Truman Bethurum's story about meeting the Space People
spread quickly through the Wells Cargo Company work camp, winning him much
derision. His co-workers 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 and
gone aboard a flying saucer? Had it all been a dream or heat-induced
hallucination?
But on the night of August 3, 1952, he encountered the
gleaming disc again, confirming forever, at least for himself, the physical
reality of his experience, and the real presence of extraterrestrial vehicles
and their occupants on Earth.
Still working the night shift, Bethurum was just completing
repairs to several trucks on the camp's perimeter when he saw what looked
like a meteor streaking through the night sky, pulsing brightly from bluish-green
to yellow, orange, and back again. The "meteor" fell from the sky,
vanishing silently behind the duned desert landscape about a half mile
east of the site of his initial encounter. Sure the saucer had returned,
Bethurum lit out across the desert in his own small truck, bumping and
bouncing over the rough terrain, too eager even to bother searching out
a road toward his destin-ation. He found the ship again hovering
close to the ground, only a mile from busy Highway 91, the main thoroughfare
through Salt Lake City.
A group of small men milled about in front of the saucer,
talking together in that same mumbling language whose rumble had awakened
him in his truck when they first met. A doorway opened and the lady
captain appeared, beckoning for him to approach with a wave of her hand.
He followed her into the ship and down the long corridor to her cabin.
The captain gestured for him to take a seat on the curving couch, then
sat beside him, smiling.
They talked openly together, like old friends.
She explained that the nature of earthlings and of her own people were
very similar, that the people of her world were human beings, too, sharing
the same feelings and foibles, the same natural talents and challenges.
Her people, however, had met these challenges directly, and had chosen
a less destructive course than the one present-ly being pursued by the
people of Earth. She was unimpressed by Earth technology and
military might as well, lamenting our invariably destructive use of these
resources. She valued Earth's politics and politicians no more highly.
"These things are sad," she answered in response to questions
concerning economic inequality and juvenile delinquency. "I'm glad we're
troubled with neither on Clarion."
So, their home world was called Clarion. What a
place it must be, Bethurum thought! A world without trouble of any
kind. A world very much like an earthling's dream of Heaven...
After only half an hour, the lady captain from the planet
Clarion signaled that the visit was over. As soon as Bethurum placed
his feet on the sandy ground outside the great saucer, the disc was gone,
streaking away into the night sky as mysteriously as it had appeared.
He glanced at his watch, but it had stopped. Even
the winding gears of the now-useless device appeared to have given out
under the assault of the saucer's magnetic filed. He shoved the broken
timepiece into his pocket and started toward his truck.
A PROPER INTRODUCTION
Barely two weeks later, on August 18, 1952, the "scow"
returned, this time streaking down from the sky to a spectacular, silent
landing less than 200 yards from Bethurum's small truck. He joined
the captain again in her cabin, this time armed, in anticipation of their
conversation, with a list of questions he had compiled since their last
meeting.
Topping his list was the lady captain's name. His
friend and boss, Whitey Edwards, had inquired about the name of the heavenly
feminine creature Bethurum had so
enthusiastically described, and, when he had to admit
that he did not know, that he had never even thought to ask, Edwards had
chided him, "Then you haven't been properly introduced yet!" He would remedy
that!
"Aura Rhanes," she told him, then she spelled it out
loud, in English, so that he could accurately record it among the growing
notes he had begun to keep of his encounters.
They spoke together of the vast desert spaces, the extreme
heat, the scarcity of water in the arid landscape around them to which
she concluded, cryptically, "I expect to be around for a thousand years,
but the water in your deserts will mostly be tears."
She allowed him to touch her arm and shoulder, to assure
himself of her reality, that he was not dreaming. They exchanged family
stories, the tiny, seemingly youthful Captain Rhanes revealing that she
was a grandmother, with two small grandchildren back on Clarion.
The conversation turned again to the social conditions
found on Earth. She spoke sadly about the continual strife her crew
had observed among earthlings, conclud-ing that the inhabitants of other
planets are much too busy improving the welfare of their people to have
time for even minor controversies.
Other planets, Bethurum questioned? He explained that
scientists on Earth believed that life was not possible on any other world.
She said that such a view was understandable, in that, in her experience,
signs of life on any world were virtually impossible to detect from a great
distance. All one sees is a hodgepodge of lights and shadow.
Nothing even hinting of life can be discerned on any planet until it is
approached at close-range by an interplanetary vehicle like the Clarion
scow.
Bethurum's last questions focused mainly on the mechanical
operations and capabilities of the saucer itself. But each time he
asked for technical details, his questions went unanswered, or were gently
deflected back toward issues of philosophy and social conditions on Earth.
He allowed Captain Rhanes' direction in this, recognizing that this wise
and beautiful woman from another world was not prepared to trust him, or
any earthling, with the secrets of so powerful a technology whose potential
might be perverted for destructive purposes, even turned against the Clarionites
themselves someday, by his own primitive and warlike race.
She sent him back to the desert with a promise to return
yet again. He only needed to think of the time and place, and they
would appear. Dawn was just breaking in the east as the gleaming
saucer shot like a meteor back into the heavens.