D138 Letter from the typist to Alicia Araujo.

Mrs. ALICIA ARAUJO

 

MADRID 12 November 1967.

 

Dear Madam:

 

On 26 June I began writing you a letter which in the end I could not finish, for since there was no hurry to send it I left the finishing of it, and then the days went by, my wife and I went away on a trip, and what with one thing and another, until my second return to Madrid I did not make up my mind to put my papers in order to settle this matter.

 

I resolved to write in person to all the correspondents whom they (I mean the Ummo people) dictated to me for sending them the various documents on Chemistry, Biology, etc.) My intention is that if within a year or a year and a half these gentlemen from UMMO do not return or give signs of life, to speak with all of you personally and decide what we must do. I have proofs of real interest, and although it would be on condition that my rights over their ownership were respected, I will have no objection to the Government seeing them and the engineers seeing them for study.

 

That on the one hand is my intention, and on the other I am worried about the moral side, that is, whether I am right in that decision or whether it is breaking the trust they placed in me. Everything would be easier if they had told me what I was to do. There they slipped up, and in fairness I must say it is the only slip I have seen in Mr. Dei ninety-eight, who was a gentleman who began dictating things to me for you.

 

For indeed. He not only forbade me to make myself known to you and the other correspondents in Spain, but on one occasion we planned a private meeting led by a Professor at the University of Madrid. We already had everything prepared, and from among the correspondents we had chosen those who were in Madrid, whether engineers or Physicists, that is, the most important, so that after reaching an agreement we would invite the others and put everyone's point of view to the gentlemen from Ummo. Well, I do not know how (or rather I do know, or I can imagine) they found out, even though we kept it secret and wrote confidentially to all those gentlemen.

 

They found out, as I was saying, and you cannot imagine how they took it. They forbade me, until "some time" had passed and they authorized me, to try on my own account to make myself known, and otherwise they would break off all contact. It was not a matter of forcing me under threat of punishment but of a moral commitment. You will understand that it is not because they paid me better or worse for my collaboration; it is that it would have been a betrayal, for even if they had not paid I would not be capable of breaking this commitment either.

 

But there lies the question: when they left they did not make my position clear, for, as they say, in reality they did not even say goodbye, although they almost gave it to be understood.

 

As I have not spoken with you, I do not know whether you will believe all this or not; surely you will not believe it either, for from what I have heard almost none of those who receive letters from and speak with them believed that some gentlemen came from Ummo, which is a Planet a great distance away. It is natural, for at first I came to take them for madmen. The story of how I met them is long and some day I will tell you, for it was they who came to our home because of an advertisement we put in the Press.

 

I have managed to find out one of the Hotels where they stayed. Which will perhaps be one more proof, although of little importance, for Hotels have their guests registered, and since they present themselves under false names it will be easy to identify them, for there will be waiters who have spoken with them.

 

I have gone out with them on very few occasions, but I have gone out. I know, because they told me, that they spent their time visiting museums and buildings in Madrid. One day they asked me for help because they had to forge a card to get into the National Newspaper Library of Madrid, which is at calle de Zurbarán number 3. They told me that of course I could refuse, but they said it was not immoral since the only purpose was to study a series of foreign magazines. I went to the window and everything was settled quickly; the young lady who attended me did not suspect anything.

 

Two months before their departure (or perhaps three), for I did not note the date, one of them came after dark (They used to come in the afternoon around seven after I left work, and dictated things to me), but as that day I was not expecting them I got home late, and he was waiting for me in the dining room. My wife was distrustful then and preferred to speak to them as little as possible. He told me when I arrived that he wished to ask me a favour. It was that they were going to do some work in an area of Madrid where there might be surveillance, and since they had passports from another Country they wished to go with a Spaniard, and he explained to me what I was to say if anyone asked us an awkward question. He gave me a camera and a three-legged stand to screw the camera onto and told me where I was to wait for them the following afternoon.

