When I got home, I found in my accumulated mail an invitation to a UFO conference in Washington, D.C. The meeting was funded by an anonymous host, who invited me-along with my family-to attend, with all our expenses paid. It sounded like a great deal to me, so I talked to my wife, Linda, about it. Even though she has always been less trusting than I am, I was surprised when she insisted that, because I didn't know who our "benefactor" was, she wouldn't allow the family to go. It seems that before-and especially during-my absence, we had been getting numerous phone calls from people who would not identify themselves, but would inquire as to my whereabouts, then abruptly hang up. Linda was actually concerned that if we all went to Washington, we would perhaps never be seen again. As I recall, she said something to the effect that all of us would be "thrown in the Potomac." The bottom line is that she was too worried and protective of our family to let the kids go. I thought she might have been overreacting a bit, but because she is normally a level-headed person, I had to respect her feelings. After giving it some thought, I told her that I felt it would be a good idea for me to go, but I would do so by myself.
Not too long after I accepted my invitation, my secretary, Linda Story, received a phone call from someone who would not reveal his identity, but claimed that he needed to speak with me. She told the caller that I was seeing a patient at the moment, and asked that he call back a bit later. The caller unformed her that he was from Washington, and that it was imperative that he speak with me immediately. Apparently something in his words or tone convinced my secretary that the call was important enough to warrant interrupting me, so she put the caller on hold to inform me of the apparently urgent nature of the call.
I excused myself, went into my office, and picked up the phone. The caller still would not identify himself, but said he knew of my meeting in Washington and wanted to talk to me when I got there. He gave me a Capitol Building address at which to meet him, which I found somehow reassuring. I didn't really think that I was likely to be kidnapped by someone in the government. In hindsight, perhaps my sense of security wasn't well-founded, and I should not have felt so reassured. After all, this unknown government official had been tracking my whereabouts enough to know that I had been invited to a meeting on UFOs, and had obviously known when and where.
Upon my arrival at my hotel in Washington, there was a message waiting for me from this same official. I couldn't help but wonder how he knew where I would be staying, almost before I knew myself. The message simply stated that he wanted to visit with me at the Capitol Building the following morning. Had I been an avid reader of intrigue novels, I would probably have been more alarmed than curious at his resourcefulless. As it was, I found it quite enticing that somebody would put such effort into contacting me.
After reading the message, I went to my room to prepare for the meeting. At the meeting, I was going around chatting with people and introducing myself when an individual approached me and said there was someone who wanted to talk to me. He took me gently by the arm and guided me across the crowded room. I was introduced to a gentleman who was quite tall, and of central European descent. His name was Hans-Adam II of Lichtenstein. He asked me a few questions about Roswell, and after we had spoken for a few minutes, we went our separate ways to mingle among the other attendees. My impression of the party was that it had been interesting, and filled with an amenable group of people, but that it had not been particularly memorable. It was only later that I found out the gentleman who had sought me out was the party's host, the Prince of Lichtenstein. I reminded myself then that I needed to reevaluate my definition of the word memorable.
The next morning, I went to the Capitol Building to meet with the mysterious government official. I was greeted by security, which checked and found my name on the appointment list. I was shown to an office, where I was left to sit in the outer lobby to await my meeting. As I sat there waiting, I remember feeling somewhat antsy, because my flight back home was going to be leaving later that afternoon, and I didn't want to miss it.
After a few minutes, the government official emerged from his office and approached me, smiling and extending his hand. Nothing in particular about him stood out. He was the kind of person you would see on the street and never give another thought to-average height and weight, and friendly. He did not, however, waste any time with small talk, beyond a perfunctory, if seemingly warm, greeting. His demeanor stiffened a bit, and he actually kind of blurted out, "I understand that you saw… at Roswell. Could we tally about it? Do we need to go to a secure room?"
I was put at ease with his friendly informality, as well as the implicit intrigue in his last question, but told him, "No. I have nothing to say that I haven't said before." He responded that he might have things to tell me that would require a secure room, and suggested that I follow him. We proceeded down a corridor that ended at an elevator that brought us deep underground. As we descended into the depths of the building, my wife's concerns came to the forefront of my mind, and I thought to myself that I might never see the light of day again. When the doors opened, we emerged into what appeared to be a basement area with concrete walls, steam piping, and corridors branching off from the one in which we stood.
The official led me down a passageway to a doorway that led to a fancy paneled meeting room, similar to the main conference room one would find in any large company-save for the fact that there were no windows, as this room was deep underground. Inside the room was a long table with perhaps 30 chairs. On the walls above the table were pictures of the country's founding fathers. The overall impression I got was that this was a room used for private meetings of powerful people.
My host closed the door behind me and sat at the head of the table. In front of him was a yellow legal pad and a copy of a book titled Majestic, by Whitley Strieber, for which I had written the foreword. He pointed to the book and stated, "This is not fiction." Although the book is a fictionalized story of the Roswell Incident, my host made it clear that he believed that the story of a UFO crash in Roswell was, indeed, a fact.
He asked me to describe what I had seen in my family's kitchen that night so many years before. I closed my eyes for a moment, recalling that night as if it had happened a few nights before, rather than the decades that had passed. As I began to tell my story, my mind was filled with the minutest of details; the sounds, the textures, and weight of the items I had held, and even the strange symbols that had adorned the pieces of I-beam.
He asked me where I thought the debris might be now, and I responded, "Don't you know? You guys are the ones that have it." I commented that I had often wondered about the "Blue Room" at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base that Barry Goldwater had mentioned in his writings, but had never been allowed to actually visit. (I'll discuss this in more detail in a little while.) My host answered that he did not know where the debris was.
I asked him if he had seen the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, and he responded that he had. I asked if he remembered the last scene, in which a person is seen pushing a huge crate containing the Ark down the row of a giant warehouse, packed floor to ceiling with thousands upon thousands of similar-looking crates. He nodded his acknowledgment. I said, "Perhaps that's where it is." He laughed, and said I was probably right.
At the end of our discussion, I told him that I had one question for him. I asked him when he thought the government would release the truth about UFOs, specifically about the Roswell Incident. He said that, honestly, if it were up to him, the veil of secrecy would have been lifted years ago. But, he added, it was unfortunately not up to him.