John looked around, removed the jacket from the seat and motioned Connelly to sit down. “Were you followed?” he asked in a quiet tone.

“No. I changed trains several times. I was careful.”

John looked if he wanted to interrogate Connelly further, but he let it go and trusted that they were not being watched. “This is how it works. You have thirty minutes to read the report.” Connelly nodded. The man, John, handed him a folded newspaper. Connelly could feel that a bulky mass of paper within the newspaper. He unfolded the paper and saw the white coversheet of a report. With the report concealed by the newspaper he cautiously turned the blank cover page and saw the real cover page. It was the same coversheet he saw in Wolcott office, except the unrevealed title was now visible.

The Brookings Institute:

Proposed Studies

On

Implications of Space Activities and Alien Encounters

Report Prepared for the

National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Washington D.C.

December 1960

The next page was a table of contents. It was similar in many respects to the new table of contents for the study he was working on. However, his eyes were riveted to a few tittles in the table of contents that were marked out with thick black ink, making the lines impossible to read. He looked toward John as if to ask him why, but John was busy eating lunch and looking at beautiful young women in short dresses walking around the conservatory. John was playing the part perfectly. His proximity and body language made it appear that he and Connelly were complete strangers, which they were, but in this instance he looked entirely removed from the situation. Connelly decided to not ask questions, but quickly looked at the report.

The report was well over two hundred pages, not including the appendixes, which were not included. Past the table of contents was a letter much like Wolcott’s letter, a self-congratulatory letter explicating the great benefits of the study. Under the goals and methods sections of the Summary were outlined general goals for the research.  Connelly reminded himself that this report was completed in 1960 and perhaps the research stared in 1958. The bulk of the report was weighted toward the implications, recommendations, speculations of living in space and exploiting the Moon and other extraterrestrial bodies.

The vision was ostentatious, as one might expect. It would have been fun to just read the predictions and see which ones came true. However, he didn’t have time. As Connelly skimmed each page, he would hesitate, intrigued by the thick black lines the concealed words and sentences from the report. From the context of the surrounding sentences the marked out words and sentences were names of projects, people and places that were relevant to some argument or assertion. It was becoming clear that the audience for this report had to be deeply familiar with an array of other projects and events. This means that the audience had to be rather small.

The most interesting sections were the smallest and the most heavily edited. These were the sections that Wolcott said the new study would expand and clarify, sections eight and nine: Implications for internal Affairs and National Policy and Implications to Society’s Attitudes and Values. Although the titles seemed monotonous the content was fascinating. The flow was broken by the black marker, but the gist of the sections was narrative speculations upon national and foreign policy in the event of alien contact.

Time was slipping away from him so he read fast and tried to not analyze the content until he was finished. This agnostic approach was difficult but he tried. The researchers on the original report postulated on the reaction of individuals in the event that contact with Aliens was established. First, they speculated that first contact would occur via radio. In 1960 this was highly unlikely, but now with S.E.T.I. scanning the skies for contact it seemed probable. They further said that reaction to any contact would depend on the cultural, social and religious background of the individuals. How government officials responded to the news would also be a factor. Governments response would be depend on their perceived role in the contact efforts. Threats to the Governments role of power could sour the milk of the experience.

Secondly, if the contacts were face to face, then a new set of variables would affect the response. If the aliens looked human, they supposed the trauma would be lessoned.  The last paragraph of section nine stopped Connelly and he read it several times.

We recommend that further studies be conducted to measure the emotional, social and religious impact of such encounters. This research could be amended to current projects such as …[marked out in black]. These studies should also determine the risk factors of such a discovery. Ramifications of such a discovery should be assessed on a by-county basis. Historical and empirical studies of human behaviors when confronted with unfamiliar events and dramatic social pressures could serve as a baseline for such a study. As learned from the …[marked out in black] … attitudes about space activities and extraterrestrial life vary widely within religious institutions. After this data is collected we recommend a follow up study to determine actions and activities that could shape policy in preparation of …[marked out in black]…

”Time is up,” John said.

Still stunned and in deep thought, Connelly folded the newspaper and handed back the report. He wanted to read more to assiduously absorb the report- his craving for more information was ravenous now.

“Why are certain sections marked out?” Connelly asked.

“My office doesn’t have clearance to those parts of the study.”

“There are several reports that are referenced to this report. Do you have access to them?”

“Yes, some.”

“Can I see them?”

“No, I’ve read them- they’re a waste of time. If your research is a follow-up to this study, then artifacts of old project are not important. Those all lead to closed doors. You’ve seen a piece of a large puzzle.” 

“This confirms many things.” Connelly matched the reverent tone of John. “I know what the original study is about and I also know what the current study is about. I still don’t know why. Why now? The new research is more slanted toward religious opinion. Why the emphasis?”

John spoke with authority. “The way to solve this conundrum to see the big picture. Mexico is the key to all of this.”

