(NOTE: this is a work of SCIENCE-FICTION (Or is it?…) From ‘Tales of the New Mexico Mythos: Weird Fiction from the Land of Enchantment,’ an E-book published by The Zombie Lama, available from Amazon.com).

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I met a very interesting gentleman while visiting the Roswell UFO convention with my wife last year. He approached me at one of the booths inside of the enormous convention hall. The place was filled with hundreds of like minded folks from every corner of the globe, milling about and gawking at each other amongst all of the cheesy, over-priced ‘alien’ merchandise. I was hovering over a vendor’s table, leafing through a book with the intriguing title:

The Secret US Space Program: Trillion Dollar Boondoggle.

As I stood there, engrossed in the photos section of the book, a guy came over to me, gave me a nudge, and muttered something under his breath:

“I know about that program.”

I admit it sounds crazy, but the idea of a highly secret, privately managed space program run by the United States or some other country always seemed within the realm of possibility to me. I had done some research on the subject, and my gut feeling was that there’s more to it then what is publicly acknowledged. I had eagerly watched every moon landing on TV as a child and I enthusiastically anticipated the world of space stations and moon bases depicted in Stanley Kubrick’s classic movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey. I’d always wondered what the hell had happened and why I wasn’t living in that world right now.

Even so, I was taken aback by this stranger’s comment. “You know about the Secret Space Program?” I asked, “Did I hear you correctly?”

“Yes.”

I was hooked, and I turned to face him. The first thing that struck me was his blue eyes. They were such an intense shade of azure as he met my gaze with the most sincere, compassionate look I’ve ever seen. It’s hard to describe, but I immediately felt a connection to this man. I smiled at him – I like to engage people, and I’ve certainly never shied away from starting (or joining in) small talk with strangers while standing in line at the grocery store or at the bank, so I wasn’t intimidated, and I wasn‘t bothered by his approach.

My wife Valerie and I had come to the annual UFO Convention as a lark, just to have fun and experience some good old-fashioned ‘Americana’ first hand. When we got there, we discovered that Roswell is a dusty, podunk backwater burgh whose primary source of revenue (besides the local military institute and a whole lot of cows) was the annual gathering of UFO freaks, nerds, trekkies, and conspiracy buffs which they celebrate every 4th of July weekend.

The man standing before me seemed normal enough – dressed in a white button-down shirt with a bolo tie and worn blue jeans. He wore cowboy boots, but no accompanying hat. He was older than me, but not much; mid-fifties and clean shaven. He wore thick, horn-rimmed glasses and had longish, wavy grey hair. He was a short, burly man, but in good physical shape. He may have been a mulatto; it was hard to say if that was his natural, leathery skin color or if he was just very tan. We introduced ourselves and exchanged pleasantries, and in the meantime Val had joined us. She brought each of us an incredibly over-priced lemonade to drink.

The man said his name was Dave, and that we seemed like nice people. He claimed he had a secret he’d wanted to get off his chest for a long time, and he wondered if he could share it with us. Valerie and I looked at each other. This was too weird. I took a long suck on my straw.

We reluctantly agreed to hear out our new friend, and we sat together in the food court as he casually recounted a story that was astounding and totally unbelievable. Dave was a very well-spoken man, and he gave the impression of being highly educated. He rarely paused when he spoke, though he seemed to choose his words carefully. The fact that he was very articulate only added to his credibility, as far as I was concerned.

His eyes lit up as he began: “I was recruited into the Program as a young child – I was 7 years old – because I was an orphan, a foster child – and my foster parents were both CIA. Also, because of my intellect…I was considered a ‘gifted’ child at an early age. Everyone I ever worked with in the program was super-smart, and they were all foster kids. You couldn’t have a family on earth and be properly vested in the program. All of us were termed ‘Non-Terrestrial Officers’ or NTO. No US military records existed for us because we weren’t technically associated with any branch of the service of any nation; we were sovereign – part of a supra-national, totally private corporate venture. Our training and education didn’t even take place on earth for the most part.”

My mind reeled. Dave (if that was his real name…) seemed sincere, but clearly we were dealing with a stark raving lunatic. I kicked myself for getting into this.

