On the night of August 25, 1952, the Clarion scow returned.
Bethurum, desperate for independent confirm-ation of his encounters, had
convinced Whitey Edwards to accompany him on his night shift for a while,
in hopes that he might see the saucer and meet the Space People for himself.
But on that night, Whitey was called away for a brief errand, leaving Bethurum
once again alone on the mesa, and the Clarionites chose just that moment
to make their appearance.
"Hello. You know that we are here," came a voice from
beside his truck. Bethurum jumped out of the vehicle and turned to
discover Aura Rhanes standing near him, the silvery glow of moonlight giving
her smooth, clear skin the appearance of sculpted marble. He did
not see the saucer until he turned slowly to the southwest to find the
massive ship behind him, where it must have landed so silently that he
had remained unaware of its presence where he sat in his truck, mere yards
away. Several of the diminutive crewmen were milling about the vessel,
conversing together in their mumbling language.
Bethurum followed the beautiful captain again to her
cabin, where he asked her a series of questions his friends at work, as
well as many of the neighborhood children, had given him to pose to the
visitors.
First, he wanted to know if Clarion, the name they used
for their home planet, might actually be known to earthlings under another
name, perhaps Mars, Jupiter or Venus.
Captain Rhanes assured him that Clarion was unique and
completely unknown to and invisible from Earth, being located "... on the
other side of the moon..."
She stated that, from space, the Earth itself looks
like a lifeless moon, that all the abundance of our world was invisible
at a distance, just as our moon's abundance was invisible from Earth.
She said that illusory, phantom planets inhabit our solar system as well,
mirages cast into space by light refracting off the moisture in some planets'
atmospheres. These mirror-image globes could not be distinguished
from real planets until an observer was in immediate proximity.
He asked about Mars, which Captain Rhanes described as
a beautiful place to see, a great manufacturing planet with many human
inhabitants who live in large, flowered country estates. But she
obviously considered Clarion to be even more beautiful, and suggested slyly
that earth-lings might soon be allowed to visit her world to observe its
beauty and learn its peaceful ways firsthand. But she refused to
give details as to when or how this might be accomplished.
Bethurum had brought a camera to this encounter, and
he asked if he might be permitted to take the lady captain's picture as
proof of his contact.
“I think not,” she replied coolly, pointing out that
a picture wouldn't do Bethurum any good, anyway. "Merely a woman
in a room. A picture wouldn't prove anything."
After this exchange, he found himself being escorted
from the saucer – but, again, with the promise of a return visit.
Once outside the ship, he made a casual comment to one of the little men
about the immensity of the ship, wondering aloud at what its massive weight
must be.
Captain Rhanes laughed from the doorway, and suggested
that he try to lift the ship with his bare hands.
Bethurum wedged his shoulder under the protruding rim
of the saucer and heaved – the whole craft rose easily at his touch.
He tipped the disc several feet off the ground before lowering it again
to its hovering position.
The little men scurried past him to reboard, and in a
flash, the ship was gone.
A RESTAURANT ENCOUNTER
Around 3:30 AM, on August 27, 1952, Bethurum was enjoying
a late night snack of pie and coffee with Whitey Edwards in a small Glendale,
Nevada diner when he felt an elbow in his side. Edwards gestured
eagerly toward the lunch counter, where a small man was seated next to
a tiny woman wearing a black and red beret, a black, velvety blouse, and
a brilliant red pleated skirt... It had to be Aura Rhanes and one
of her crewmen!
Bethurum looked, and confirmed Edwards' suspicion. Would
he like to be introduced?
Edwards, strangely put off by the presence of the celestial
visitors, refused and began gathering his things to leave.
"If you do," Bethurum cautioned, "stand near the door
so you can see what they get into and which way they go when they come
out."
Then he approached his extraterrestrial friends.
"I beg your pardon, Lady, but haven't we met before?"
No , she insisted to each of his repeated requests for
recognition, no, no. He turned to pay his check, and the pair were
gone. He rushed outside and demanded Whitey Edwards’ report – where
had they gone?
"Honest, Tru," his friend responded, "Not a blessed soul
passed through that door until you came out."
THE PURLOINED FLASHLIGHT
For some months now, Bethurum had been working to convince
his wife, Mary, to join him in Mormon Mesa, in hopes that she, too, might
witness the spaceship landings and meet the people of the planet Clarion.
But circumstances had continually frustrated his ambition. Mary was
caring for a friend's child, the heat was too much, and on and on.
Finally, he wrote her a long letter, the first to mention
his experiences among the Space People, laying out his encounters to date
in detail and begging her to come and be at his side. Again, she
refused, this time voicing grave concern for his state of mind, and insisting
that he forget all about flying saucers so as not to draw negative attent-ion
to himself or his family.
Her response left him angry and dejected. Worse
yet, he was beginning to hear just the sort of negative rumblings from
his coworkers that Mary so feared. Some of the men, with son's fighting
in Korea, had come to believe that if Bethurum was really consorting with
strange foreigners in flying machines, the strangers must be Korean spies,
making him out to be a traitor to his country. The men had threatened
to follow him on his nightly desert excursions, and to shoot him and anyone
coming down out of the sky at the first sign of collusion.
The scow appeared for a fifth visit on September 5, 1952.
After the usual session of hard questions and vague answers, Captain Rhanes
fixed Bethurum with a concern-ed look. She acknowledge that he appeared
distraught and worried, and asked with sincerity how she might be ease
his mind.
He confided, then, about his wife's concern, and the
threats made by his fellow workmen. Was he endanger-ing his newfound
friends by continuing to meet with them?
She laughed, lightly and deliciously. "Why, Truman,"
she said, "do you imagine anyone on Earth can harm us? They might
annoy us, yes, but never harm us. None of your
Earth people have anywhere near the powers which we control."
What if they attacked, he questioned? Would they
be killed?
Captain Rhanes insisted that the her people killed no
one, and that the hostile parties would simply disappear.
She escorted him out of the saucer, pausing at the doorway
to request that Bethurum hand over some small material object with which
she might demonstrate the true power possessed by the people of Clarion.
He unclipped a small flashlight from his belt and held
it out before her. Without a sound, the device vanished before his
eyes. He stared into his empty hand with amazement.
"Yes, it's gone," she said quietly. "Forever."
"Forever..." Bethurum echoed solemnly. He stepped
away from the saucer, stunned, forgetting even to say good-bye. When
he turned to offer a belated wave, the ship was gone.