TRUMAN BETHURUM’S CALL TO CLARION
by Skylaire AlfvegrenContinued...
Bethurum stared in astonishment. Rhanes smiled and said, “Speak up, friend, you’re not hexed.” Only after a few meetings did Bethurum learn her name, or that these space brothers came from the planet Clarion, which was free of the ills effecting earth, and was not a planet visible by Earth’s telescopes.
After his first contact, Bethurum returned to his small hotel room and wrote a note: “If I am found dead in my bed, it will be because my heart has stopped from the terrible excitement induced by seeing and going aboard a flying saucer!”
The captain later informed him that her ship was made of “the finest Martian steel” (Mars being a great manufacturing planet, according to Rhanes), and Bethurum noted that the ship had no “propellers, no exhaust vents, wings” or rudders and it was completely silent, even when landing and taking off.
Bethurum’s contacts always seemed to occur when he was alone. During their second meeting, Rhanes told him that “The things which worry you Earth people, in our homes you will never find. We know nothing of illness, doctors, nurses,” and told him that politicians had “cleft your world through.” She also said that “What you call time and distance is inconsequential to us.”
During their next visit, Rhanes told Bethurum that she was a grandmother back on Clarion. Her prognosis for Earth wasn’t optimistic. She said “I expect to be around for 1,000 years, but the water in your deserts will mostly be tears” and that “Other planets are much too busy improving the welfare of their inhabitants to have time for even minor controversies.”
With sons fighting in Korea, some of Bethurum’s co-workers became suspicious that his “friends” were spies, or somehow part of the Communist underground. Rhanes assuaged his fears, stating that they couldn’t be touched by earthly weapons. “They might annoy us, yes, but never harm us. Our enemies fall and disappear before us. None of your Earth people have anywhere near the powers which we control.”
During a getaway to Vegas with co-worker Whitey Edwards on September 6, 1952, Bethurum decided to drive alone to the desert near Henderson. Soon a “vivid blue flash” appeared over Nellis Air Force Base, and the familiar craft (which the Clarionites called a ‘scow’) was hovering silently near Bethurum’s truck.
