The Flying Saucer Caper

"OUR baby-sitting adventures at the Lodges are always torturous, but never anything like last night!" Carter said the next morning in Company B's duty hut, disturbed at the recent turn of events.

"Yeah, they were odd, alright," Boyle agreed.

Carter laughed suddenly. "Imagine Pyle thinking that one intruder looked like a Martian!"

"Well, actually, Vince, it's possible," Boyle replied.

"Are you going to start up now too?" Carter snapped.

Anyone else would have been very perturbed at such a remark, but Boyle knew how Carter was and didn't take offense. He'd known Carter for over six years now, and over those six years, Carter had ofttimes repeated the phrase. The only thing Boyle said now was,

"Well, Vince, it is possible. There's all those millions of people who have reported seeing aliens and flying saucers. They couldn't all be having hallucinations."

"Well, maybe they're not all having halcinations, but until they actually capture some aliens and show them on TV, I'll have my reservations," Carter answered.

Boyle grinned at the mispronunciation. Carter had a slight articulation problem with some words, and "hallucination" was only one of them.

"Well, something's amiss. All those intruders were running around the Lodge property last night," Boyle said suddenly.

"That might not have anything to do with the green glow in the sky," Carter replied.

"Maybe not, but Pyle and I both saw that one intruder that looked like an alien," Boyle persisted.

Disgusted, Carter said, "Oh, Boyle! Surely you don't think that was actually an alien you and Pyle saw!"

"Well, Vince, it probably wasn't, but you never can tell."

Carter was going to say something else but decided not to. Instead he just shot Boyle a disgusted look and opened the filing cabinet.

It had been right during the unloading of vegetables from the delivery truck.

"Did you hear about the trouble over at the Lodge mansion last night?"

"Lodge mansion?" Mallerby repeated. "Oh! That's the real ritzy place uptown!" he said with recognition.

"Yeah, that's it."

"Well, what happened?"

Hacker happened to be walking by just then and he paused when he heard some familiar names mentioned.

"Well, Gomer and Sergeant Carter and Corporal Boyle were running around in there tending the Lodge kids," Frankie began.

"Really? What was all the excitement? Just tending a couple of kids shouldn't be hard."

"It wasn't exactly the kids who were the problem. But the disappearance of one started the whole thing."

Hacker was listening intently now. He'd heard about some trouble over at the Lodge mansion, but he hadn't known that people he knew were involved.

"There were intruders all through the place," Frankie continued. "They knocked Sergeant Carter and Corporal Boyle out. They'd gone to look for the one kid while Gomer watched the others. And you know what else?"

"What?" Mallerby was very curious by now. Frankie looked like he'd just heard a very classified piece of information.

"One of the intruders looked like an alien, or so Corporal Boyle and Gomer claimed."

Hacker nearly laughed. An intruder that looked like an alien? How silly. Hacker didn't even believe in aliens, so naturally he wouldn't take stock in such news.

"And some neighbor called the police and two officers came and nearly arrested Gomer and the others. That Lodge mansion is weird," Frankie concluded.

"Yeah, it's a lu-lu, alright!" Mallerby exclaimed. They finished unloading vegetables in silence.

"Imagine Pyle and Boyle actually thinking that one of the intruders looked like an alien!" Hacker burst out. They both laughed over that thought.

Carter had come in, unawares to Hacker and his crony.

"What are you two laughing at?"

They both whirled around.

"Oh, hello, Vince!" Hacker said. "What do you think about aliens?"

"Huh?" Carter was clearly puzzled. "You know what I think about aliens, Hacker. I don't believe in them at all!"

"Oh. So it's just your buddies who saw that, shall we say, rather odd-looking intruder last night."

Carter still looked perplexed, but it finally dawned on him. "How did you find out about that, Hacker?"

"Word of mouth, Vince. Word of mouth." He headed for the door. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to see if that shipment of potatoes came in."

When it was Mary Ann's turn, she sang "Down in the Valley." Mary Ann secretly harbored a huge crush on someone present there, and she was singing to her "Honey Corporal," albeit he didn't realize it. Actually, everyone in town knew she was in love with Boyle, except Boyle himself and a few others, including Carter.

Gomer grinned one of his famous pleased grins and said to Lou-Ann in a whisper, "You know, Lou-Ann, I think she likes Corporal Boyle."

Lou-Ann looked at Mary Ann's dreamy eyes and then replied, "You know, Gomer, I think you're right."

"Sergeant Carter! Sergeant Carter!"

