musk and cinnamon triggered me.

  Daniel was watching me. “They implanted that in my rectum, Ben. I force passed it this morning. It’s a monitoring device, I’ve seen them before.”

  Aghast, I set the object down. “What are you going to do with it?” I asked, wiping my fingers on my pant leg out of his view.

  “Post images and information about it on our website to warn others. We need to be careful to tell people to pass them naturally—we don’t want to get sued if people try bleach or cut them out. They’re not magnetic or metal and won’t show up on X-ray. I’m going to have our app development company build a new scanning app.” He sighed. “It all makes sense now. They wanted me because I had been communicating with them for years. They have been grooming me for this, Ben. I suspect they took you recently because of your connection to me.”

  More questions came flooding into my mind. “What about the others last night? They were abducted, too.”

  “As collaterals— I don’t know. What I do know is that the EBEs want to psychically enslave us all, tap into our consciousness, suck our energy, turn us into mindless automatons. They’ll use us for gene harvesting and conduct social experiments on a mass scale. It’s going to be hell on Earth, Ben, and we won’t be able to do anything about it. We will feel that something is wrong, but the truth will be outside our awareness. We’ll forget what we knew in the past. Our history will be modified for their self-serving alien design.”

  “Why are they doing this now?”

  Daniel shook his head. “There’s going to be panic and chaos, Ben. We need to move fast to warn the people of the world and their governments. I got people into this, so it’s my responsibility to help them prepare. Things may fall apart in the weeks ahead, and people may die. Riots, full societal breakdown.” He nodded, deep in thought. “Our mission now is to educate others about the risks and dangers of abductions and how to prepare for impending alien psychic attacks.”

  “What about the government? What will they do? Do you think they will finally acknowledge that the aliens are here?”

  “I briefed my contacts at the Department of Defense this morning. I suspect that they will make a full disclosure any day now.”

  My investigative journalist instincts were returning. “Who’d you talk to?”

  “My contacts are deep and high, Ben. They’ll be strategic about it, but with so much bureaucracy, I’m worried.” His face lit up. “We got it on film, didn’t we? Shit, live-streamed on Facebook. It must go viral.”

  “It broadcast last night, and I recorded it. The Foundation social media sites have been on fire all morning.”

  “Good,” he said, “post my press release with it. Hashtag alienwarning.”

  “Having video and witnesses is a big deal.”

  “Yes, it is. This whole thing is more important than anything else in the world.”

  “What are you going to do next?” I asked as questions spun in my mind.

  “Well, I’m not going to sit on my back porch and whittle a stick while all of this happens. I’m going to do another press conference and speaking tour, and I want you to come along and tell your story through the lens of what we now know to be true. Are you up to this?”

  “Are you sure that I should go with you? There’s a lot for me to do here. Maybe we should do some research on this first.” I was thinking that I could do some analysis of the others’ experiences.

  Daniel shifted. “I need to show you something.” He unbuttoned his pajama top to reveal his stubbly chest. At the center was a hexagon, red, bruised, and the same size as mine was. “It’s raised, just like yours. I was wrong, so wrong.” He teared up again. “I’m responsible for what has happened to you and the others. But we have shared experiences now, and that connects us at a cosmic level. I need your help now, my son. Are you with me?”

  My mind was muddled with confusion and uncertainty.

  “I assume the trip to LA is canceled?” I said.

  “No, we’re still going to LA for the interview. It’s going to be a 60 Minutes Special with a studio audience and broadcast live. We’ve got to get the word out about this. So much to do.”

  Ho
w fast he’d switched from emotion to all business! And how things had already been arranged!

  “Are you sure that it is a safe to travel right now? I mean, is there a risk of…”

  “Abduction? Yes. I’m not going to risk an entire plane full of people. We’ll drive, and we’ll have video cameras and sensors on the van. And regarding your article, you’ll have to update it with what we know now.”

  “I can add something about what I witnessed last night…”

  “…and what I’m telling you. The more press on this, the better. Time is of the essence now. Planet Earth can’t wait.”

