The voice on the other end of the line was both strident and peremptory. “Dr. Murphy, the president wants you in the Oval Office–immediately.”
Although I had been the president’s science advisor for nearly a year, I’d never been summoned to the White House so abruptly. Therefore, I was a bit nervous when I entered the Oval Office a few minutes later and found the president pacing back and forth, hands clasped firmly behind his back. Walter Grayson, the president’s Senior Political Advisor, sat on a nearby sofa. Two Air Force officers stood behind him. One I recognized as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The other officer, a woman, I did not know.
The president looked at me and frowned. “Dr. Murphy,” he said in his nasally voice, “we have a situation… a worrisome situation… a real game changer. It appears that a flying saucer has landed in Nevada.”
“What?” I stammered.
The president turned to the young woman. “Brief him, Major Scott.”
Stiffening to attention, the major spoke crisply. “At 09:00 hours this morning, sir, an unidentified flying object landed in the Yucca Flats section of the Nevada Nuclear Test Site, some 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Radar picked it up over California at 08:40 hours. F-16s were immediately scrambled from Nellis Air Force Base, but the object landed before they could intercept it. By all reports, it appears to be an actual flying saucer. Two MPs on base patrol saw it come down. They said it made a hard landing, but didn’t appear to be damaged. The 11th Armored Cavalry and elements of the 4th Infantry were mobilized and they’ve set up a perimeter around the saucer. So far, however, there’s been no movement from the saucer itself and no communications have been established.”
I stared in disbelief at Major Scott, until I heard the president ask, “Well, Dr. Murphy, what do you think we should do?”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, should we attack it?”
“Attack it? Good God, no!”
“Why not?” the president growled, his clenched jaw and knit brows conveying an air of sulky belligerence.
“But, why should we?”
“Because maybe they plan to attack us, like in The War of the Worlds or Independence Day. The generals think we should make a pre-emptive attack, while we still have the upper hand.”
I couldn’t believe that the world’s response to its first extraterrestrial contact was being shaped by the president’s affinity for science fiction movies. And what made them think we had the upper hand, anyway?
“Mr. President,” I pleaded, “there’s no reason to act precipitously. They may not be a threat at all. Any life form that can travel the vast reaches of space will surely have come from a highly-evolved civilization, and such a civilization would probably have concluded that peace is preferable to war. Otherwise, they would have destroyed themselves long ago.”
“Maybe they’re like the Borg,” the president said.
“Maybe they’re like the Vulcans,” I shot back. “Maybe they’ve got a Prime Directive!” As I said this, the president glanced at Walter Grayson.
“How can you be sure that they’re not dangerous?” Grayson asked.
“Look, I’m just your science advisor, sir. My specialty is microbiology, not extraterrestrial technology, and I’m certainly not a military expert. I can’t make any guarantees here. But if you attack them, they may respond in kind. And if they’ve made it all the way here from another star system, you can probably assume that their technology is superior to ours, their defenses sufficient to withstand whatever we throw at them, and their ability to respond not insignificant.”
General Mayberry said, “Mr. President, it can’t be a coincidence that this saucer landed at Yucca Flats. That’s only about 20 miles southwest of Area 51.”
The president’s ears perked up. “Area 51? General, please tell me we don’t have a top-secret alien space ship or corpses from Roswell stored there.”
“Ah, no, sir,” the General replied. “There’s nothing like that there. But, as you know, Area 51 is one of this country’s most sensitive sites in terms of military weapons research, and Yucca Flats was a major nuclear testing ground for decades. This can’t be a coincidence.”
Walter Grayson turned to me and said, “We have to keep this under wraps, Dr. Murphy. If not, there’ll be panic in the streets.”
“Well, that’s going to be somewhat hard to do,” I said. “With thousands of soldiers camped around the saucer, sooner or later word will get out.”
“Well, we need to get a handle on this,” the president said. “I want you to go out there immediately, Dr. Murphy. See first-hand what’s going on and report back to me. Take Major Scott here with you. She can serve as your liaison to the military.”