Finally, my wife spoke up: “But how are they able to keep something as incredible as that a secret, Dave? Come on! Surely, someone would have come forward by now..?”

“With all due respect ma’am“, he said, “The real world is a far different place than you could ever imagine. Everything is not what it seems. The Space Shuttle is being retired this year. What do the American people think is gonna replace it – nothing? Fact is, we’ve had an intergalactic space fleet for many years now and the public can never know about it. The implications are just too much for the average citizen to handle. Besides, there have been some leaks. Have either of you ever heard of a guy by the name of Gary McKinnon?”

I had indeed heard of Mr. McKinnon. Gary McKinnon is the young man from the UK who’s in big trouble right now because he hacked NASA’s computers and found evidence of just such a program. He’s been fighting extradition to the US for several years now. Gary’s lawyers claim if he’s convicted they’ll send him straight to Guantanamo, and they’re probably right. McKinnon hacked into the Johnson Space Center’s computer systems back in 2005 and said he found a high definition picture of a large, cigar-shaped object over the northern hemisphere of planet earth. McKinnon says he also found a log which contained a list of “non-terrestrial officers.” He believed this was evidence that the US military has a secret battalion in space. Two of the ships he saw on the transfer logs were the USSS LeMay and the USSS Hillenkoetter. Typically, Navy ship names have two S’s (as in ‘USS’), an acronym for ‘United States Ship’, but in this case there were three S’s, presumably standing for ‘United States Space Ship.’

Dave said, “All publicly acknowledged space programs are simply a cover that exists to deceive the people of the world. Representatives of various elite branches of the United States armed forces manage the logistics of the space fleet, which is code-named ‘Solar Warden.’ It’s a multi-national operation. There are currently, as far as I know, nine ‘motherships‘ in the fleet: a mothership being roughly equivalent in size and personnel to two aircraft carriers. There are also around fifty ‘protector‘ ships, which are basically space planes, escorts; and several scout craft and supply vessels. One of these was lost recently to an accident in Mars’ orbit while it was attempting to re-supply the multinational colony within Mars.”

I looked at my wife. “Wait…what?!” I managed to blurt out. “There’s a colony on Mars?”

Dave laughed quietly and sat back as he took off his glasses, wiping them vigorously with a nearby napkin. He placed them back on his face and assured us that there was indeed a base on Mars, and several on the moon. NASA routinely airbrushed the evidence out of satellite photos, he said, but the largest bases were on the dark side of the moon where nobody from earth could see them, anyway. Sweat trickled from my brow as Dave admitted that he’d actually been to one of the bases and spent a couple of weeks there. These moon bases were composed of huge, hanger-like buildings, giant domed structures, and the tallest free-standing towers he’d ever seen in his life; all of it recessed inside craters or other natural formations. Some of the domes were clear glass, he informed us, and he looked me right in the eye as he described how breathtaking the view was from inside one of these enormous buildings. I was shocked, stunned, and bizarrely, I felt envious. What if it was really true?

He continued: “We have already visited all of the planets in our solar system, at a distance of course, except Mercury. We’ve landed on Mars and a few other moons. I have personally been to the Moon, Mars and both of its moons Phobos and Deimos, plus a moon of Saturn’s called Enceladus…and I’ve also been to deep space. The secret space fleet contains personnel from many countries from all over the world who are administered by a powerful and highly secret global government which is not answerable to anyone but themselves, basically.”

This was beginning to sound like a bad episode of Star Trek. I guess it makes sense when you think about it, though: no government on earth can claim to speak for everyone on the planet; certainly not the United States. Dave was evasive when we asked for more specifics regarding his involvement with this mysterious group. His eyes continuously scanned the room and he spoke in hushed tones. I asked Dave who pays the bills for all of this, because it must cost a fortune – and he simply said: “Black Budget.” He explained that the money derived from illicit drug proceeds and other human misery funded these Special Access Programs and that they were totally ‘off the books‘. Giant foundations and non-profits such as the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Institute, and the Rockefeller Foundation funnel the enormous amounts of cash from the global drug trade into the coffers of this incredibly expensive, ultra-secret space program and all of the peripheral research and development that goes along with it. This included what he referred to as ‘free energy.’

