Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) Hospital, Roswell New Mexico, 0740 hrs - 3rd of July, 1947.
As the military ambulances pulled into the hospital sub-basement entrance normally reserved for casualties, the Emergency Staff of the hospital was caught by surprise. They had set up their emergency operations with the emergency room and their dedicated entrance as the center of the response to the accident.
The federal agent in charge for now was a young hot shot from Albuquerque introduced to everyone as Agent Carter. He had sent one of his subordinate agents along with 4 of the MPs to escort the vehicles back to the post. The agent in the ambulance hadn’t introduced himself to anyone; in fact he had not said a word during the entire trip back from the crash site.
As they approached the hospital his first words had been to order the driver of his vehicle to find a back entrance with less people. As would be expected with a catastrophe of this sort the hospital had become a circus. There were people everywhere trying to get information and answers to their questions. The press men had shown up from the local news paper and radio station and the news paper photographers had their cameras ready to snap that elusive Pulitzer Prize winning photo of the aftermath of this tragic accident.
The agent had given orders to the driver of the lead ambulance in which he rode, to avoid any unnecessary exposure of the cargo in the vehicles. Although the agent had not been instructed by anyone yet, he was sure that his superiors would want this kept as quiet as possible, after all, he was escorting the only the evidence the public would ever need to convince them that there really were aliens.
The alien bodies where immediately unloaded and taken by gurney to the morgue. He then placed two of the MP escorts on the doors to the morgue with instructions that no one gets in without his express permission. The live alien that had communicated to the soldiers a short while ago at the crash site had not communicated with anyone since its initial request for something to drink. It was taken upstairs under cover of a trench coat. The freight elevator was used to get him to the 4th floor isolation ward, where he was placed into a padded cell with an armed guard posted at the door. The guard was left with the same orders as the others, which was that no one was to get in without his expressed permission, until it could be determined what should be done with it. They left one of the soldier’s canteens in the room and then left and bolted the door.
The alien took the canteen and went to the rear corner of the room opposite the door and sat down. He was scared, thirsty and sick about the situation he found himself in. His entire crew had been killed. He was alone on an alien, violent and savage planet. He was worried that the savage race of this planet would not give him a chance to communicate that he meant them no harm. He had felt the fear and suspicion from everyone that he had been in contact with so far. Especially the human that was apparently in charge of the transport he had been forced into. He had gleaned images of a threatening nature from him as they traveled. The others were suspicious, and afraid of him, but didn’t appear to be of a violent nature. The only one he felt that he could effectively communicate with so far was the tall soldier he had flashed to at the field where he had crashed.
The alien pilot was not sure how bad the damage was to his ship; he had not been able to communicate with it since he woke up with all the soldiers staring at him. As he reached out with his mind the alien searched for the receptive thought of the ship. He could not communicate with it. It wasn’t there. He should have been able to communicate with the ship over a much greater distance than they had traveled. All he could glean was darkness. The ship must have been heavily damaged for him not to have at least a basic contact with it.
After the conscious joining of pilot and ship, effective communication could be made over thousands of miles. He felt as though half of his consciousness had been ripped away. He was truly alone. He leaned his head against the soft surface of the wall and closed his thoughts and eyes. He tuned out and tranced, he needed to clear his mind from everything for a short period.
(RAAF), Hospital, 4th floor Isolation Ward, Roswell New Mexico, 2320 hrs - 3rd of July, 1947.
As he again became aware of his surroundings and his situation, the alien thought to him self, how much time had passed? It seemed to him that he had been lost in his desperate silence for an eternity. Without moving the alien realized that again he was not alone. Quietly sitting in a chair in the opposite corner of the room was a man in a white shirt and black tie that he had not seen before. The alien reached out with his mind and was bombarded with images of extreme and very graphic violence. It shocked him and he drew in a breath with a shudder. This person was an agent of the government of this world.
This man had now become aware that he was being watched by the alien and shifted in his chair. He spoke for the first time saying, “What should I call you”. The alien flashed his name to the man but he didn’t seem to receive it. He paused and said, “I am David Rothman”, and a few seconds later he said, “I guess I’ll just call you AL.” “Why are you here?” David asked, as he stood from the chair. AL had to find a way to communicate with these people. He focused all his skill and ability into a single thought. He thought “CRASH”. David reacted with a jerk of his head and said “so you do speak.” AL tapped into this human at last, and received a flood of imagery from him.
AL began to flash images that he had gleaned from the minds of all the people he had come into contact with so far. David was confused, and then in a flash of understanding he knew what was happening. He said aloud, "you do not speak verbally, you speak in imagery?" A picture of fireworks came to his mind. David began to think of a thousand questions he needed to ask and received an image in his minds eye of a highway traffic jam. He calmed his thought process and decided he would try to think about one thing at a time. He thought where did you come from? A Picture of a solar system flashed into his mind in full living color, but he could not recognize it, and then as if he was watching a movie the image began to move and zeroed on a planet within the system. He again said aloud, how far is this from earth? The number 22.7 and a man taking a picture with a flashbulb popping flashed into his mind, this didn’t make any sense to David, and he was getting a headache. He decided to try another question, but at that moment an image of the Space Craft flashed into his mind, and then he was overwhelmed with alien images that he didn’t understand, his head felt like it would explode. He yelled and the images stopped.
