The Martians have landed
It had been a quiet evening out in the desert. Ole Johnny Mudd had been driving his cattle all day long, hoping to get them over to the Santa Fe Trail by morning. Night had fallen and the stars glittered in the sky and the full moon shed its light over the entire place. It was the perfect night for quiet grazing as the cows meandered from mesquite bush to mesquite bush. Ole Johnny Mudd let them take their sweet time, just enjoying the silence of the high plateau. He was almost lulled to sleep while sitting upright on his saddle.
He whistled the tune “Happy Trails to you,” trying to sound just like his favorite cowboy, Gene Autry: “Happy trails to you, until we meet again. Happy trails to you, ‘til we meet again. Some trails are happy ones, others are blue. It’s the way you ride the trail that counts. Here’s a happy one for you. Happy trails to you, until we meet again. Happy trails to you, keep smiling’ until then. Who cares about the clouds when we’re together? Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather. Happy trails to you, ‘til we meet again.”
Just as he happened to gaze upward into the starry night, his dreamy interlude was interrupted by a strange light that sped across the sky with a mighty whoosh and it seemed to crash down just beyond the hill into the adjoining valley. His horse Pinto raised his ears and turned his head toward the sound. Ole Johnny Mudd had already ridden past a quiet little town called Roswell, New Mexico, so he knew that whatever it was, it could not have come from there. Even the cows seemed to have been spooked by the great noise followed by the eerie silence. Ole Johnny Mudd didn’t have the slightest idea of where to look but he suddenly caught sight of an unworldly glow pulsating in the next valley.
He giddyupped his horse, urging him forward toward the glow. His horse seemed to want to go forward, but at the same time he seemed rather skittish about doing so. It was mid-summer in 1947, and there were very few lights anywhere and especially in this remote corner about 75 miles north of Roswell in Lincoln County. Ole Johnny Mudd approached the unearthly glow. It seemed to be coming from something that had crashed into a hillside. As he came closer, though, Ole Johnny Mudd caught sight of someone trying to pull open an object on the hillside. He recognized him as his friend W.W. “Mac” Brazel, who had
gotten there before him. It seems Mac had found the wreckage on his sizable property.
When he saw Ole Johnny Mudd, he called out to him: “Hey, Johnny. Come and help me here. I followed the crash and found a bunch of wreckage debris scattered all over the desert floor. I also saw some kind of a humanoid lying among the metallic objects. I figure there were two of them. The second one must be inside this wrecked metal tortilla.” “I’ve heard of those unidentified flying objects” Ole Johnny Mudd said to him. “I think they’re called ‘flying saucers.’ “
He sidled up right next to Ole Mac and he looked at the face of the being in the flying saucer. He had two very large almond-shaped eyes, a small mouth and he had a greenish-gray color. He seemed shorter than both Ole Johnny Mudd and Ole Mac and he seemed to be trying to say something. The strange thing about that night though, was that even though both Johnny and Mac could hear what the being was thinking, they couldn’t see lips moving. He seemed to be communicating with them only with his thoughts. They understood that he wanted them to go out into the desert and look after his fellow traveler. He also wanted them to go out and gather as many of the pieces from his spacecraft as possible before daybreak. He assured them that he would be just fine, leaving him there alone.