“Hell, I don’t know. The thing is, no one seems to know what it is or where it came from. And the bodies they recovered. Very strange,” he said in almost a whisper.
An awkward silence again filled the diner.
“What kind of bodies?” Erma finally asked, pouring Mac another cup of coffee.
“Small. Like children. Only four, really long fingers. Huge eyes. I’ve never seen anything like them in my life.”
“Aliens?” Jimmy asked.
“I just don’t know. The military has taken over the area. I’m not even allowed near the crash now. Hell, I was the one who found it in the first place. Now I can’t even go where I want on the property.”
“Damn. They must think it’s serious if they are going to all that trouble,” Ed said.
“Have you told anyone about this yet?” Jimmy asked.
“Sheriff Wilcox, the Army, Floyd and Loretta, and now you guys,” he said.
“What about the papers? Have you told them yet?”
“Nah. They would just think I was a crazy old coot. I don’t need that,” Mac said.
“You have to tell them,” Erma said, “If a flying saucer crashed out on the Foster property, everyone should be made aware of it. Who knows what this could mean. The military will just hush it up. You need to go to the papers with this story.”
“You really think so?” Mac asked.
“I know so. This is too big to just let them sweep it under the rug,” Jimmy added.
“I hate to admit it, but I think Jimmy is right this time. You should go to the papers with this before they get everything carted away,” Ed said.
“I’ll think about it,” Mac said.
“Want me to tell them?” Jimmy asked.
“No. I’ll go. It should be me. I know more about the thing than anyone,” Mac said.
“Come on. I’ll drive,” Jimmy said.
“No. I’ll go. I just have to think about what I want to say. I don’t want to come off like some fruitcake who has spent too much time in the desert sun,” Mac replied.
On the last day, a large platform truck was brought in to the Foster Ranch and the remaining section of the craft was secured. Mac watched from his horse with another man as they covered the disk with large tarps. You could still tell the general shape but it was fairly well disguised by the time they finished.
“I would never have believed you if I hadn’t seen this with my own eyes,” the newspaper reporter said.
“Yeah. That’s why I brought you out here. I figured if I just showed up on your doorstep you would think I had been in the heat too long. Nothing like seeing it first hand,” Mac said.
“Nothing,” the man agreed.
“Now what?”
“I’ll talk to Major Morsel and see what he has to add. I wonder what the official position will be?”
“Denial?”
“More than likely. That’s what the military does best,” he said.
“So are you going to write the story?”
"Bet your butt I am. With or without the help of the military.”
The room had the typical military green walls and no personal touches of any kind. The standard grey metal desk, chairs, and filing cabinets were the only furniture items in the room. The Colonel opened the shades and a bright shaft of light filled the room.
He sat down behind his desk, introduced Major Morsel and said, “Just how can we help you?”
“I am doing a story on the spacecraft that crashed at the Foster Ranch. The one Mac Brazel found” he said, opening up a notepad and taking a pencil out of his inside jacket pocket.
“Spacecraft? You mean the disk?”
“Whatever you want to call it,” the reporter said.
“All right. We recovered what we believe to be a flying disk. We do not know the origin of the vessel yet so calling it a spacecraft doesn’t seem appropriate at this time,” the Colonel said.
“But you did find a disk that crashed out at Mac’s, right?”
“We found what appears to be a disk. It did appear to have crashed into the earth at the Foster Ranch and was reported by the ranch supervisor, Mr. Brazel.”
“Can you tell me what you found, exactly?”
“Just what I said. It was a craft that looked like it had crash landed. It was disk shaped. The metal that it was made out of was certainly different from anything I have ever come across,” the Colonel confirmed.
The reporter threw out question after question and to his surprise, the Colonel let the Major answer the majority of them. Major Morsel was more candid than he expected.
“May I see it?”
“I believe you already have. You were with Mr. Brazel at the ranch when we loaded it on the truck,” the major said.
“Touché,” the reporter said, suppressing a smile, “I meant, up close. Could I take a good look at it, without men with guns standing around,” he asked.
“Sorry. Until the investigation team from Texas gets here, no one is allowed to see it,” the major said.
“What about the bodies you recovered?”
“I have no comment about that. I do not recall recovering any bodies. There was a lot of wreckage but no bodies that I am aware of,” he said.
“So Mac made that part up?”
“I can’t speak for Mr. Brazel. We did find a dead coyote near the wreckage, but no bodies,” he insisted.