  Daniel made sure I uploaded his video before I left him. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about going on a press road trip, but how could I say no? It was my job per my contract, and now with the full employee offer, it would be difficult to say no.

  Just as I stepped off the porch, Robert Petulli came tearing down the driveway in a green MG Midget convertible, parked and made a beeline to the front door, paying no attention to me. Petulli demanded to see Daniel. Mike yelled at him to stay outside and called for Nadine. A moment later Nadine came to the door.

  “What’s going on? What is Daniel doing?” Petulli asked Nadine frantically.

  “Everything is under control,” Nadine assured him. “Daniel had to tell the world about what’s happening. This comes as a shock to everyone, Robert. We are well aware of the implications, but we must accept that everything has changed.”

  “Why didn’t he tell me earlier?” Petulli looked genuinely hurt.

  Nadine glanced at me and then signaled Mike to get me out of there. Mike came outside to me while Nadine pulled Petulli inside and disappeared.

  “Petulli just saw Daniel’s post,” Mike clarified.

  “I guess he won’t be working anymore on the transdimensional alien 3D printer,” I said.

  Mike shrugged, and we stood in awkward silence. A minute later, a calmer Petulli exited the house, got into his car and sped away, stirring up a cloud of dust.

  24: UFO Celebrity

  We arrived in LA in the late afternoon, and went to the Ritz-Carlton ABC’s producers put us up at. We freshened up, then took a limo to the studios where we were directed to the green room. Robbie Spencer was there too, with his wife.

  Daniel spoke to me in the mirror as makeup artists worked on our faces and hair.

  “Excited, Ben?”

  “Very much,” I said, smiling.

  “Good. I’ll take the lead questions, but feel free to share your abduction experience. The public wants to know. Tell it just as you experienced it. Don’t let the host or producers try any tactics to get you to feel any doubt. They do that for the ratings.”

  “I know something about interview techniques.”

  He smiled. “Of course, you do. The message we are communicating tonight is the most important in modern history. We need to be careful about the take-aways. We don’t want to create panic, but we also don’t want to downplay the significance of all of this. The safety of the world is at stake.”

  The make-up person finished brushing his cheeks and started in on mine. “I understand,” I said.

  My stomach tightened suddenly. Here I was, about to go on TV to talk about an impending alien invasion. One part of me believed it to be true, another part of me was unsure.

  After make-up, I went to use the restroom one last time. In the bathroom stall, Jack Clark called to tell me that several anonymous UFO reports had come in from Missoula over the weekend, and that he had watched the abduction video on Facebook. He’d acquired updated FAA flight data for the Montana area and wanted to ask me some questions. I confirmed I’d been at the Ranch at the time of the group abduction and I was about to go on 60 Minutes with Daniel.

  “I won’t keep you,” he said, “but I’ve got to tell you this. It took me forever to get the FAA data, but all of a sudden, there it was. I’m still reviewing it, but I’ve already found some interesting stuff—a large object coming in from the north around nine o’clock. Whatever it was, it was big, and it disappeared from radar within minutes, similar to what the data showed the night of your abduction experience.”

  “From outer space?” I couldn’t believe I was actually asking that.

  “I can’t be certain. The object appears and then disappears. We’d need to see more radar data to know the path of the object, but my friend said it wasn’t available. The data’s also sketchy in regarding altitude, but it seems to suggest that it was fairly low altitude, meaning less than 5000 feet. Missoula is just over 3000 above sea level, so it was really low. I’ve only seen data like this once before, and it was determined to be inconclusive. We never figured out what it was. But there is more. I looked back through the data to see if I could find other similar objects, and there’s nothing.”

  “What about in April?”

  “I don’t recall seeing anything abnormal. What are you thinking, Ben?”

  “Around the time Sally Jensen was murdered. She claimed to have seen a large triangular object with lights at low altitude, but it doesn’t sound like the data supports it.”

  “Well, no, but I’ll keep looking into it.”

  “Is there any way the data could have been tampered with?”