“Where do you think we got the technology to do all of this?” Dave asked us excitedly, his piercing blue eyes cutting daggers through me.

“From aliens?” I replied sarcastically as I began chewing the ice from my drink.

“Bingo!” came his reply as he shot me with his finger and smiled broadly. “We back-engineered their technology from crashed saucers, and our scientists perfected anti-gravity and faster-than-light travel a long time ago. We have the technology not only to travel to distant stars, but also to rid the planet of oil dependency and hunger many times over. Unfortunately, that would destroy the world’s economies and it would certainly have a negative effect on the profit margins and the global economic control of some of earth’s wealthiest families. I find it disgusting that only twenty or so elite families control the entire world. The universe is absolutely teeming with life – for people of earth to think that they are the only advanced society in the entire universe is…well…it just takes an incredible amount of arrogance, let‘s put it that way.”

Dave had a point. The solar system we inhabit is relatively new compared to the trillions of stars in the vastness of space. The odds that life didn’t evolve somewhere else long before us are astronomical, frankly – and it always seemed incredibly un-scientific and illogical to think of our primitive, truly backward society as the height of civilization. The argument that people from other planets can’t visit us simply because our scientists haven’t figured out how to do it yet never made any sense to me. I wouldn’t really describe our world as being particularly advanced in any way, either – unless you consider finding clever ways to exterminate one another ‘advanced‘.

Dave said he was starting to get paranoid as he glanced over his shoulder one more time, so we decided to leave the noisy, cavernous convention hall and get a drink at one of the local bars. We stopped at the first halfway decent-looking establishment we could find, a brightly-lit place called Pepper’s Bar & Grille. It was packed, and country music was blaring out of the speakers as we walked in. We managed to find a secluded booth near the pool tables where we could continue our discussion in relative privacy. Val and I each got a beer, but Dave seemed nervous, and he ordered a vodka tonic. He downed three of them before we finished our first beer.

He was becoming more animated as he continued, “Even earthbound scientists, armed with only the most rudimentary equipment – have detected over 300 earth-like planets in the Milky Way galaxy alone. Earth-like as in: can support human life. And that’s only been within the last few years. It doesn’t take an incredible imagination to realize that there are billions of inhabited planets in the universe. Just because we can’t see them from earth doesn’t mean they don’t exist. What most people also don’t understand is that homo-sapiens are the most prevalent form of life in the universe. Everyone talks about the ‘grays’ and the ‘little green men‘, but human beings – just like you and me, with only slight variations – are the predominant species in the cosmos.”

My mind was now utterly and completely blown. This was truly astounding information, if true. I didn’t know whether to believe him or dismiss him as a complete idiot, but it felt right. He would make eye contact with me as he spoke, and it felt as if he was looking into my soul. There were so many questions I wanted to ask him.

“There are civilizations out there which are thousands – if not millions – of years ahead of us technologically”, he went on, his speech starting to slur, “We are the ‘new kids on the block’ so to speak, and frankly, we are considered a danger to the rest of the Galactic Federation. We have figured out some of the technology, yes, but we are far, far behind spiritually. The Federation wants to contain earth humans to their own sector of the galaxy because they are concerned that we’ll export our barbarism to other parts of the universe…”

I had to interrupt him. “Whoa, Dave: if what you say is even partially true, you’re sitting on top of the most important story of all time! I mean, this news would radically alter civilization as we know it.”

“Correct. That is exactly why it’s being kept secret,” Dave said. “There is great potential for wide-spread panic and a complete break-down of the social order if this were to come out. There was a study done by the Brookings Institution back in the early 1960’s called Proposed Studies on the Implications of Peaceful Space Activities for Human Affairs which clearly laid out the need to keep this information quiet. In that report it says something to the effect that: ‘”anthropological files contain many examples of societies, sure of their place in the universe, which have disintegrated when forced to associate with previously unfamiliar, more advanced societies espousing different ideas and different ways.”’ Oddly enough, it was determined that scientists and engineers would be the least capable of dealing with these revelations. You can imagine how earth-shattering it would be to discover that most of our current science and technological innovation is total BS.”