“So, what do you know about Mexico?”

“You’re asking the wrong question. You can’t find information by going at it head-on. You have to be indirect. Think about it, if an operation is being conducted in Mexico what would they need to have to carry it out?

Connelly answered confidently. “People and resources.”

“I have access to the recruiting database for certain agencies. They only thing I can confirm is that we have an operation in Mexico. The government has recruited a large number of people to conduct operations down there in the last decade.”

“What is the current operation?”

“Again, you have to be indirect. I can’t access operation information but I can correlate the characteristics of the people being recruited. I found a few common factors in background of each asset.” John stopped and looked at the thinning crowd. 

“What’s the connection?”

“I have to go.” With this John stood up from the bench walked into the crowd and then disappeared.

*   *    *

“So let’s take the events that have occurred in Mexico and try to dissect it, knowing what we know and come up with an alternative causality.”

Connelly nodded again, but took exception. Connelly wasn’t sure of anything, this was all speculation and he took the mental leap forward and realized that in the end of this conversation this would only equate to speculation unless they had real proof. 

“I found many accounts of UFO sightings in Mexico.”

“I did some research on this too,” Connelly said. “There seemed to be high amount of activity in the nineties.” Troy was pleased by this extra credit work. However, Troy knew his story would be new to Connelly. “Exactly, but I found one account that was distinctly different. On October 27, 1995, in the state of Veracruz near the cities Jalapa, Las Margaritas, and Santa Rosa, witnesses reported seeing two UFOs have a mid-air collision. The newspapers seemed to do a good job in interviewing witnesses who verified that same event. While the crash was never discovered, they claimed that there were fires in fields and radiation from the crash. The newspapers also suggested that the military came in and took the objects. There were also follow-up stories of other UFOs in the skies over the next week.”

“But here is the twist,” Geoff continued. “A respected ufologist went to the location to investigate a few weeks latter. He could only confirm one fact. People had seen lights in the sky and an explosion. Some said it was an aircraft. Others said that there were no military personal at the crash site just fireman and police. All of the reported facts were becoming unraveled. Many of witness either retracted their story or said the newspaper was lying or they claimed they hadn’t even been interviewed. So, Connelly, based on these facts, what do you think happened?”

“There are many possibilities I guess. There is now way to prove that it was a UFO.”

“Exactly. Many possibilities. I submit that their goal was to diffuse the truth by introducing many variables and possibilities.”

“So what happened?

“That is the wrong question. They want us to spend our time endless debating what happened and not ask the real question. We shouldn’t ask what happened. We should be asking who made it happen.”

“I’m not sure I follow,” Connelly protested with a furrowed brow.

“They want us to accept their cause for the event. The obvious conclusion is that the whole explanation is a lie. A crackpot story, so that the whole thing gets discredited.”

“Who influenced whom?”

“It’s about control and influence. The newspapers in Mexico can be easily influenced. So, after the event they pushed some gray propaganda to the papers.”

“But didn’t the UFOlogist expose the truth?”

“No, and that’s the part that nobody understands. They knew that a real investigator would expose the lies and then report how they foiled the hyperbole of the newspapers. This only serves their purposes. So regular people see the story, one that is hard to believe in the first place, but they want to believe it. Then they see the story from the UFOlogist and find out that it is a hoax. They then go back to viewing all of these reports with great skepticism. And so society believes in life on other planets, but they don’t think they are in our backyard.”

“Okay, then what really happened? Did two aliens spaceships crash?”

“The truth is what was not reported and what was not denied. Let me ask you this: How could an advanced society, which traveled millions light years to reach Earth, using advanced technology, have a mid-air collision?”

“It doesn’t make sense.”

“Unless the pilots were human!” Troy looked deeply at Connelly face to see if he made the connection.  

“I’m not sure I get it yet.” He was almost there- he could nearly see Troy’s twisted perspective.

“The truth is not denied because it was never revealed. Let’s go back to your research and make some assumptions. You said your research measures results of events and how those events shape culture and belief.”

“Yes, that was what my survey basically did.”

“So, what events?” Troy asked, knowing the answer.

“It wasn’t specific to a certain event.”

“But what if it were? What if the other questions, the ones you didn’t write, are being used to measurement a specific event or events?

“Yes, that is possible.”

“Then let’s suppose,” Troy rallied his voice and tone to sound professor-like, “that the government wanted to measure the effect of UFOs on society. They want a control group. They introduce events into the society and then measure the results by sampling the population after the event. Does this make sense?”

Connelly’s mind was electrified with this new revelation. “So what you’re proposing is that the Government is flying UFOs over Mexico, making it really obvious and then seeing what effect that has on society. So the mid-air collision happened, but it was human pilots, not aliens. That is the secret! And if that secret was exposed, then the experiment would be nullified.”

Proud of his student, Troy relaxed and sat back in his chair and smiled. “Yes, my boy, I think you’ve got it.”