  “I’ve asked that question many times, Ben. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that there could be omissions from the data, or additions. Conspiracy types have made those accusations since the 1970s. We know for a fact that the U.S. Department of Defense censors local flight data around Area 51 and a few other spots.”

  “So there could be a cover-up, if they wanted to?”

  “Yes. But this is one of those areas where once you start digging, doors close fast. Everyone in the UFO business knows this. I’ll try to get more information and I’ll let you know what I find out. Good luck on your show. I look forward to watching it when it airs.”

  Back in the green room, Daniel asked, “You okay, Ben?”

  “Yeah. Just some pre-show jitters.” I didn’t say anything about Jack Clark.

  He smiled. “You’ll be fine, just follow my lead.”

  Soon, an attractive production assistant with blond hair and red lipstick, in a white skirt and heels, led Daniel and I down a long hallway to the live stage and told us where to sit. The host, Gerald Bennett, came on set and shook our hands, and sat down. He was dressed to the nines with thick greying black hair and perfect bleached teeth.

  I watched for the red light on the camera, worrying that my sweat would show through the make-up. Another production assistant hand signaled we were live.

  Bennett started right in. “Tonight, we have Daniel Byrne, attorney and cofounder, along with his partner Nadine Byrne, of the not-for-profit Proxima Foundation, an organization that until recently, has been helping people make contact with beings from out of this world. Yes, extraterrestrials. We also have Ben Davenport, Pulitzer-nominated investigative journalist who wrote the article calling Daniel Byrne a charlatan but now claims to have had his own alien abduction experience. We also have Robbie Spencer, one of Daniel’s students who is also an abductee. Just a week ago, Daniel and a dozen people attending one of his extraterrestrial viewing events were allegedly abducted, taken aboard a ship, and eventually returned to Earth, all of which was broadcast on live social media. The video has since gone viral. We will show you the clip in its entirety tonight.” He looked at Daniel and me. “I understand this was the first time anyone ever live-streamed a UFO or alien abduction. Is that correct?”

  “It is,” Daniel said.

  “So, Mr. Byrne, walk us through what happened on the night you claim to have been abducted.”

  “Thank you, Gerald, for having us on the show. As many of you may know, I have been teaching people for more than a decade now how to make contact with benign extraterrestrial entities by means of a specialized type of meditation. We’ve believed we were doing a good thing in connecting humanity with ETs—but I was wrong. They are not friendly.”

  “And
you say this because of what happened to you the night you were abducted?”

  “Yes. About a dozen of us were on a group-sighting event. Everything seemed like it had on other nights we had run the protocols, but then, well, we were abducted, taken aboard…”

  “Hold on, Daniel, let’s have a look.”

  A large TV monitor offstage lit up with the footage from that night. The backs of silhouetted heads crowded the bottom of the screen.

  “Walk us through what we are seeing here,” Bennett said.

  Daniel followed the footage.

  “I’d just given instructions regarding contact protocol. Here, we’re waiting to see them appear.”

  The lights appeared, and Mike’s camera focused as he tracked them.

  “It looks like three—no, seven lights in the sky. Are those the ships?” Bennett asked.

  “It’s one large craft,” Daniel said. “We watched it hover for a minute, then the lights got brighter and the wind gusted up. The giant craft moved towards us. See the three bright lights with a larger, red light in the middle? Then a beam of white and green light shot down, then came the swirling winds.”

  The video showed what appeared to be two people being lifted up into the light by a beam. People in the studio audience oohed and ahhed. Just then, a figure bathed in purple-white light appeared to be looking with interest at the camera.

  Bennett looked at Daniel, then at me. “Is that an alien?”

  “Yes, it is,” Daniel said, “that is a grey from Proxima b.”

  The video went dark. Bennett looked at us. “This is not a hoax? This is the real thing?”

  “This is the first ever live video recording of an alien abduction,” Daniel said.

  “What happened next? You were aboard their ship?”

  “Yes, absolutely,” Daniel said. “Next thing I knew, we were all on a large interstellar craft in a room with mirrored walls. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion as if we were all swimming underwater.”