“Not yet, not yet! Soon. I’m working on a little theory of mine; that’s all.”
Little theory, Skip thought. He was sure not to make eye contact with the man.
“Very well,” said Nora. “Go on, Emilio.”
“Thanks. We had a major surprise this morning. We reached the end of the furrow, as far as we can tell…and found nothing. Whatever created that furrow seems to have vanished.”
“Vanished?” Tappan asked, suddenly interested. “How so?”
“It’s a bit mysterious, actually,” said Nora. “The object came in at a shallow angle. The trench, of course, was backfilled in 1947, but we could still follow its outline. I, we, expected to find a terminus where the object came to rest. But instead, the trench just seemed to spread out and vanish, leaving nothing behind but a welter of sand and fused glass. Skip has been saving quantities of the glassy sand for further analysis by Dr. Banks.”
Banks nodded.
“Our plan going forward,” Nora went on, “is to excavate beyond where the furrow disappears to see what else we might find. We also plan to cut several transverse test trenches to see if the object might have scattered pieces to either side. Any questions or thoughts?”
She fielded a number of questions and a discussion ensued, coming to no conclusions. Tappan wrapped it up by thanking Nora and saying: “We seem to have a real mystery on our hands.” He tried to sound chipper, but Skip could tell this news was a disappointment to him.
As the meeting broke up, Noam signaled Skip to join him. They walked back to Quonset 2, where Noam ushered Skip into his office and quietly locked the door behind him.
“Please take a seat.”
Skip sat in the chair opposite the desk, thrilled with a sense of anticipation, sure that the man had more to say to him from their talk the evening before.
“You may have noticed me fussing around in the trenches this morning,” said Noam, his eyes sparkling.
“I did. Some idea you were checking out?”
“Exactly. And my idea bore fruit. Last night I mentioned there was a reason why I shared my story with you. It’s because I need your help.”
“I’m ready to help in any way,” Skip said.
“I know that. Your sister and everyone else are puzzled about the shape of the furrow plowed by the object and the mystery of its vanishing. But it’s no mystery to me. After taking careful measurements, I believe I know exactly what happened.” He leaned back in his chair with a smile, tenting his fingers, letting a silence build.
“What?” Skip finally asked.
“Let me start by saying: I now know we’re digging in the wrong place.”
“But…the groove in the sand, the glass, the radar surveys—are you saying nothing happened here?”
“Something did happen. The object struck the ground. But my calculations show that the object came in at such a low angle it essentially bounced, like a flat stone skipped on the water—and became airborne again and landed somewhere else.”
Skip stared. “Holy shit.”
Bitan chuckled. “This of course explains why the groove just ended in a spray of sand and glass. The object simply rebounded back out and flew farther.”
“And so the real crash site is somewhere else,” Skip said.
“Precisely. Somewhere in the direction the trench is pointing. And this is where you come in. You’re going to be my confidential searcher. Together, we’re going to find where the UAP really came to rest.”
He unlocked a drawer and pulled out a large sheet of paper. He slid it onto the desk and turned it around so Skip could look. It was full of penciled mathematical equations, and a crude map was hand-drawn in the middle, decorated with arrows and vectors. At the top was an oval, drawn in heavy red pencil.
“Our camp is here.” Bitan tapped the paper. “And here’s the furrow, pointing northwest at a heading of 321 degrees. If you follow that direction, it goes across the dry lake bed and into these hills and buttes. I drew this oval where my preliminary calculations show the object probably came back down to earth. Of course, a lot depends on its velocity and mass, plus its shape and the amount of drag it produced. And when it hit the ground again, it might have rolled or bounced. We don’t know—yet.”
Skip stared at the map. “That oval covers how much area?”
“About a thousand acres.”
“That’s a lot.”
“I know. Tomorrow is Sunday, our day off. I imagine some people are going to go into town, do some shopping or whatever. You and I are going to pack a picnic lunch and tell everyone we’re heading off to find the old Spanish watchtower.”