 

I remember it was Saturday and I did not have the office. By three the taxi had already dropped me there, in some little gardens just past the Segovia Bridge on the Extremadura road. They did not take long. They came in a grey Renault which I later learned was hired and whose number plate I have noted down and would not be difficult to trace. One of them went over to the other side of the River Manzanares (I knew him little, for he had not long come from South America). The other was called Daa three and stayed beside me. I set up the apparatus to pretend I was taking photos, and meanwhile Daa three was unobtrusively placing at various points of the area some little pieces which I was later able to see, for he had a very thick little metal box full of pink paint. I saw perfectly where he put them, some buried in the earth and others in the iron railing by the River, pushing them in next to the stone posts that hold up the railing.

 

The other Gentleman then threw into the River two balls which sank. Hardly anyone passed and nobody bothered us. They asked me to wait when he came back from the other bank, and they got into the car for about half an hour. Daa three explained to me afterwards that those tablets the size of a fingernail were radioactive markers and that they served as control points for certain measurements, and they explained more to me; we crossed the bridge again and they dropped me in calle Segovia, keeping the camera themselves.

 

At the beginning of June, when they left, I went back to the little Garden that lies between the River Manzanares and the Avenida del Manzanares. -We had been right beside the Bridge, at a spot where the railing makes a bend. I searched with a screwdriver in the stone posts that join the sections of the railing and took out one of the tablets; I did not dare to pick it up, since they told me they were radioactive and that can be dangerous; it had a little paper as if of plastic stuck on it, and they were the same as the ones I had seen, as if someone had painted some little bits of metal with pink paint or sealing wax or plastic. I did not dare take it away, so without touching it with my hand I threw it into the river. But there are more there, for if they did not remove that one they will not have taken the rest. I think I know where at least two others are. Besides, I know where the balls fell, give or take a metre, and I did not see them being recovered either, and I do not think the River has carried them away; I think that by dredging the River it will be easy to find them.

 

I could tell you other things, Mrs. Araujo, for my wife and I came to meet the woman who was the Chief of all of them in this World, and who came to Madrid just before they all left for Ummo in three Flying Saucers. All this seems fabulous but it is real, and the Press even published it on the second of June of this year (1967).

 

Surely you, Mrs. Araujo, will ask me what I think of all this. I can no longer doubt at this stage that these gentlemen whom I have known, who have come again and again to my home, who have dictated to me hundreds of pages which they themselves sometimes then illustrated, come from that Planet they call Ummo; I know many things about them. I know, for example, that seventeen years ago they came to France for the first time and that there they learned the language, and they have explained the whole History to others. Besides, not only I but my wife have witnessed astonishing things which I challenge any engineer to invent.

 

But now they have all gone back to their Planet. And if any remain, I do not think it is in Spain.

 

You will surely not believe this, even though they have spoken to you, if you have not come to see them, for all this sounds like a novel and it is natural to be distrustful.

 

But all this happens because for now I cannot show my face and clear all this up. If they give no sign of life within a year or a year and a half, I think I must present myself to the Authorities and to you and other persons so that among us all we may clear up a matter so important for Spain. I can present not only witnesses but a device of theirs. Besides, I have noted down many things: car number plates, the name of a Hotel where I know they stayed, the name of a shop where they were known as tourists from Norway, a boarding house where they lived for about a week, papers of theirs, inventions that can be patented, and an Architect who, I have finally discovered, knows that they are from Ummo and helped them, although he has had the cynicism to deny it (I can prove that he at least once sent a parcel to Australia). I have spoken with him and, in spite of my promise of silence, he did not have the decency to admit it.

 

Someone may tell me that I would then not be keeping what they demanded of me, but bear in mind that before leaving they should have given me sure instructions that left no doubt. I do not believe I would harm them if they really have gone. Let it be clear that if they were here I would be incapable of anything that would harm them. The proof is that until now I have kept silent, and so has my wife. Only two relatives know about it as well, and no one else from our circle of acquaintances or former office colleagues.

 

Mrs. Araujo. I have some sheets which I typed, dictated in your name. You will forgive me for not having sent them to you, but their departure upset this whole matter. Then I was away twice, and your papers are unstapled and mixed with others. I remember that we used to send you things on Biology, which is your speciality. They always knew each person's speciality and sent them things on their corresponding science.

 

I hope I have not tired you with such a long letter; when I talk about them I get carried away and do not know how to stop, for I could talk about this for days. It is rightly said that reality is sometimes greater than the novel and the Cinema,

 

I remain, yours most sincerely.