###
We landed at Nellis Air Force Base that afternoon. Within the hour, I was standing on a small rise overlooking the saucer. And that’s what it was. It looked like a saucer from a 1950’s-alien invasion movie. Earth vs. the Flying Saucers and the classic The Day the Earth Stood Still came to mind. The only difference was that this ship, instead of being a macho black or gun-metal gray, was yellow–a bright banana yellow–almost incandescent in the glare of the Nevada sun. Its massive legs held it about twenty feet above the ground.
By the time we arrived, tanks and short-range artillery had surrounded the saucer, forming a perimeter some four hundred yards from it. General Decker, the officer in charge, gave us a detailed briefing on what had transpired so far. With respect to the military’s mobilization, there had been a great deal of action. With respect to the alien space ship, nothing.
As I stood there, staring at the saucer, I imagined a door materializing from its seamless surface, a long ramp extending to the ground, and a humanoid alien descending, raising his hand and saying….
“Klaatu barada nikto,” I mumbled to myself.
“What was that, Dr. Murphy?” Major Scott asked.
“Oh, nothing,” I said hastily. “Perhaps we should look for a secure phone to brief the president.”
A few minutes later, we were on a teleconference with the president, the Joint Chiefs, and key members of the White House staff. I described the situation as best I could, though there wasn’t really much to say. Besides, by that time, video equipment had been set up and the White House could see firsthand what lay before us.
“Why do you think they’ve come here?” the president asked.
“I don’t know, sir,” I replied.
“Nobody there doing anything hinky?” he asked nervously. “No one looks like they’re zombified or anything?”
“No, sir.”
“No funny vegetation? No pods lying around?”
“Nope.”
“No crop circles?”
“There aren’t any crops around here, Mr. President. It’s a desert.”
“Yes, of course. I knew that. Are you sure no aliens have slipped away for some nefarious purpose?”
“I don’t think so, Mr. President. The MPs who witnessed the landing hid nearby until reinforcements arrived. They didn’t see anyone or anything leave the ship.”
“Did they see anyone slip on board? Maybe they’ve come to pick up a stranded alien, like in E.T. or Starman. We need to make sure the soldiers along the perimeter don’t let anyone, or anything, sneak onto the ship from outside.”
“Er… Right, Mr. President. We’ll make sure General Decker follows through on that.”
“Maybe they just plan to return some abductees,” the president suggested hopefully.
“I doubt it, Mr. President.” To Major Scott, I muttered under my breath, “I guess he saw Close Encounters too.”
“What was that?” the president asked.
I cleared my throat. “Mr. President, despite the fact that lots of people claim to believe in UFOs, none of the recorded sightings have ever been verified and there’s no real evidence of alien abductions.”
Walter Grayson came on the line. “Well, Dr. Murphy, it seems to me that you now have a UFO sitting right there in front of you. So maybe the 30 percent of Americans who believe in UFOs have been right all along.”
“Yes, of course,” I hastily conceded. “Perhaps that’s true. Nevertheless, Mr. Grayson, there’s no reason to believe that this craft is about to drop off a bunch of abductees.”
“Okay,” the president said. “You just sit there, Murphy, and watch that ship. Call us if there are any developments.” Abruptly the line went dead.
###
Nothing happened as we observed the ship over the next few hours. When night came, large floodlights bathed the starship. Blackhawk helicopters hovered over the site, raising dust clouds and blowing tumbleweeds around in tight circles. Other than the whirr of the chopper blades, however, the scene was quiet. As I walked along the military perimeter, I could see both fear and wonder in the eyes of the soldiers. They stood beside their tanks and artillery, their attention fixed on the saucer. I imagine that few of them slept that night. I, myself, must have fallen asleep at some point, because I woke up the next morning with Major Scott shaking my shoulder. “Dr. Murphy, we have a problem.”
“What?” I asked her, trying to shake the cobwebs from my brain.
“The news is out about the saucer. The president is on the line and he’s pissed.” She handed me a secure phone as we made our way to the large trailer that was serving as the control center.
