It seems hard to believe that sixty five years ago the Roswell Daily Journal's headline screamed out to the world 'RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region'. The story goes that Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) public information officer Walter Haut issued a press release stating that personnel from the 509th Bomb Group recovered a 'flying disk' from a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. With that one press release a legend had been born.
The next day, it was reported by General Roger M. Ramey that a radar-tracking balloon was recovered and not a so called flying disc. A press conference was held and debris from the crash was shown which seemed to confirm the weather balloon story. Of course that never really killed the story and here we are 65 years later still talking about the 'Roswell incident'. Was a flying saucer, a UFO, really recovered from Roswell? Were there alien crash survivors? Not sure if we will ever really know.
Now is your chance to read a new spin on the tale by reading the latest short science fiction story on your Amazon Kindle or Kindle app - 'The Roswell Chronicles And Other Tales' by Craig W. Anderson. Here is a brief excerpt from just one of the stories in 'The Roswell Chronicles And Other Tales' -
The Roswell Chronicles
The disc was spotlighted by circles of orange illumination beneath a row of low-hanging overhead lamps supported by a chaotic wood scaffold of rough, thick beams and blocks. Its surface was seamless, a uniform dull gray, its lines were smooth and classic: two huge metal pie plates placed face to face. The left side was crumpled, torn, thin metal skin peeled up, flayed and ripped, the framework beneath a confusion of narrow, shredded "I" beams, looping intestine-like tangles of conduit, wiring and weird segmented bulkheads. A low crystal-like dome topped the ship and a row of three windows of the same material was inset along the edge facing Tolliver. In the shadows near the hangar wall tarpaulins hid bulking, oddly angled shapes.
A subtle and unsettling aroma filled the building; Tolliver's mouth suddenly filled with saliva and he choked slightly.
"Yeah, it stinks," Addison said calmly. "It takes getting used to." He puffed his pipe, clouds of blue smoke encircling his head. "I smoke whenever I'm near the damned thing. It takes the edge off the stench."
Tolliver dropped the camera bag and sucked in Addison's secondary smoke. Cherry Blend. It did help; his nausea faded.
"Ah . . ." Tolliver said. He swallowed and tried again. "Incredible! My god, it's…it’s real!"
"Of course it is. Take a good look, grab some photos, walk around, poke it, prod it, check it out," Addison said. "I worked on this son-of-a-bitch for almost 50 years and . . ." He shrugged. "Do whatever you like."
Tolliver approached the disc warily and reached a trembling hand to it, his eagerness to touch an alien artifact warring with his visceral fear of the completely unknown.
"Go ahead. It doesn’t bite….much." Addison’s voice seemed far away.
In the shadow beneath the Roswell spaceship, Tolliver’s trembling fingers slid over the curve of cool metal and the ship stung his fingertips as if a charge of unknown power linked his flesh to it. The sensation was ugly, offensive and different, completely beyond his experience. He jerked his hand away as if burned.
He scrubbed his hand on his jeans and backed away from the hulking disc, out of its shadow. “What was…?” Shuddering, he looked at Addison who shrugged. A few deep breaths later, Tolliver said, “It’s big.”
"It is that," Addison gestured at the ruined disc. "Adjusting for the damage, it's just an inch under 50 feet in diameter, about the size of a WW II P-38 Lightning fighter’s wingspan." He pointed to the dome. "Including the dome, it's 15 feet thick." Addison stroked the metal skin thoughtfully.
“Christ, doesn’t that bother you?” Tolliver fumbled while attaching a wide angle/macro lens to his Nikon.
“Eh? Oh…you get used to it.” Addison dropped his hand, blew smoke rings, and looked around as if returning from a daydream.
"I've got to get some photos." Tolliver slipped a small portable tape recorder into his pocket, clipped the tiny microphone to his collar and pushed the record button. He’d recovered enough to be reasonably professional. "Will it fog the images or erase the tape?"
“No. It has a very low, fluctuating magnetic field about the same as a transistor radio. It won't damage your images or tape. We know that much, at least."
Tolliver put the Nikon's viewfinder to his eye and moved around the spaceship, the flashes of the strobe absorbed by the strange ambience of the place.
40 shots later, Tolliver ran a hand over his face and stared at his sweat-drenched palm.
"It has . . . it makes me . . . I . . ." Tolliver gulped a breath. Addison chuckled.
"You're feeling the alien-ness of it. If you stay in here too long, it does bizarre things to your mind," Addison said. "I've never been comfortable around it, never, in all the years I’ve studied it. It’s from . . . out there and it overloads our senses. You're good, Tolliver . . . or lucky. Most who worked on Majestic puked within moments of entering its…ah…sphere of influence."
"What's under the tarps?" Tolliver waved a hand at the canvas-covered piles.
Addison said, "Come and see."
Download now on your Amazon Kindle or Kindle app - 'The Roswell Chronicles And Other Tales' by Craig W. Anderson and read the 'real' story behind what happened 65 years ago!
