“Ah, yes… we met earlier.”
Amanda extended her hand. “Nice to see you again.”
“Nice to see you.” He shook her hand but kept his eyes on Katiya. “Don’t you need some rest? It’s getting late.”
“We’re just going to talk for a few minutes. We’re fine.”
“But—”
“We’re fine, Max.”
He took a few steps backwards but then stopped. “Okay. Let me know if you need anything.”
“Thank you, Max.”
“And let me know—”
“I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”
Max glowered but backed out of the room, closing the door behind him.
Amanda faced Katiya again. “Sorry, but I have to ask… does he always just barge in like that?”
Katiya let out a long sigh. “You’ll have to forgive Max. He and I are close friends, and he cares about me. A lot. I know he’s a bit overbearing, but he really does mean well. If it weren’t for him, I doubt I’d be where I am today.” She poked a few random pages on her bedspread with a finger. “As I’m sure you know, the academic world can be filled with backstabbing and jealousy. And because of that it’s good to have a friend who’ll watch your back. For me, Max is that friend.”
Amanda nodded. She agreed that friends were invaluable, particularly in academia, but it still didn’t explain or excuse the man’s odd behavior. Couldn’t she have found someone a little more stable to run her support network? He seemed a little odd for that role.
Amanda decided it might be a good time to switch gears. “So tell me about alien anthropology. I’m fascinated by the topic.”
“Well, can I tell you a dirty little secret?” Katiya’s eyes beamed playfully.
“Of course. I love dirty little secrets.”
Katiya leaned forward and whispered, “There really isn’t anything to tell.” After holding her serious look for a moment, Katiya laughed. “To be honest, I was afraid someone was going to ask me about it, and I guess I should’ve expected it might be you. I’m exaggerating a bit. We’ve actually conducted quite a bit of research, but the field is still in its infancy.”
Amanda sat upright. “So tell me what you have done.”
“Well, for one, I’ve conducted a lot of interviews. And when I say a lot, I mean a lot.”
“How many?”
“I lost count a long time ago. If I had to guess, I’d say I’m probably approaching a thousand.”
Amanda’s eyes widened. “And who have you interviewed? What’s it all about?”
“Right now it’s the primary way we gather information. We want to talk to anyone who claims to have seen an alien craft or who says they’ve been abducted.” She bit her lower lip. “Let me make a clarification: we don’t interview just anyone. The people we sit down with must have an unassailable reputation for character and ethics. In fact, I probably spend almost as much time looking into each person’s background as I do conducting the interview itself.”
“So, be honest… do you believe these people are telling the truth?”
“Yes, I do,” Katiya answered without hesitation. “My assistants and I do a pretty good job of screening out the nut jobs and the people with a reputation for exaggeration. Once we do that, we find we’re talking to people who are both truthful and stable.” She shrugged. “Obviously, there is the occasional story I’m skeptical of. But I’d say that’s the exception and not the rule.”
“Have you been able to gather any concrete evidence that we’re being visited?”
“Amanda, you’re an archaeologist, so you know there is research and then there is research. For example, you conduct digs and extract things out of the earth: pottery, vases, weapons, cooking utensils, ancient tablets. Then you document those findings in a tangible way.
“It’s different in our field. There’s very little physical evidence.”
“Okay, but very little physical evidence? That implies there is some.”
Katiya held her thumb and index finger slightly apart. “A tiny little bit, yes. And that’s what really gets me excited.”
“Well, let’s hear it.”
Katiya paused for a moment. It seemed like she was sorting through what she could share. Finally, she looked up at Amanda and said, “Okay, here’s one. Two years ago we interviewed a man from a small town in Vermont. Great reputation in his community. Owns a chain of highly successful hardware stores in the eastern part of the state. He has a lot to lose if people think he’s turned into some sort of flake, and yet he still spoke out.
“Anyway, he claims he was abducted on three separate occasions. Each time, he was placed in sort of a hypnotic state before being levitated and carted out of the house. His story was so compelling that we decided to conduct a second interview with him under hypnosis. It’s something we often do with convincing cases. It was during that second interview that we picked up a piece of information that hadn’t come out before. During the final abduction, which had taken place only a week before, one of the beings did something unusual. It placed a hand on one of the sliding glass doors at the back of the man’s home.”
Amanda’s brow furrowed. “He remembered that? It seems like an awfully small detail for someone to recall.”
“That’s the benefit of placing the subject under hypnosis. Recall is amazing in that state. You wouldn’t believe the detail we get. On top of that, we ask questions about everything, and I mean everything. Sometimes I think we’re more thorough than the police.”
“How did the hand on the sliding glass door come up?”
“When I asked him to describe being taken out to the ship, he spoke of the sliding glass door being opened wider to allow him to pass through. I asked if the door opened on its own or whether they touched it. He said they touched it.”
Amanda sat up straighter in her chair.
“Immediately after bringing him out of hypnosis, we sent a forensics team out to dust the door. And he was right. There was a print exactly where we thought it would be, about two-and-a-half feet off the ground.”
“What did the print look like?”
Katiya exhaled slowly. “I can’t lie. It was bizarre. Our forensics expert tells us the ridge design is unlike anything he’s ever seen.”
“Oh my. I’m surprised I haven’t read about this—”
“We haven’t told anyone, nor have I included it in any of my research papers… not yet anyway. There are still some things we’re looking into that I can’t even share with you tonight.”
“You haven’t told the government?”
Katiya laughed. “The government? Why should we tell them anything? They hide everything they have then ridicule those who produce their own information.” After a pause, she said, “But things are changing. I think you’re going to hear them admit to a few things soon… very soon.”
Amanda was about to say something but stopped when she heard the soft pad of footsteps outside the room. Seconds later she heard a door open and close.
Katiya took a swig of her bottled water. After setting it back on the nightstand, she said, “We’ve also obtained other evidence, mostly of a sexual nature. A number of abductees, primarily women, complained of having their bodies probed, sexually. They don’t remember the details because they eventually lost consciousness.”
“They were drugged?”
“That’s the likeliest answer, although it’s also possible they were placed in a hypnotic state using some advanced form of telepathy. The bottom line is that none of them remember anything of substance after leaving their homes.
“Some of the victims had physical marks that bore witness to the fact that they had been abused, but as you can imagine, those could have come from a number of different sources, even from contact with someone in their family. So we continue to document the details and hope that at some point we’ll have our breakthrough, something we can bring to the world.” She smiled. “And that’s why I’m here.”