This is my entry for round 4. I picked the majestic-12 as my conspiracy to write about. Word count :2034

Hope you enjoy :)
~

"Rebecca, do you understand why I am here?" I asked, hoping that this will get me somewhere. I needed to know the truth, had to know it. This could really change our understanding of the universe. Maybe it wouldn't seem so far fetched that the Aztec were visited by aliens.

"I know why you are here," she said as she pulled up her blanket. "You aren't the first to come knocking on my door, you know?" She began to rock in the chair, the sun highlighting her already white hair.

"Do you mind if I record this?"

"No."

"You were near Roswell, New Mexico in July 1947, correct?" I questioned as I looked at her, old and brittle, and wondered if this was going to lead to another dead end.

"Yes... I remembered it had been a very warm summer that year."

~ ~

"James, do you see that?" I asked, staring wide-eyed at the sky. "What is it?"

"I see it," James said with his hands over his eyes to block out the sun's glare. "Becky, I think it's going to crash. We should go check it out!"

James took off without a second glance back to see if I was coming along.

"James..." I panted out. "I'm not sure this is a good idea."

"Sometimes you're such a girl," he teased. "Come on, this is history! Something to tell the grandchildren!"

"Grandchildren?" I questioned after catching up with him."We're not even old enough to vote yet."

"Exactly!" he said as he slowed down. "This looks like an UFO! I told you all those sightings weren't fake!"

"I don't know what it is, and I don't think we should be here!" I kept looking around for anyone else who might come looking. "We could get in trouble for this. We should go." The thing didn't look like anything I've ever seen and I didn't feel comfortable being near it.

"Alright, give me a minute." He got closer, gently picking up a piece from the wreckage.

"James..." I warned.

"What?" he asked impishly.

"Hey!" Someone hollered, causing me to jump and my heart to race. "You kids get away from there!"

The man was closing in and there were others following suit. I saw a trace of fear enter James' face.

"Run!" he yelled, grabbing my hand in his free one as we took off together. I kept glancing back to see if we were being followed, but it looked as though they were more interested in what had crashed than a couple of kids.

"James!" I shouted out to him to get his attention. "We can stop running. They're not coming after us."

"That was close!" He started laughing," You should've seen your face!"

"It's not funny!" I scolded. "Do you have any idea how much trouble we would have been in if we were caught? Mom and dad would have grounded us for sure!"

"Lighten up, we got away didn't we?"

"Let's just go home, okay?"

"Okay."

On our way home I had a feeling that this wouldn't be the end of it, and thought that that piece in James hand would be causing trouble later. There were some things you were just better off not to mess with.

~ ~

"Hold on, you mean to tell me you were there?" I realized I had been sitting on the edge of the couch, so engrossed to the story she was telling, that I settled back into the couch. "You actually saw the crash!"

"Yes..."

Her gaze drifted off and I cleared my throat, trying to bring her back to the present. "So what happened next?" This was it! This was what I had been looking for! "Does your brother still have the piece from the wreckage?"

"What came next? Well... it was night and we were sitting in my room when we were supposed to have been sleeping."

~ ~

"Do you know what this means?" James asked me for the tenth time. "It means that we aren't alone. Imagine that! Whole worlds out there with life!"

"James, you don't even know what that thing is," I said as I nodded my head to the piece laying on the ground. "It could be anything. You don't know if it's from outer space."

"Whatever." He stood up, picking the thing up with him. "You always try to take the fun out of everything," he mumbled as he left to go to his room.

Sighing, I laid back in bed, wondering if he was ever going to grow up. By the time we had reached home our parents had already heard the news and interrogated us repeatedly if we had seen anything, if we were by it when it happened. We both had denied having heard or seen anything, and as soon as dinner was over we went to our rooms.

"What did we get ourselves into?" I mumbled out loud and was only greeted with silence. Listening to the peaceful sounds of the night, I eventually drifted to sleep.

~

About a week had passed, and it appeared as if we were going to get away with it. However, rumors were spreading about the crash like wildfire. Many believed it was an alien aircraft and paranoia started to take root in my mind. I couldn't help but to keep glancing over my shoulder, checking to see if anyone was following me.

"Becky! Becky, wake up!"

I slowly open my eyes, wishing I could stay asleep a while longer. Didn't I just fall asleep? "What?" I groaned out, not happy with being woken up.

"There's been calls coming in all morning!" James said hurriedly. "There's a group of people that have been going in and searching through people's homes, tearing everything apart." He looked nervously around as if someone could be listening in to us at that very moment. "I think they're looking for the piece I took."

"Where is it?" I knew that thing would only cause trouble. "We should tell mom and dad, let them take care of it."

"No."

"But, James!"

"I said no, now leave it!"

