replied, "I'm not usually a gullible man, but I'd heard rumors of a miracle cure associated with the supposed alien landing site in this area. I drove down from Kanterville, about 40 miles north of here."
"Oh yeah? What've you heard?"
John piped up. "There was this here bright flash, like lightin’, in the morning sky six days ago, and somethin’ crashed into old man Tolson's farm. People say it's really a neat sight. I tried to take a look, but they was chargin’ admission by the time I'd gotten off work."
Jeff spoke up next. "I took a look at it before they started chargin’."
"Whadya see? Anything unusual?"
Jeff replied, "Ya mean other than this big old hole with a spaceship stuck in it?"
"I guess that depends on whether that's considered unusual around here," I retorted.
Missing the sarcasm, Jeff continued, "Heck yeah, sure was weird!"
"Was there anything strange associated with the crash site?"
John spoke up again. "One weird thang were old man Mr. Tolson twas all crippled up with real bad arthritis, but folks are now a-sayin’ he's spry as a young’un. Weird, huh? I been hearin that some others have gotten healthy. They say one of ‘em’s the old-maid Ruth Evans had her lung cancer stop growin’ after bein thar."
Making the connection, I turned to Conrad again. "Is that what you were talking about?"
"Yes. I've got advanced prostate cancer. The docs can't do anything, so I thought I'd give this a try. I ain't got nothin’ to lose."
"I think most of them folks are comin’ for this cure thing," John inserted into the conversation.
I asked the three men, "Do you know how many people have been cured? Have there been any other changes in them?"
Jeff said, "Boy, you sure do ask lots of questions. What're ya, a reporter or somethin’?"
"Sort of." The meal was pretty much over by now, so I figured it was time to leave. I didn’t want to be the one answering questions. Glen and I excused ourselves and headed back to our rooms. Prior to dinner, I had placed a recorder in my pocket and turned it on at the start of the conversation. I know it’s not legal to record someone without their knowledge, but I have found it very helpful in writing my reports. The dinner conversation was interesting, but so far it sounded like a typical aliens-land-and-produce-miracles story. I definitely was not impressed. I sent the report by satellite to OSI headquarters in Washington, D.C.
The next morning, Glen and I decided to get an early start. I hated getting up early even when I lived on a farm, so I’m not an early morning person and just barely a late morning person. I was not in the best of moods at 6 a.m. When we came down, the rest of the house was already up and on the move. We grabbed some toast and orange juice and took off right away, hoping to get to the site before the crowds gathered.
It was the beginning of a bright, hot day. We had gotten directions to the Tolson farm the night before, so we headed directly for the site. As we approached, I began to see signs saying "Parking $5" and noticed that the number of cars in these makeshift parking lots were increasing dramatically the closer we got. Tolson's neighbors, being good Americans, were clearly cashing in on the popularity of the phenomenon. Still about a half-mile from the farm, we finally came to a stretch of road that had cars squeezed into every available space on both sides. I decided to forget about driving further, turned around and went to park in one of the entrepreneurial lots we had just passed.
A constant stream of cars still moved down the road. The man on whose land we parked directed us to a space. I noticed he was growing a large crop of cow pies, and Glen stepped in one of these fecal land mines as he exited the car. While he was cussing, I told him to be sure to clean his shoes before getting back in the car. I guessed the farmer found out he could make more money using the field for parking than for grazing. Our host came up to me for the money. He had a head like a very old apple, all wrinkled and ruddy, and gave me a toothless grin when I gave him the money. I was beginning to wonder if there were any dentists in the area.
Glen and I walked down the road to Tolson's farm. It was easy to find, since there were several hundred people already there. So much for beating the crowd. I later found out that many people just slept in their cars along the road. In addition to the visitors, there were people selling food and souvenirs out the back of trucks. This gave the whole place the atmosphere of a carnival, or maybe a county fair. As we wove our way up the private drive, there was young man collecting an entry fee of $15 per person. Knowing that the money just ended up on my expense account anyway, I forked it over. The young man laughed when I asked for a receipt. He directed us to the impact site, and we headed that way. As we walked, we passed the main house on our left. It was an old two-story colonial, sitting on the top of a small rise. The barn was also old and colonial and was located halfway down the rise, on a level stretch of land.
