Aboard a Flying Saucer: Truman Bethurum and the People of the Planet Clarion by Frank G. Wilkinson Read Free Book Online Page A

powers.
     
    He watched her striking figure as she talked, and again made note of the strange, taught quality of the skin he had noticed in the little men. Her face was gaunt and sharp-boned, almost as if some sort of plastic sheet had been drawn tight over an underlying frame. Her dark eyes reflected great understanding, and seemed to guide his questioning, leading him psychically toward certain questions, away from others. In a hypnotic, sing-songy voice, like someone reading Mother Goose stories aloud to a child, she questioned him about his work, and about the men building structures in the desert (the asphalt plant).
     
    She answered his questions, too, explaining that, while some of the flying saucers being sighted in American skies belonged to her people, the more bizarre news stories involving monsters with hooks or grotesque tails were creations of liars seeking publicity.
     
    As if in response to some imperceptible signal, the lady captain rose without warning and led Bethurum back down the long corridor and out of the saucer. As they emerged into the desert air through the topside portal, he was shocked to discover that the sun was already well over the horizon. Many hours had passed in what seemed to him like mere moments.
     
    He thanked his interplanetary hosts for allowing him to come aboard the "Admiral's Scow," as they had referred to their ship. The captain promised to return soon to visit him again – all he needed to do was to think the place and the day. She and her crew would hear his thoughts and keep the appointment.
     
    The great saucer dipped again toward the sandy desert floor. Bethurum stepped off and the door closed silently behind him. As the disc rose away into the dawn sky, he examined its immensity end to end in the sunlight. No propellers, rudders or exhaust vents dimmed its gleaming exterior. It made no sound at all as it drifted toward the clouds then vanished suddenly, without leaving so much as a vapor trail in its wake.
     

SPILLING THE BEANS
     
    Bethurum resolved not to tell anyone about his experience. On the long ride back to the work camp, he imagined the ridicule and persecution he would receive if his fellows knew what had transpired – the same ridicule and disbelief he would have heaped on anyone telling him the same story only the day before.
     
    The last thing he expected was corroboration of his experience. When he got back to the camp, he was surprised to find Whitey Edwards waiting anxiously for his return. Had an airplane landed or crashed in the desert? His boss had personally witnessed something huge and metallic descending toward Bethurum's location in the night. What was it? Had Bethurum seen it land?
     
    "It...," Bethurum admitted reluctantly, his natural honesty getting the better of him in the face of his friend's genuine concern, "... It was a flying saucer!"
     
    The rest of the day he got the jokes and jibes he expected as his fellow workmen teased him about "little green men," and questioned his sobriety and sanity. But, to his surprise, a few of the men asked him serious questions, too, allowing themselves to wonder at the possibility of life on other worlds.
     
    When the workday was done, Bethurum returned to his small hotel room. He was still so highly charged from the encounter that, with shaking hands, he located stationary and pen, wrote out a letter, and placed it carefully on the nightstand before retiring to his dreams:
     
    "If I am found dead in my bed," he wrote, "it will be because my heart has stopped from the terrible excitement induced by seeing and going aboard a flying saucer!"
     

Part II: Clarion Call !
     
    Truman Bethurum's story about meeting the Space People spread quickly through the Wells Cargo Company work camp, winning him much derision. His coworkers nicknamed his "Saucers." He became embittered, isolating himself from the others, even questioning his own memory of the most important event of his life – had he really seen