Carter and Boyle looked up. Gomer was racing frantically into the duty hut.

"What is it, Pyle?" Carter asked.

"Oh, Sergeant, it's just awful!"

"What is?" Carter was beginning to loose patience.

"I saw a flying saucer!"

Carter and Boyle looked at each other, shocked.

"A flying saucer?" Carter repeated.

"Uh huh. It was sittin' right there on the ground in this big field, and it wasn't my imagination," Gomer insisted. "It was real!"

"Was there anyone around it?" Boyle asked.

Gomer shook his head. "No. It was just sittin' there, all by itself."

"Did you report it?" Carter didn't believe Gomer had seen anything, but he was curious.

"No, Sergeant," Gomer replied. "I thought I ought to come right here and tell you about it. Do you think it was aliens from outer space, Sergeant?"

Carter looked at Gomer, annoyed. "Of course I don't believe it was aliens from outer space, Pyle. It was probably just another Martian movie." Carter was referring to a past time when Gomer had spotted flying saucers and aliens, and it had turned out to be part of a movie.

"Oh, no, Sergeant, I'm sure it wasn't!" Gomer said quickly. "I checked for cameras, and I didn't see any!"

"Maybe the cameras were hidden, Pyle," Carter suggested.

"Oh, Sergeant, I'm sure it's an alien invasion!" Gomer persisted. "Only problem is, we don't know whether the aliens are friendly or not!"

"Maybe it was a halcination."

Gomer and Boyle both looked at Carter. "A what?" Gomer finally voiced.

"Halcination! You know—seeing things!"

Boyle shook his head in amusement. Carter really needed to learn how to pronounce that word correctly some day.

"Sergeant, it was there! It wasn't no hallucination! Don't you think we ought to go look at it?"

Carter shrugged. "Whatever."

"Well, Pyle, where is it?" Carter asked after a thorough search had been conducted.

"Why, I sure don't know, Sergeant," Gomer said, glancing about. "It must have flown off!"

"Isn't this the silliest thing you ever heard of?" Carter said to Boyle.

"Well, Vince, it is a little eerie," Boyle replied. "Pyle must have seen something. But whatever it was is gone now."

As the Marines looked around the field, Gomer suddenly noticed a strange piece of metal. "Hey! What's that?" he exclaimed, pointing.

Carter and Boyle turned to look in the direction Gomer was pointing. "What's what?" Carter asked.

"That piece of metal down there in the weeds!" Gomer replied.

"Oh, yeah, I see it," Boyle said. "It's right through there."

"Golly, Sergeant, aren't we supposed to report things like flying saucers?" Gomer said in a hushed voice.

"Flying saucers? What flying saucers?" Carter gestured around the field. "There's no flying saucers here!"

"But there was, Sergeant!" Gomer said instantly. "There definitely was! And now there's this piece of metal."

Boyle had gone back to the Jeep for a magnet and now he tried to pick up the piece of metal with it. It held tightly for a moment, then fell back to the ground with a thump.

"Maybe the metal's too heavy for the magnet," Gomer suggested.

"Or maybe the metal isn't the kind a magnet can pick up," Boyle added.

Carter brought in some pliers and managed to lift the metal with them. "Well, whatever the case, I guess we should take this to the police station," he said grudgingly. "Even though I'm sure there's nothing to it."

They took the piece of metal back to the Jeep and all got in.

"I guess there's nothing else around," Gomer decided, taking a last look around the field. "Sure is funny, how this piece of metal got here."

Carter started the Jeep and they drove off. "Probably just dropped there from when someone was around fooling with metals."

"Or, on the other hand, it could've fell off the flyin' saucer," Gomer suggested.

"Oh, Pyle, will you forget that flying saucer?" Carter burst out. "I'm sick and tired of hearing about flying saucers!"

"But Sergeant . . ."

"Let's just drop the subject until the police figure out where it came from and what it is."

They drove in silence for several minutes.

"Hey, Vince," Boyle said suddenly, "why don't we go see Professor Merriweather first?"

Carter looked at Boyle blankly. "Who's Professor Merriweather and what's he got to do with it?"

"You know him, Vince. You went to him when you wondered what those scratches were on the Jeep fender last week when someone smashed it up."

"Oh, yeah! I remember him!" Gomer exclaimed. "He's a real nice feller!"

"He specializes in metals," Boyle continued, "and maybe before we hand this metal over to police custody we ought to see if Professor Merriweather can identify it first."