“I would’ve thought that religious fanatics would be worse off if disclosure took place,” I replied. Dave was starting to get to me. The more he spoke, the more I believed him. He was actually starting to make sense.

“So, why are you telling this to us, Dave?” I asked, taking a long sip of beer. “We’re just regular people. I’m not really sure what we can do…”

“Because I think I can trust you,” was his reply. “I have something I want to give to you.”

He pulled something from his jacket pocket. It was a small black box, about the same size and shape as a hard-shell glasses case. He didn’t open it, but he handed it to Val and told her to keep it in a safe place. She reluctantly put it in her purse. Dave was pretty intoxicated by now, but he said if anything should happen to him, we had his permission to view the contents of the box. His blood-shot eyes welled with tears as he explained that his life was in danger. We were his insurance policy, he said.

This was not good. Val and I exchanged glances again.

We tried to convince him to keep his gift, but he insisted that we take it. “I’ll get it back from you later,” he said.

Valerie and I were getting tired and a little woozy, so the three of us decided to call it a night and meet up again the next morning for breakfast. The last time we saw Dave he was staggering to his car, mumbling to himself. We offered to give him a ride back to his hotel, but he became very agitated and insisted he was fine. He said he didn’t have far to go, so we didn‘t push it.

The next morning we waited for over three hours at the local Denny’s, but Dave never showed up. We hadn’t even exchanged phone numbers! We had no idea what room he was staying in. How was he supposed to find us? How was he supposed to get his property back? Finally, we couldn’t wait any longer, so we left.

Val and I were disturbed by the events in Roswell, but we were on vacation and we couldn’t wait around forever for Dave. Our next stop was south to Carlsbad to see the caverns, so we shook the incident off and hit the road later that morning. We thought about Dave and all of the incredible things he had told us as we drove through the endless desert. A sandstorm was blowing across the highway and the sky was churning orange. There was no need for the car radio because the hot topic of discussion was Dave and the strange circumstances surrounding his “insurance policy”.

We wondered what he had given us, but we knew we wouldn’t open the box unless we had a damn good reason.

Valerie and I enjoyed Carlsbad Caverns immensely, and on the way back we stopped at White Sands. All the while we contemplated a totally new reality inspired by this strange man – a reality where we are not alone in the universe, but part of a huge family. We thought about how different the world will be when disclosure finally happens. It would be a difficult transition for humanity, to be sure – but we both felt that if what Dave had said was true, people would be better off knowing the truth, however painful it might be.

We promised ourselves we would return soon to southern New Mexico, but we were getting homesick. As we approached Mystico, however, I got a strange feeling. Val felt it, too. Neither of us own a cell phone, so there was no way for anyone to reach us in an emergency while we were out of town – and for the first time that started to bother me. What I hadn’t considered at the time was that we also couldn’t be tracked.

It was already dark when we pulled into town. Exhausted, I turned the last corner onto our street and my wife and I were confronted by a terrible, disturbing sight: a huge pile of blackened, burned embers that used to be our home. The yellow ‘Crime Scene’ tape still surrounded the charred remains of the only house we’d ever owned. There was nothing left but ashes. We had lost everything.

Our hearts sank as we slowly got out of the car on that chilly night and cried for a long time in each other’s arms. The wind was swirling around us, and all we could think to do was call out pathetically for our cats – but none came. We knocked quietly on our elderly neighbor Cindy’s door, and she was surprised to see us still alive. She said that right before the fire started she was sitting on her front porch. It was dusk, and the evening light was beginning to fade. She saw an un-marked black van pull up in front of our house.

Suddenly three men got out and walked right through our (locked) front door, and then she heard several loud noises – what sounded like glass and furniture breaking. She got the impression they were looking for something. The fire started about ten minutes after they left. Luckily, the Fire Department arrived just in time and they were able to contain it to our property. Cindy’s house suffered only minor damage, thank God.

Val and I have been on the run ever since.

We still haven’t opened the box.

©2011 Jason Darensburg