The ancient Egyptians thought we couldn’t know the colour of the gods, but I know we can—they have a faint bluish hue—at least the ones I saw did.
As usual, I’m getting ahead of myself. Maybe I should start at the beginning.
My name is Roger Preston and I’m an archaeologist and philologist. Most people know me as an Egyptologist. My assistant Cyril has worked with me for five years helping me excavate burial chambers dating back to the 5th millennium BC. He’s an ex-Coptic monk and his knowledge of ancient languages has proved an invaluable asset, but not on our recent dig.
In fact, neither of us knew what the devil to make of what we found.
I uncovered some caves near Luxor and in one of them discovered an ancient hieroglyphic inscription. It was exciting, but not really extraordinary, that is, until Cyril dug further and uncovered a script even he didn’t understand. Then I got perplexed.
We photographed the script, covered it up and then drove back to Cairo to ponder the mystery.
“It’s very strange,” Cyril observed. “I’ve never seen this writing before.”
I agreed. “It’s definitely not Egyptian and there’s something about it that doesn’t seem ancient at all.”
We stared at the symbols that had been engraved or chiseled into the rock. Each symbol measured about three inches high and the entire script was about two and a half feet in length.
We must have spent about three hours examining the glyphs and looking for anything even remotely similar in archeological records. We found nothing. Finally, exasperated, I threw up my arms.
“I just don’t get it, Cyril. If this is a totally different culture we’re dealing with, then perhaps there’s some evidence of settlement nearby.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Let’s geophys the area—use ground penetrating radar, electromagnetic conductivity and even metal detectors. Let’s cover a broad area around the caves and see what turns up.”
Cyril seemed hesitant. I recognized his doubtful look and knew he disagreed, but was too polite to say so.
“What’s wrong?”
“Excuse me Doctor Preston, but wouldn’t the use of all that equipment attract attention?”
“Not if we do it ourselves and by night. I agree with you about using caution—we need to be very discreet until we know what’s really there.”
My words seemed to reassure Cyril and we began making plans to get the equipment and return to the site as soon as possible.
Two days later we were back in the region of the caves. The shifting desert sands obliterated any surface features, but we were confident that the use of GPR and EM would turn up any hidden anomalies such as walls or buried structures and we could cover a broad area.
We began mapping out an area opting for a GPR survey because of the sandy soil. The first field was fairly large—one kilometer long and two kilometers wide. We planned on surveying several different fields over the next few nights. All that changed, however, when we saw the imaging results of our first sweep.
There was a large anomaly—an extremely strong signal—so we elected to dig there the following night.
The next night the weather was excellent for digging. We began just after sundown when only a few stars were visible in the sun’s blush. We worked silently and steadily—two black silhouettes against a diamond rain of stars. After two hours, Cyril’s spade struck something metallic. We both looked at each other in shock.
“Could it be a downed aircraft—a remnant of the Six-Day War?” I asked Cyril.
He just shook his head. “Let’s keep digging,” he said.
We began exposing what appeared to be a dull, black metallic hull sticking straight up out of the desert sand.
“What the hell is this—a stealth fighter?”
Cyril was ominously quiet.
We continued to work feverishly pulling sand from the artifact until we were convinced what we found was definitely not a stealth plane. In fact, it wasn’t an airplane at all. It was something quite different—quite alien and quite inhuman.
“Oh my God,” said Cyril. It was the first time I ever heard him use the Lord’s name in vain. “What have we done?”
We had done nothing of course, except stumble across the archeological find of the century. I was strangely repulsed by the idea of what we were uncovering. I felt nauseous and giddy at the same time. I looked over at Cyril and he looked sick at heart—it was plainly visible on his face.
“Oh my God. Oh my God,” He kept saying.
I think we were both afraid of the same thing—of who or what lurked beneath the sand.
The two of us seem to have stumbled upon the metallic hulk of a buried craft—not the remains of a downed Israeli jet or an American stealth fighter, but a machine of such advanced design that it appears obviously alien.
We spent what seemed like an eternity meticulously studying the exterior looking for markings or apertures.
When I was about to give up, Cyril shouted suddenly.
“I found a seam” he croaked, using his hand to brush away sand from the outline of a hatch opening.“What do we do? now” he asked.
I had no idea—no plan—no inkling of whether or not we should do anything. In fact, I felt so sick, I felt dizzy and shaky.
I shrugged. I couldn’t speak. Besides, even if I could, what could I say to him?
“Feel this,” he said, pointing to the metal surface of the craft.
I reached out a tentative hand and gingerly touched the surface.
It felt warm—strong like steel, but didn’t have the same texture. I ran my hand along the portal seam. Without warning, the hatch began lifting. Eddies of yellow dust rained down upon me. I gagged as I breathed in the gritty cloud.
We fell back into the still warm sand. I looked over at Cyril—his face grizzled from the steely incandescence radiating from the cabin.
He didn’t want to look. Every muscle in his face was taunt. He was trying hard to look away, but couldn’t. I watched his eyes fill up with awe and scan the inside of the craft. He looked mystified and terrified.
“You have to see this,” he said, not taking his eyes off whatever he was seeing.
I scrabbled to my feet, rested my hand on his shoulder and leaned over his head, peering into the metallic aura. Everything within was luminescent.
And then I saw what he saw.
There were occupants.
They were still in a glass-like cage or some kind of vitreous cubicle and they were unlike anything I ever imagined aliens to be. They were not little green men, or grays or bauble-headed, spindly-limbed creatures or reptilians—they were humanoid and lovely.
Their skin had a slight bluish hue, with a slight rainbow iridescence. The most fascinating feature of all was their hair—it was the colour of lapis lazuli.
I began to laugh. Cyril looked at me strangely and then he began too. We sat back on our butts in the warm sand, bathed in the silvery light from the hatch and laughed until we could laugh no more.
“This is too marvellous for words,” Cyril finally said.
I smiled at him, sharing the kinship of a mystery greater than each of us could comprehend. Then, we sat in reverential silence, just staring into the soft blue light.
Before dawn, we both seemed to awaken from the dream.
“What should we do?” I asked Cyril, although I felt we both already knew.
“Cover it up,” he said. “Cover it up and pretend it never happened.”
I nodded. He was right.
This was not a find to be exploited on CNN and splashed all over the news.
These lovely beings had perished and we had no right to exploit them or uncover their mystery to the news media with their rude electric glare. We began shovelling.
We covered it all up.
It’s been six months now and I don’t regret our decision. Cyril was right. He’s gone back to his monastery and I’ve gone back to my classroom.
The gods have fallen from the stars and we buried them. It’d be wrong to take them from their rest.
After all that’s what happened, that’s what we finally figured the inscription meant. Other gods returned, commemorated, but did not disturb their rest.
After all, there are laws that bind things to their places—respect for things—for trees, for animals, for leaving undisturbed an unspoilt snow…
For not staring at an untouched innocence, suddenly exposed to an electric glare.