As he looked at the alien, David began to think that this could be very dangerous, and that it was going to take a while to effectively communicate with this being. At that moment a single image came to his mind. It was like David was watching a motion picture; it was the mental image AL was projecting of when the Soldiers had found him. Then the image zoomed in on the tall MP that had given him the water. David immediately recognized Bryan’s face and got a sick feeling in his stomach. He didn’t know what was happening, and then the alien began to show signs of extreme agitation. David rushed to the door and pounded on the observation port. The door opened, and he stepped out. The door closed behind him quickly as AL stood from where he was sitting.
As David left the room he received an image of the aliens lined up next to AL. Though he had not been there he had just mentally seen the crash site, and then an image from what appeared to be an alien covered by a dark blanket and then physical pain racked through him. He didn’t understand the image or what he was feeling but he was sure that AL had just mentally sent it to him. Then with such force that it made him dizzy David realized that one of the others was communicating with AL and AL had flashed it to him directly. Another alien was alive!
David screamed at the MP asking where they had taken the other bodies. The MP said they had taken them to the Morgue, so David ran down the hall to the elevator and jammed the button so hard he thought he had broken it. He waited for a few second and then bolted through the stairwell door. David ran down six flights of stairs to sub-basement level where the hospital morgue was located. He was winded and didn’t stop when the MPs said HALT. He tried to step around them while flashing his badge to them but was physically stopped by the MP on the left. He again showed them his ID and said as he was catching his breath, “doesn’t this badge mean anything to you people?”
They examined the badge and ID closer and informed him that they had orders from the other agent not to allow anyone access and again they refused him entry. David said to himself that he didn’t have time for this and kneed the MP on his left squarely between the legs and as fast as lightning and before the other MP realized what was happening David punched him so hard on the tip of his chin that it knocked him out cold.
He entered the morgue and began to check the alien bodies. It was a gruesome and shocking task as he uncovered each of them. Then as he uncovered the last one it grabbed his hand. David yelled for assistance and the MP that had been kicked crawled on hands and knees to the door. He saw what was happening and crawled to the table against the wall. He managed to pull the phone down off the table and was connected with the hospital operator automatically. The MP said something into the phone that David did not hear and then the MP collapsed again against the wall.
The Alien held David’s hand and looked at him with the biggest cold black eyes he had ever seen. Then in a thunderous mix of images and pain, so loud and intense that David’s head felt as though it would explode and the room began to spin, the alien mentally transferred a jumbled mix of information and feelings to David. He had never experienced anything like this before and then it all stopped. As suddenly as it had begun, it stopped.
The alien's hand relaxed its grip on David and then went completely limp. David knees shuddered and gave out from under him, and fell across the alien on the gurney. He was so dizzy; it took him several minutes to regain his senses. As he got his legs back underneath him and regained his footing, he grabbed the gurney using it as support and moved it into the hallway. He screamed at the MP for help and the man rose from his position against the wall. He also grabbed the other side of the gurney for support as David asked him where the operating rooms were. The MP said they needed to get to the elevator down the hall.
They moved into the elevator and the doors closed. In the space of time it takes for a slow moving elevator to travel three floors David looked at the MP and said “sorry about kneeing you” The MP said “you got lucky, I didn’t expect a Government Agent to move so fast, but I assure you sir it will never happen again”. Then he looked at David and said, “My name is Frank Cortez, and you owe me a beer and a chance to get even.” David reached across the gurney and took Franks hand and said, “David…David Rothman, maybe later well see about that.” As the elevator slowed, and the bell rang for the floor, Frank looked at David and said with kind of a half smile, “I understand now why you where so motivated to get into the morgue, but how did you know?” Then without time for another word the doors opened on the 2nd floor.
As they exited the elevator a nurse standing at the counter of the nurses’ station across the hall screamed and dropped the stack of charts that she had been about ready to set on the desk. Instead of standing there in shock as the other two nurses at the desk were doing, the nurse that had dropped the charts ran to the gurney and said, “It’s true, they really are aliens.” She immediately took charge of the gurney and guided the two men pushing it to the first of three operating rooms. She looked at the men and said, “I’m sorry I screamed it was just so surprising to have such a creature of myth made into a reality for me”. The nurse explained, as they began to cut the alien’s uniform off, that she had read of aliens for years but had never believed they really existed.
As they finished cutting the uniform off, they got their first real look at the alien’s body. It was in tact and about 4’ tall. The extremities seemed to look "normal" for lack of a better word, and with no obvious deformity or swelling which would indicate it had any broken bones. It was very thin and looked extremely frail, it was gray in color but it had a greenish tint to it. Its hands had what appeared to be a thumb and three long fingers, all still present and intact. The skin was smooth and it had what appeared to be a large bruise on the center its chest. It also had a small bruise on the side of its head but no other obvious injuries. They could not tell whether it was a male or female as it had no discernable genitalia.
