“You no longer have an organization. At this moment, all the members are being rounded up. It’s finished, Admiral.”
Overhead, the sky seemed to be vibrating with light and sound. The huge mothership was floating down directly above them, bright green lights flashing from its interior. They stared in awe as they watched it land. A smaller spaceship appeared, and then another, and then two more, and another two, until the sky seemed to be filled with them, and there was a great roar in the air that became a glorious music that echoed throughout the mountains. The door of the mother ship opened and an alien appeared.
The woman in white turned to Robert. “I am leaving now.” She moved toward Admiral Whittaker, General Hilliard, and Monte Banks. “You shall come with me.”
Admiral Whittaker drew back. “No! I won’t go!”
“Yes. We will not hurt you.” She held out her hand, and for an instant nothing happened. Then, as the others watched, the three men began slowly moving in a daze toward the spaceship.
Admiral Whittaker screamed, “No!”
He was still screaming when the three men disappeared inside the spaceship.
The woman in white turned to the others. “They will not be harmed. They have much to learn. When they have learned, they will be brought back here.”
Susan was holding Robert tightly.
“Tell people they must stop killing the planet, Robert. Make them understand.”
“I’m only one man.”
“There are thousands of you. Every day your numbers grow. One day there will be millions, and you must all speak with one strong voice. Will you do it?”
“I’ll try. I’ll try.”
“We are leaving now. But we will be watching you. And we will be back.”
The woman in white turned and entered the mothership. The lights inside began to glow brighter and brighter until they seemed to light up the entire sky. Suddenly, without warning, the mother ship took off, followed by the smaller ships, until finally they all vanished from sight.
“Tell the people they must stop killing this planet.” Right, Robert thought. I know now what I’m going to do with the rest of my life.
He looked at Susan and smiled.
The Beginning
AUTHOR’S NOTE
In researching this novel, I have read numerous books and magazine and newspaper articles citing astronauts who had reportedly had extraterrestrial experiences: Colonel Frank Borman on Gemini 7 supposedly took pictures of a UFO that followed his capsule. Neil Armstrong on Apollo 11 saw two unidentified spacecraft when he landed on the moon. Buzz Aldrin photographed unidentified spacecraft on the moon. Colonel L. Gordon Cooper encountered a large UFO on a Project Mercury flight over Perth, Australia, and recorded voices speaking languages later found to belong to no known earth language.
I talked to these men, as well as to other astronauts, and each assured me that the stories were apocryphal rather than apocalyptic, that they had had no experiences of any kind with UFOs. A few days after my telephone conversation with Colonel Gordon Cooper, he called me back. I returned his call, but he had suddenly become unavailable. One year later, I managed to acquire a letter written by him, dated November 9, 1978, and discussing UFOs.
I telephoned Colonel Cooper again to ask him if the letter was authentic. This time, he was more forthcoming. He informed me that it was and that on his journeys into space, he had personally witnessed several flights of UFOs. He also mentioned that other astronauts had had similar experiences that they were warned not to discuss.
I have read a dozen books that prove conclusively that flying saucers exist. I have read a dozen books that prove conclusively that flying saucers do not exist. I have run videotapes purporting to be photographs of flying saucers and have met with therapists in the United States and abroad who specialize in hypnotizing people who claim to have been taken up into UFOs. The therapists say that they have handled hundreds of cases in which the details of the victims’ experiences are startlingly similar, including identical, unexplainable marks on their bodies.
An Air Force general in charge of the Blue Book Project—a United States government group formed to investigate flying saucers—assured me that there has never been any hard evidence of flying saucers or aliens.