After dinner the two of us went upstairs and discussed the matter. Frankly, the kid's observation, coming as it did at that moment, had convinced me that on some level what was happening must be real. Why else would the child have made that announcement? Not a word about the visitors had been said within earshot of either of the kids, and the little girl was absolutely without information about this subject.

I told Anne about my attempt at communication. "I had a feeling you'd do something like that." she said. "Too bad I can't drive: I'd take the kids back to the city and leave you here to face the music." She stopped. "No I wouldn't." We sat hand in hand in the dark while downstairs the kids read quietly together.

I wasn't sure I could drive the car-even if I had wanted to. I could barely keep my eves open. I recognized the floating sensation of alight hypnotic trance. Was I hypnotizing myself?

It's possible.

But what had our son's friend seen? The next day I asked her if she knew what a flying saucer was. She replied, "A what?"

"You know, a flying saucer."

The child looked at me like I was crazy. "I don't know what that is. Your son and I are going out to his clubhouse." Her confusion revealed her lack of knowledge.

When we went back to the city I engaged the child's father in conversation. "Do you remember flying saucers?"

"Wha — yeah."

"Ever read any books about them?"

"Can't say that I have.

"Ever discuss them?"

"Whit, what is this about?"

"Ever discuss them?"

"No. Now what? Do I win or lose?"

A child like I was, brought up in the fifties, would have known about flying saucers.

They were big news in those days. But they aren't now, so it's not surprising that the little girl was uninformed, but it is important. It is very important, obviously. The girl saw what she saw, in a simple and real way. When people dismiss such innocent and uninformed testimony, they make a great mistake. Precisely be cause it is so uninformed, it is powerful evidence of the reality of the phenomenon.

But what reality? Maybe the child really saw an object in the physical world. But maybe, also, the mind has powers that we do not understand. Perhaps there is such a thing as mental telepathy, and when I asked the image to help me, what I really did was send my own inner self on a quest. And at the end of its quest it found this innocent, open little mind, entered it, and there created a hallucination, knowing full well that the little guest would be the last person at the house likely to see anything — and thus the first one to be believed.