“Murphy!”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“It’s all over cable news and the networks. They have film of the saucer for Pete’s sake. How did that happen?”
Inside the command center, a panel of TV monitors showed video of the saucer. The same short footage was being looped over and over on each station, and on each there was a clueless talking head speculating vacuously on the meaning of this alien visitation.
“Mr. President, it looks like someone took a video of it with their cellphone and uploaded it to YouTube.”
“Well, that’s just unacceptable! Who’s in charge of security there?”
I handed the phone to General Decker.
###
Over the next few days we did our best in terms of damage control. Crackpots streamed into Nevada from all across the country, some claiming to have received telepathic messages from the inhabitants of the ship. Many made it no further than Las Vegas, where they were distracted by the casinos. A few fell victim to con men wearing dark suits and black sunglasses who offered to take them to the saucer, but instead left them naked and penniless on the outskirts of town. Others turned out to be geographically challenged and, instead of Nevada, raced to Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. There they searched vainly for lights in the night sky, while chanting what they thought was the aliens’ five-note theme song. New religious sects sprang up, claiming allegiance to the alien visitors. Photos purporting to be of the saucer’s crew mushroomed on the internet (some of which looked suspiciously like a well-known tabloid celebrity, except green and with little antennas protruding from her forehead). News choppers tried repeatedly to invade the air space around the saucer, leading to confrontations with an increasingly annoyed military.
###
I was sitting on a rock, glaring at the enigmatic saucer, when Major Scott came up and sat down beside me. During the past few days, I’d found her to be quite level-headed, although I had to admit that she was beginning to look a bit haggard.
“Everyone seems to be getting real jumpy,” she said, as she stared at the quiescent ship. “I wish something would happen.”
“Me too,” I said, “though I’m not as worried about the soldiers surrounding this saucer, as I am about the increasingly hysterical mood back in Washington. The internet seems to be having a meltdown. Newspapers and radio stations are giving a voice to every crackpot with an opinion, and the cable networks are rerunning every schlock alien invasion movie ever made, from Mars Attacks! to Killer Klowns from Outer Space. Christ, CNN is like the SciFi channel on speed. And through it all, that damn saucer just sits there like a giant, inert, metallic yellow, upside-down salad bowl. And we still know nothing about the ship or its crew.”
“Maybe there’s no one inside, Dr. Murphy. Maybe it’s just a probe, like the ones we sent to Mars.”
“Perhaps, Major, but even if that were the case, there should still be some detectable movement. Otherwise, what’s the point? Even on Mars, we sent out little rovers to go tooling around to photograph rocks and take soil samples.”
“Maybe it’s defective,” she suggested. “Maybe it hit the ground too hard and its innards got scrambled.”
“Well, it doesn’t look damaged to me, but it’s possible, I guess.”
“It’s a real puzzle,” she said. “I hope something happens soon. Like you said, they’re getting really antsy back in Washington.”
I let out a long, tired sigh. “Yeah, I know.”
###
The next morning, the president called again. General
Decker and Major Scott were with me when I took the call.
“Well?”
“Well what, Mr. President?”
“Well, what’s happening?”
“Absolutely nothing, sir, but you know that. The saucer’s been getting saturation coverage in the media.”
It was clear from the president’s voice that he was stressed. “The Russian president called last night and wanted to know what’s going on. He thinks we’re in secret negotiations with the alien ship’s crew, so we can hog all their advanced technology for ourselves. He knows all about Area 51, so he’s really suspicious. The Chinese called this morning and they weren’t much better. What do I tell them?”
“Just tell them that we’re still waiting, Mr. President. Nothing is happening. We’ve bombarded the saucer with signals spanning the entire electromagnetic spectrum, but there’s been no response. The saucer doesn’t even emit radiation. Our attempts at X-ray and spectrographic analysis have all failed. We’ve examined the entire ship using aerial drones. There are no evident defenses, and no visible openings, hatches, or seams–nothing. The saucer’s shell seems to be a solid piece of metal. We even sent in a tactical robot in to pound on the side of the ship with a sledge hammer to see whether there was any response. Zip! Didn’t even scratch the thing. I don’t know what else we can do but wait.”