We had walked about 200 meters when we came to a large group of people, which I correctly assumed had gathered around the crater. Since the house and barn were only about 400 meters from the crater, I knew immediately that this could not be a major meteorite strike, because the house would have been kindling. The crater was located in an open field, with trees only about 200 meters away. There was no sign of scorching on the trees or the grass.
It was going to be tough to get very much information from the area surrounding the impact crater, since the ground had been trampled into a packed surface by the scores of people milling around. We forced our way to the front of the crowd and eventually came up against a chicken wire fence. There were a couple of young men inside the fence patrolling to keep people from getting too close. I guess they didn't want anyone to damage the golden goose.
Outside the fence, we were still only about five meters from the crater and could see to the bottom. The first thing I noticed was that the crater was only about two meters deep and 10 meters in diameter, and did not resemble an impact crater at all. If an object did impact here, it came in at a very shallow angle, cutting a gouge into the earth about 30 meters long. There was earth piled up on the side of the crater opposite the gouge similar to that produced by a bulldozer. The chicken wire fence surrounded the entire gouge and crater area. I was glad to see it; it kept people from destroying any more evidence. I told Glen to head to the other side and look for anything unusual.
When a meteorite strikes the Earth, the ground is bent back on itself out of the crater, and the ground directly beneath the meteorite is vaporized. This can happen on a small scale, which is rare, or on a large scale like the crater in Arizona, which, luckily, is extremely rare in geological history. I guess the dinosaurs were not so lucky.
Obviously, this was not a meteorite crater. It reminded me more of a plane crash site, without the wreckage and bodies. The bottom of the crater seemed to contain a greenish-black glob about a meter in diameter suspended in a pool of dark green Jell-O. I saw nothing nearby that appeared capable of making the crater. Maybe the locals had carted away whatever had been there, or maybe it took off again after crashing. Or maybe the perpetrators had decided making the crater was enough work and quit. I took some pictures of the site for my report and then began asking questions of people in the crowd. I encountered a few of the usual types: UFO hunters, religious and secular doomsayers, etc. But most of them fell into two main categories--those that were curious, and those that wanted to be cured of something. I had underestimated the effect of the healing concept. It was the one thing that needed more investigation.
I decided to talk to Jeremiah Tolson, the older gentleman whose arthritis had supposedly been cured. When I asked, one of the young men on the other side of the fence told me Jeremiah was up at the house. I called Glen, and we headed up there and knocked on the door. A tall, distinguished man with a thick stock of gray hair answered the door. He looked to be in his late sixties.
"Are you Jeremiah Tolson?"
"Yes, I am. What can I do fo
r you?"
"My name is Mack Wharton, and this is Glen Hobbart, we work for the Office of Scientific Investigations, a part of the Federal Government." Glen and I flashed our IDs. "We would like to talk to you about this spaceship in your field. May we come in?"
He smiled, "Sure, come on in."
We entered the house and were lead into the living room, where our host gestured to a sofa that looked like an antique. “Have a seat,” he instructed genially. We sat, looking around as we did. The room was nicely decorated, full of nick-knacks and pictures. The house smelled of wood smoke and cooking, which gave it a very homey feel. Mr. Tolson sat across from us in a rocker. Behind him, I could see an extensive collection of books along the wall.
I thought I should put his mind at rest. Surprisingly, some people don’t trust the government. "I want to make it clear that all we want to do is ask you some questions. This is not to imply that you have done anything wrong; we are just here to investigate. Can you give us a run-down on what has happened here in the last few days?"
"I'd be glad to; I've told it enough times I'm used to it. On Thursday morning, seven days ago, I heard a dull humming sound followed by a loud thud, just after dawn. I looked out the window in time to see a large,