"Can't say that I have.
"Ever discuss them?"
"Whit, what is this about?"
"Ever discuss them?"
"No. Now what? Do I win or lose?"
A child like I was, brought up in the fifties, would have known about flying saucers.
They were big news in those days. But they aren't now, so it's not surprising that the little girl was uninformed, but it is important. It is very important, obviously. The girl saw what she saw, in a simple and real way. When people dismiss such innocent and uninformed testimony, they make a great mistake. Precisely be cause it is so uninformed, it is powerful evidence of the reality of the phenomenon.
But what reality? Maybe the child really saw an object in the physical world. But maybe, also, the mind has powers that we do not understand. Perhaps there is such a thing as mental telepathy, and when I asked the image to help me, what I really did was send my own inner self on a quest. And at the end of its quest it found this innocent, open little mind, entered it, and there created a hallucination, knowing full well that the little guest would be the last person at the house likely to see anything — and thus the first one to be believed.
By nine both children were fast asleep. I was in a surprisingly benign mood, listening to music on WAMC out of Albany and enjoying being with my wife. We sat together in the parlor in our big upstairs bedroom and got sleepier and sleepier. By the time the clock rang ten it was all we could do to crawl into bed. We went to sleep.
Sometime during the night I was awakened abruptly by a jab on my shoulder. I came to full consciousness instantly. There were three small people standing beside the bed, their outlines clearly visible in the glow of the burglar-alarm panel. They were wearing blue coveralls and standing absolutely still.
They were familiar figures, not the fierce, huge eyed feminine being I have described before, but rather the more dwarflike ones, stocky and solidly built, with gray. humanoid faces and glittering, deep-set eyes. They were the ones I felt were "the good army" when they took me tin December 26.
I thought to myself, My God, I'm completely conscious and they're just standing there. I thought that I could turn on the light, perhaps even get out of bed. Then I tried to move my hand, thinking to flip the switch on my bedside lamp and see the time.
I can only describe the sensation I felt when tried to move as like pushing my arm through electrified tar. It took every ounce of attention I possessed to get any movement at all. I marshaled my will and brought my attention into the sharpest possible focus. Simply moving my arm did not work. I had to order the movement, to labor at it. All the while they stood there.
I struggled, bit by bit clawing closer and closer to that lamp. I turned my head, fighting a pressure that felt as if a sheath of lead had been draped over me, and saw the light switch in the dark. I watched my hand move slowly closer, and finally felt the switch under my finger.
I clicked it. Nothing. Tried again. Still nothing.
The electricity was off. The burglar alarm was still working because it had battery backup — but apparently it meant little to them, as they had entered the house without tripping it.
When I turned my head back I confronted a sight so weird. I thought afterward that I did not know how to write about it. I still don't, so I am just going to plunge ahead.
Beside my bed, and perhaps two feet from my face, close enough to see it plainly without my glasses. was a version of the thin ones, the type I have called "her." It was not quite right, though. Its eyes were like big, black buttons, round rather than slanted. It appeared to be wearing an inept cardboard imitation of a blue double-breasted suit, complete with a white triangle of handkerchief sucking out of the pocket.
I was overcome at this point by terror so fierce and physical that it seemed more biological than psychological. My blood and bones and muscles were much more afraid than my mind. My skin began tingling, my hair felt like it was getting a static charge. he sense of their presence in the room was so unimaginably powerful, and so strange. I tried to wake up Anne but my mouth wouldn't open. The moment I thought of the kids a clear picture flashed in my head of the two of them sleeping peacefully.
The thing before me seemed like a sort of interrogatory. Why the suit? Did it mean that they were showing me a male? If this was a hive species, there might well be more than one sex, and they might be physically very different. Females, males, and stocky little drones?
Now what was I going to do, having called them — lie here and quake? I had wanted to communicate.
They were obviously waiting for me to do something. I saw their faces so clearly, their eyes dark, glittering pits in their dun skin. I could not help noticing that there was a sort of jollity about these beings. I'd thought before that they seemed happy. Perhaps whatever they were trying to do was going well.
They had responded to my summons. What on earth should I say? I wanted them to know that I was still in possession of myself, that despite what I can only describe as a terrific assault against me, physically and mentally, I was still functional and on some level independent. More than this, I wanted them to know how I felt about them, despite all the complex connotations of what they were now doing to me. There may very well be good reasons for their behavior. Have all of their contacts with human beings been peaceful? And how about me: Had I fought in the past?
If they had a hive mind, it might be that the amount of volition I had left was all they could allow me without risking loss of control of the situation. What if I'd been able to do something unexpected very quickly, like reach out and take one of them by the shoulders?
Would the hive then have become confused about where this being was? Would it have been that simple to take a captive?
There was and is no way that I would ever make a provocative gesture in heir presence. In fact, I wouldn't move at all unless bidden, not until I understand more. If one could escape into their world, one could also get lost in it.
Lying in that bed, I felt a very strong sense of responsibility. I had to communicate in some nonthreatening manner. I was an emissary of sorts — although perhaps only to the court of nightmare. If so it was a strange sort of bad dream, in that the terror began to pass even though the dream hadn't ended.
Again it took an absolute concentration of will, a centering of my attention and the application of the most careful effort to the muscles of my face, but I did manage to smile.
Instantly everything changed. They dashed away with a whoosh and I was plunged almost at once back into sleep. Now I did dream — qualitatively a very different experience from what had just transpired. Frankly, I'm quite certain that the beings I saw were not a dream, and probably not a hallucination. What they were was an enigma.
Interestingly, my dream was an unfrightening repeat of one of the few really terrifying nightmares I have ever had. This was of being chased through a stark stone palace by a robot with beady pop eyes. This time, however, I didn't run and the robot finally sat down and contented itself with staring at me.
The next thing I knew, morning came. I opened my eves, feeling absolutely drained.
Anne said, "Well, it was a quiet night," and proceeded to make a beautiful breakfast while I sat and stared.
Everybody was happy and well around the breakfast table. The Times was as thick as ever and the coffee and waffles were delicious. I was back in my world again, with my own familiar family. When I told Anne about what had happened, she laughed merrily at the idea of the painted suit of aged design. and reset the clock on the stove. which had lost five minutes during the night.
I found that one of the other people I have met has also had an experience involving visitors in archaic quits. This suggests that the visitors are not too interested in our clothing, or confused about its significance . . . or perhaps that their thought processes have not gotten very far vet in regard to clothing. It may be that, if we ever meet them openly, they will not be quite as naked as the creature who emerged in Close Encounters. Perhaps they will be wearing double-breasted suits circa 195Y, complete with pocket handkerchiefs.