There was a hushed stirring on the other end of the line. I heard the deep voice of Walter Grayson in the background. After a couple of minutes, the president came back on the phone. His voice conveyed a mixture of panic and resolve. “The American people need to see action, Dr. Murphy. They’re scared and they’re tired of sitting around waiting for something to happen. The stock market’s in free fall. Congress is going nuts. We just can’t wait for them to hit us, Murphy. We need to take preemptive measures. We’ve been meeting on this all morning and we’ve decided that it’s time for action. General Decker, pull your men further away from the saucer. We’re going to nuke it!”
“What?” I gasped.
“Yes, sir, Mr. President,” Decker replied eagerly. “We have warheads stored at Nellis. We can use one of them.”
“But you can’t, Mr. President,” I protested. “We just need to be patient. It’s only been four days!”
“We can’t wait any longer, Murphy. The risk is too great. That ship could start doing something malevolent at any moment.”
Major Scott whispered in my ear, “His poll numbers have been falling for months. This is his salvation. If he vaporizes this ship, he can campaign as the savior of mankind. If he lets the situation drag on much longer, everyone will think he’s indecisive.”
Still, I pleaded. “Mr. President, do you know how much damage a nuclear blast will do?”
“That’s the point, Murphy!”
“Not to the ship… to everything else! You’ll have a huge fireball, one that will likely incinerate a 40-square mile area. The electromagnetic pulse generated by the blast will most likely fry every computer, cell phone, pacemaker, and slot machine in southeast Nevada. And then there’s the fallout to consider. We’ll be living with the consequences for generations. You can’t do it, sir!”
“You’re at a nuclear test site, Murphy. We tested A-bombs there for decades. We have to do something. It’s my job to decide what’s best for the country and, as far as I’m concerned, what’s best now is to nuke that goddamned saucer.”
###
Later that day, I watched in resignation as a team of soldiers drove a flatbed truck containing a nuclear warhead to the saucer. The driver parked the truck directly under the doomed ship. Then he jumped into a waiting Humvee, which quickly sped away.
The cordon of troops pulled back some fifty miles. Cameras were left in place around the ship to record what happened. When General Decker informed Washington that the preparations were complete, the president gave the order to proceed.
There was a slight wind, enough to carry the radiation cloud northeast, away from Las Vegas. However, that was going to be cold comfort to everyone living in the northern plains states and central Canada. They were going to be directly within the path of the radiation cloud.
###
As I paced about the relocated command center, I glowered at the sergeant seated at the control panel. His finger was poised over a large red button as he ran through the countdown. I couldn’t believe that we were about to vaporize this ship, which undoubtedly possessed intelligent life and technologies that could have potentially revolutionized human existence. Worse, we were going to do so out of fear, ignorance and political expedience.
“You can’t do this,” I yelled to the military brass in the room. “It’s crazy! That saucer hasn’t done anything bad.” I waved my arms for emphasis, but it was useless. Only Major Scott seemed sympathetic. The others glared at me suspiciously, as if I were a madman or potential defector.
“Ten, nine, eight,” the sergeant droned on.
I couldn’t take it any longer. I lunged at the sergeant before his finger could press the button, but strong hands grabbed my arms and shoulders and roughly threw me back against a wall. Struggling, I watched helplessly as the sergeant completed the countdown, “three, two, one, ignition,” and pushed the red button.
There was an initial flash on the TV monitor, but it was not the detonation expected. Instead, the incipient fireball sputtered and then seemed to be sucked up into the saucer, like dust into a vacuum cleaner. The saucer floated up a short distance, wavered a moment, and then shot off into the sky so quickly that it seemed to simply vanish.
Everyone in the command center stared in shock at the TV monitors.
“What happened to the saucer?” General Decker exclaimed.
“Radar’s tracking it, sir. It’s traveling vertically. It’s already twenty miles up.”
“What happened to my explosion?” Decker yelled. “The goddamned truck’s still there!”
“Sir!” the radar operator said, in a tone of total confusion. “The saucer has disappeared from our radar. It just vanished.”