"Fine..." I said as I surrendered, there was no getting through to him. He'd always been stubborn. And before either of us could say anymore, we heard knocking and raised voices at the front door.

"Ma'am, we need to search your house," a man's voice, strong and demanding, carried back to my room.

"I don't think so," my mom replied. "There's no reason for you to search our house, plus I don't even know you guys are. I'm not going to let strangers into my home."

"We're with the air force, ma'am," the man answered. "And we believe there might have been material taken from the crash sight."

"You don't look like any air force I ever seen," my mother retorted, still not happy with the intruders.

"Honey, let them in," my father said. I could imagine him placing his arm around her shoulder and pulling her closer to him.

I looked over to James expecting him to be scared, but instead he seemed calm. "You have to go give it to them!" I hissed, not wanting to be overheard by people in our house.

I watched him shake his head no.

There was banging and shuffling of feet as men began tearing our home apart. I knew mom must be near to tears at the mess and invasion of our privacy. I gave him a warning glance, if he wasn't going to put a stop to it I was. "Give it to them now," I commanded. "Or I am going to go out there and tell them you have it," I threatened.

He stormed out of the room, and I took off after him. Watching him running to his bed and taking the piece from under it. He headed towards the front of the house and I kept close behind him.

"Here," he said softly. "I took this from the crash."

"James!" our father growled out in anger. "You lied to us!"

"Thank you, sir," one in charge said while taking it from James.

"What is it?" I asked from behind James, wanting to know what the thing belonged to. Thinking that aliens could be coming to our world had scared me a little, though the man before me had frightened me more. He had a look about him that said he knew how to keep people quiet.

"It's a piece of disk to a weather balloon," the man answered.

~~

"Did you believe him?" I had to ask yet again, interrupting her story.

"I did, or I wanted to," she said softly.

The sun had already started to lower in the sky, shining rays on her blanket. It made her look ageless, as if time was moving around her. I briefly wondered if that was how I would look when I became elderly. Would I age so gracefully?

"But?" I encourage, getting back to the point of me being here.

"But they were a strange group, very close-lipped and secretive," she answered. "I don't know why they would need to keep secrets. Though they'd mentioned that the other sightings were more likely than not other weather and surveillance balloons." She paused for a minute as if trying to recall or to forget a bad memory. "Then there were the bodies."

"Did you see them?" I inquire, not many I ever talked to had actually seen the bodies.

~~

"The boy from the farm over said they've found bodies!" James said excitedly. "Come on, Becky, let's go check it out!"

"James, I don't want to go look at dead bodies."

"Don't be such a girl," he retaliated. "Seriously, first the crash and now this! We have to go see."

"You just like getting in trouble, be where the action is,"  I retorted. "Besides, I am a girl."

"Sissy," he teased.

"Fine! But do we have to run?" I really did hate running.

"Yes, now hurry!"

We took off out of the house, the screen door banging against the frame in our wake. I tried my best to match James strides, however, it didn't take long before I was falling behind. And by the time we reached the farm there was that group of men there- the same ones who were at our house. They were in the process of gathering up the mess.

"Stay back!" one of them ordered to the crowd that was forming. "Please stay back while we get this cleaned up."

I tried to peek around them, to see what was there. Curiosity always did get the best of me in the end; I've never seen a dead person before.

A body part fell from the covering they had on it and someone had shrieked, "it's an alien!"

"It's true, I saw them," the owner of the farm spoke up.

I wasn't sure what to believe, but as they began carrying the bodies away I did get a glimpse. A face so distorted it was hard to tell it was even a face. It didn't look human, that much I was sure of.

"Tell me you saw that," James whispered as they passed by us.

I shook my head yes, not sure of my voice and in shock. Could it really have been aliens?

"I told you it was aliens."

~~

"Did they ever say what the bodies were?"

"They said they were dummies ruined in the crash." She sighed, "Though there were rumors of reports being leaked out from the air base, of them operating on dead aliens." She glanced out the window. "I don't know why they had to keep everything covered up if they weren't hiding anything. But I don't work for the government so I don't know their reasons for it. It could have been for a good cause."

"Do you believe them?" I asked, checking the tape that had been recording the interview. It was still going.

"It was hard to tell what was real or wasn't," she answered after a moment of silence. "The mind plays funny tricks on you- all it takes is a suggestion, and the hope and fear of wanting it to be something more."

"What about the men that came to your house?"

"They kept around, in the background. I know I've seen them, the exact same men, popping up on other sites over the years. I could never forget what they looked like."

"Were they part of the majestic-12?" This was as close to confirmation I was ever going to get. Nothing had ever been confirmed or fully denied, most papers and memos that came into spotlight were later said to be fraud and forgery.

"I don't know."