"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.

By nine both children were fast asleep. I was in a surprisingly benign mood, listening to music on WAMC out of Albany and enjoying being with my wife. We sat together in the parlor in our big upstairs bedroom and got sleepier and sleepier. By the time the clock rang ten it was all we could do to crawl into bed. We went to sleep.

Sometime during the night I was awakened abruptly by a jab on my shoulder. I came to full consciousness instantly. There were three small people standing beside the bed, their outlines clearly visible in the glow of the burglar-alarm panel. They were wearing blue coveralls and standing absolutely still.

They were familiar figures, not the fierce, huge eyed feminine being I have described before, but rather the more dwarflike ones, stocky and solidly built, with gray. humanoid faces and glittering, deep-set eyes. They were the ones I felt were "the good army" when they took me tin December 26.

I thought to myself, My God, I'm completely conscious and they're just standing there. I thought that I could turn on the light, perhaps even get out of bed. Then I tried to move my hand, thinking to flip the switch on my bedside lamp and see the time.