As they observed the alien being, a doctor burst into the room, screaming at the nurse, “Why aren’t you people masked.” Two other nurses entered carrying surgical masks and gowns for the three of them. Then like a well oiled machine, everyone started doing their jobs, and Frank and David stepped back into the corner of the room. The nurses started hooking up monitors, then one of the nurses said, “I found the pulse, it’s weak but palpable.” Then she slipped a blood pressure cuff over the aliens arm.
As the doctor took charge and began the examination of the alien body in front of him, he looked curiously at David and said, “You’re with the government right?” David said simply “Yes”. The doctor said, “I don’t suppose you have an alien anatomy book stored in your TOP SECRET comic book collection do you?” Frank sniggered and the nurses smiled and paused for half a second, then the doctor said, “No I didn’t think it would be that easy, I guess I’ll have to wing it.” The nurse said “I can’t read the pressure, doctor; every time I inflate the cuff I loose the pulse. He responded with, “Just keep track of the pulse then.” As the doctor continued with the basic examination, David told the nurse that had helped with the alien’s uniform, to bag the clothing in a plastic bag and seal it; he was going to take them with him.
One of the nurses drew a large syringe full of the alien’s blood, which turned out to be a dark green color. She said that nobody would believe her when she told them. The doctor told her to rush it to the lab. Then David stopped them all and said in a very load and commanding voice, “Listen to me everyone, I am David Rothman from the office of Special Security and Intelligence in Washington DC. I am here at the orders of the President of the United States. We don’t need to start a panic here, and if the word gets out that we have real aliens here on tis base it could be devastating to the world as we know it. For this reason, everything that is said and done in this room is classified as "TOP SECRET, NEED TO KNOW ONLY", this also goes for any tests conducted and any blood work as well. Is that clear?” Everyone stopped what they where doing and looked at the Doctor. There was complete silence in the room for approximately 2 minutes as everyone absorbed what had just been said. Then the doctor said to everyone, “You heard the man, now let’s get to it before we lose our patient.”
(RAAF), Hospital, 4th floor Isolation Ward, Roswell New Mexico, 0020 hrs - 4th of July, 1947.
As the man called David Rothman left the room, AL was mentally communicating with the other alien in the morgue. It had come to him with such suddenness that he didn’t know how to image it to the human standing before him. With a burst flash and with all the mental strength he had, he transferred what he was seeing and feeling directly to the man that had just left.
When he finished the burst flash, AL shifted his thoughts again back to Shiri, the young student that had been traveling with his crew as part of her studies. He began to mentally tell her what he had experienced so far and she responded back with fear and pain. He tried to calm her and asked her to explain where she was, but she didn't know. She flashed the blackness that she was experiencing and let him help her to control the pain she felt from her head and chest. Shiri attempted to sit up, but couldn’t move. Her chest and back hurt her very badly. As she again made a second attempt to sit up, she heard noises from beyond her vision. It sounded far away but got very loud and then all of a sudden it got very quiet.
Just as she was about to make another attempt to sit up, she was blinded by bright light, in a reflex, she reached out her hand and found that someone was standing next to her. She clasped the hand that she had found and it seemed very strong and warm, and it grasped her hand back. As her vision cleared she realized that there was a human standing next to where she was laying down. A name shot into her mind from Milsus, the pilot. It was the Human’s name, David Rothman.
In a misunderstanding of his meaning, she had assumed that Milsus had sent this man and given her his name because he was a person with whom she could trust her consciousness with. She didn’t hesitate at all and began to transfer her mental stores to this human vessel. Just as the flash of memories was ending she became very weak. Something wasn’t right, she had a heaviness across her legs that hadn't been there before. Her vision was beginning to close in like she was falling into a hole. The blackness was closing in from the edges of her vision and then just before she lost sight of her surroundings she heard Milsus say “Be careful what you share with him, he's dangerous!” She lost all the feeling in her body as she realized that this human was laying across her legs. She was terrified and fully in an uncontrollable panic. She was losing her consiousness with the thought that she had just wasted her entire life’s history and experiences, and that it would probably never be recovered.
She mentally blasted out the last fleeting thought that she could think of. She sent it out to anyone that could hear it. As her vision faded she mentally screamed, “HELP ME!”
(to be continued)
This is a photo of something that has become unusual over the past few months. We actually had more that 4 ships in port today!!! We had eight sips and all but 4 of our gantry cranes were gainfully employed. Albeit for only 10 hours but still it was nice to be busy for the day. I also managed to get a photo of one of the Port Authority tug boats going out to escort another arrival. We actually have three of them but with the reduction in volumes one is in dry dock and the other is a mile out getting another vessel into port. Here are some more random pictures I took today. It was a good day on the port.
This is a new condo complex they are building just outside of Montego Bay. If you could have gotten in before they started construction you could have purchaesed one at the very reasonable price of US$60,000, but now with construct almost complete everything is already sold and the resale price is from US$1million to 1.75 million depending if you want an ocean side condo or not.