Carter shrugged and turned the Jeep down the road that would take them to the local college where the professor had his office. "Alright. We might as well."

"No! No! Please!" he was saying. "You wouldn't dare!"

"What is the world is he talking about?" Carter wondered.

"Maybe we ought to come back later," Gomer said hesitantly.

"You just couldn't!" The professor sounded frantic.

"It's probably just some irate person who wants him to identify a certain thing by tomorrow," Boyle said. "Maybe the professor isn't getting it examined in enough time and the guy wants to sue him."

There was a long pause as the person on the other end of the line spoke. Then they heard the professor say,

"You will? Oh, thank you so much!" Professor Merriweather hung up in better spirits.

That's when he noticed he had visitors.

"Oh, come in! I didn't see you there!" he said to the Marines, who came in with the metal. "What can I do for you today?" He looked closely at Carter. "Aren't you the one with the Jeep fender?" Professor Merriweather was a middle-aged man with gray hair.

Carter nodded. "Yeah, I'm the one with the Jeep fender alright." He held up the metal. "We wondered if you could identify this metal."

Professor Merriweather took it and examined it. "Well, right away I can tell you I've never seen this type of metal before. I'll have to do a couple of quick tests to find out what it is."

He disappeared into an inner room, and reappeared several minutes later, looking very puzzled. He turned the metal around and around.

"Where in the world did you find such a thing?" he burst out. "The metal contains no elements known on Earth!"

Everyone gasped.

"Oh, mercy!" Gomer exclaimed. "Then it must be from the flying saucer!"

Carter glared at Gomer.

The professor's curiosity was aroused. "Flying saucer?" he repeated.

Before Carter could stop him, Gomer rushed on. "Uh huh. I saw it out in this big field about seven miles from Camp Henderson. I came back and told Sergeant Carter and Corporal Boyle about it as fast as I could, but by the time we got there, it had disappeared."

The professor looked worried. "Did you report it to the Air Force? Or the police?"

"Not yet," Gomer answered. "First we thought we'd try to figure out what this metal is."

"Well, son, I'm afraid I can't help you," the professor said regretfully. "Or anyone else, for that matter. It simply doesn't contain elements known on Earth, and that's all there is to it."

"Maybe we ought to keep it and study it for further clues," Carter remarked. "At any rate, we'd better report the saucer—or whatever it was that you saw, Pyle—to the police."

While they were driving to the nearest precinct, Carter mused, "I wonder what the professor was talking about on the phone? Maybe we should have asked him."

Gomer was appalled. "Why, I'm sure that conversation was meant to be private, Sergeant! We couldn't poke around in his phone conversations! It was probably just what Corporal Boyle said—that someone was upset because the professor wasn't being able to identify a certain metal fast enough for them!"

All this time Boyle had been silent, but now he spoke up. "Maybe it wasn't that at all," he said slowly.

"What makes you say that, Boyle?" Carter asked his friend.

"Well, the office seemed so low-key. Professor Merriweather didn't seem to have very many metals to examine."

"Maybe it was a metal that takes a long time to identify," Gomer suggested.

"Possibly, but did you notice what a short time it took to identify our metal, when its contents aren't even known?"

The Jeep stopped at the precinct. "Well, maybe so," Carter conceded. "We'll talk about it later."

"It was just so odd!" Gomer was concluding his long-winded account. "A flyin' saucer—right there in that field, only seven miles from Camp Henderson!"

Carter rolled his eyes. "I'm sure it wasn't a flying saucer," he put in quickly. "Maybe it was some top-secret government . . . thing," he finished lamely, not able to think of a better word.

"Well, whatever it was, it's always good to report those kinds of things," Hansen said.

Carter considered telling about the metal, then decided not to. They could always bring it in later. But right now he thought they needed to study it more closely. It might prove to be a valuable clue.

"Hey! Maybe it's some kind of espionage device developed by a foreign country!" Boyle exclaimed.

The others turned to look at him. "Espionage?" Carter repeated.

"Mercy! You mean maybe it's some device against our country?" Gomer's eyes were wide as saucers.

"Well, yeah! Why couldn't it be?" Boyle turned the metal over as Carter continued steering the Jeep. "You hear about those things all the time!"

As they went through the entrance gate of Camp Henderson, things seemed to be an uproar. Carter stopped the Jeep to question Gomer's pal Duke Slater.

"Hey, Slater! What's going on around here?" Carter asked.

The answer was very unexpected. "Someone sneaked in and ran off with some very important government documents!"

Go to Chapter 5!