No matter what factual reality attaches to the experience of the visitors, the presence of the triangle as a frequently observed symbol by many people who have no idea at all of its rich heritage suggests that there is much here that is worth exploring, and not only with the tools of science but also with the tools of myth and philosophy, with the heart as well as the intellect.

At the least, we are dealing with a grand flight of our own mind, in some mysterious way collecting itself against thunder from the future, seeking in this time of world danger toward its oldest truth.

It could be that the triangle performs a similar symbolic function wherever the three-dimensional universe prevails. In speaking to us through that particular form — if that is what they are doing — the visitors may be announcing themselves as belonging to the same laws that inscribe our beings, and identifying their presence with the everlasting ideology of transformation. It could be a symbol not only of mutuality of structure but of shared aim, which is the continuation of life and the search for wisdom. The additional presence of the eagle in this symbology confirms its sense and direction and makes it difficult to assert that it is all just an accident, as anchored in chance as a remarkable thing I once saw during a terrible stone at sea.

I was in a small cabin cruiser and a squall had come up out of nowhere on the Gulf of Mexico. The wind was gusting terrifically and twenty-foot waves were threatening to swamp the boat. Should the engine get flooded by water coming in over the transom, we had very little chance of survival..

Slowly, painfully, the boat climbed the wall of a wave. As we teetered over, I saw across the sweep of whitecaps an amazing sight: In the middle of a shaft of bright sunlight stood a tall pyramidal wave. Its sides were glassy smooth, its peak streaming white spray into the wind. For a moment it seemed perfect, solid, and eternal. Then it sank slowly down, the victim of the same random forces that had created it. As we limped back into Port Aransas after the storm the captain commented, "You see some strange things out there."

EPILOGUE

Where can such a journey as this end? Swaying in the wind with the stars, or along the dark strand of faith? For me it must be in the human dimension, for that is the only place where we can hope to make progress toward a fuller understanding.

I do not have it in me to be a believer. Nor can I be a true skeptic, for I loathe the narrow and love the broad. I cannot say, in all truth, that I am certain the visitors are present as entities entirely independent of their observers. Nor can I say that I do not think they are here at all.