I stared at the monitor. It showed a lonely truck, parked in the middle of the vast Yucca Flats wasteland. It was surrounded by tumbleweeds and cacti that did not seem to have been the least bit affected by the nuclear explosion that had supposedly just taken place.
###
Major Scott and I were sitting in the bar at Las Vegas’ McCarran Airport, waiting for a commercial flight to take us unceremoniously back to D.C. I had been debriefed by the president’s advance team, but it was clear that their confidence in me as the president’s science advisor had been shattered. Not only had I disobeyed the president and tried to stop the destruction of the saucer, but all of my dire predictions had proven utterly false. There hadn’t been a huge fireball or a 40-square mile ring of destruction. Las Vegas hadn’t been fried by a huge electromagnetic pulse. There hadn’t been a mushroom cloud spreading radiation across the northern plains states. None of the bad things that should have happened had actually happened.
A security team, outfitted with Geiger counters and protective clothing, had gone to the truck and discovered that the bomb was gone. The bed of the truck had been scorched, but the truck itself was in fine shape. They had even been able to drive it back to the base. In fact, when they’d started the motor, a jackrabbit had leapt from beneath the truck and hopped off into the underbrush. The radiation level at the bomb site was found to be normal (at least by Yucca Flats’ standards).
I had received a call from Walter Grayson earlier that morning, instructing me to clear out my office as soon as I got back to D.C. and reminding me of the penalties for divulging Top Secret information. My home university had also called to suggest that I take a sabbatical, perhaps to study slime mold on a remote island in the Aleutians, at least until the controversy died down.
Major Scott was clearly in the dumps. Her association with me had undoubtedly damaged her military career, although she didn’t appear to hold me responsible.
“Dr. Murphy, do you have any idea what happened?” she finally asked.
I took a sip of beer and leaned back in my chair. “Well, Major, I’ve been giving quite a bit of thought to it and I do have a theory. I didn’t mention it to the White House hacks, because I doubt they would have listened, but in a weird way it makes sense.”
“And what’s that?”
“I think they needed a jump.”
“A what?”
“The saucer had a power failure, or maybe they just needed fuel. They weren’t invading. They weren’t a threat to us at all, but they knew enough about humans to know how we’d react. They wanted us to nuke them. That’s why they landed where they did. They needed the energy. So, they sat there patiently, waiting for us to panic and accommodate them. And we did. Then they left, all energized again, without so much as a by-your-leave.”
Major Scott appeared confused. “But how would they have any way of knowing how mankind would react?”
“Well, they’ve probably been monitoring our television transmissions for decades. As a result, they’ve likely seen just about every alien invasion movie ever made. Maybe they drew their conclusions from them. Anyway, it would probably be best keep this all to yourself, Major, at least for the time being. I’m afraid my scenario doesn’t fit well with the president’s own movie lexicon. He wants to strike a more heroic pose.”
On the TV screen above our heads, the president was holding a press conference at Nellis Air Base. He had just toured Yucca Flats as the passenger in an F-16 Fighter. There hadn’t been much to see, especially from the cockpit of an F-16, but that hadn’t been the point. TV camera crews had captured the plane’s landing and the president’s heroic disembarkation, clad in a tailored flight suit with Commander in Chief printed on the helmet.
The president approached a podium that had been hastily set up near the runway. Squinting into the teleprompter, he began. “My fellow Americans, less than 24 hours ago, the armed forces of the United States, under my command, repelled an invasion by aliens who threatened the future of the free world, if not the very existence of mankind. Although we’ve decisively won this first battle, this is only the beginning. These diabolical invaders will surely be back and, when they do, we’ll have to be prepared. Therefore, I have just now signed Presidential Security Directive Number 24 authorizing a massive increase in the size of our nuclear arsenal. When they come back, we’ll be ready for them.”
I looked over to Major Scott, who was shaking her head in amazement as she stared wide-eyed at the TV monitor.
“Well,” she said softly, “I sure hope those aliens don’t need to recharge their batteries anytime soon.”
End