I regained consciousness to the sound of my stepdaughter's terrified sobbing, the beautiful blonde teenager frantically twisting the ignition key and throwing the selector switch from one position to the other. The plane's electronic ignition system and its backup no doubt completely burned out from the effects of the electrical field through which we had just passed. The plane rocking in the gusty air as it glided down into the darkness. The rough storm-tossed sea dark and deadly there beneath us in the bright beams of the landing lights as I flicked them on and dazedly took control, aware that only mere seconds were left now before the crash into those leaping waters below!
"Hold on!" I breathed, drawing the wheel back, my feet steady on the rudder pedals. Stalling out my beloved Black Lady just over the leaping waves beneath us. A quick silent prayer to the God of my childhood going through my thoughts as we waited for the impact! Then with a terrible slam that sent our bodies straining against the black webbing of our seat belts, knocking the breath from our bodies, the airplane plowed into the leaping, rolling sea! The water in a solid mass spraying up over the dying metal bird! The seams in the aluminum fabric tearing open with the impact. The cold sea water spurting in from a dozen openings like some hungry monster now seeking our living flesh!
"Sharon!" I ordered, "Get the life preservers out from behind the seats!" The water now already lapping up over our ankles as we quickly unbuckled ourselves, the plane floating for the moment nose down due to the weight of the engine. The great waves banging it about and flinging us from one side to the other there inside the fuselage as we now fought to save our own lives!
"Lorraine, I'm Scared!" Sharon whimpered as I forced open a door. The cold seawater suddenly flooding in with a rush as the airplane swiftly now sank beneath us! The rapid inrush of water threatening to take us with it to the bottom of the ocean! The darkness surrounding us like some threatening monster held only momentarily at bay by the glow of our powerful landing lights!
"Come On!" I barked, reaching in and seizing the terrified girl by her silken blouse while I clung to the doorframe of the sinking plane. The buttons popping as with a strength borne of desperation I dragged her out just in time. The airplane slowly rolling over on its side and with a surge of bubbles, sinking beneath the waves! An instant later it was gone, the glow of the landing lights soon fading away as it sank into the cold dark depths, leaving us in an almost impenetrable darkness. The odor of gasoline in our nostrils from the ruptured fuel tanks in the wings as I thought belatedly of the five thousand dollars cash in my purse now sinking to the bottom of the sea with the plane! All because I wanted to see a UFO! And look what had happened!
"Brr, It's Cold!" Sharon muttered as she clung to her life preserver, her face only a dim pale shadow there in the near utter darkness as we clung to each other, terrified of drifting apart into the unknown darkness around us. "What happened?" she asked me, a question for which I had no immediate answer just then. Still vivid in my memory the strange green flickering light and the awful searing agony that had accompanied it!
"Some strange electrical effect, I guess," I mused. Thankful at least that we were alive and together as I took her hand in mine. The thought of having to return home looking like a utter fool preying on my mind. Why had I insisted on flying off into a storm searching for the unknown? I have always prided myself as being a sensible sober and compentent woman, one not given to wild flights of fancy like some dizzy silly teenager!
There seemed to be something puzzling as my eyes adjusted to the darkness around us. THERE WAS NOT A LIGHT TO BE SEEN ANYWHERE! I wondered just how far we were out to sea! I strained my eyes for the faintest gleam of light. The faintest glimmer of modern civilization. How far had we come out past Los Angeles?
"I wonder just where we are?" Sharon asked a moment later, echoing my own thoughts. The waves carrying us up and down, the salt stinging our eyes. The girl too having noted the lack of any lights. Her young voice showing the beginning terror she felt too at the lack of any visible indication that we were anywhere near land! Just how far out were we? The water was cold.*
* There is a northwards set to the current here, and the lack of visibility prevented us from seeing Trella's lighthouse beacon. The actual crash site of my airplane was seven miles out to sea and almost due west of Trella according to the Lorr's records.
"We should be half a dozen miles outside the harbor, a bit to the south," I answered. "Somewhere around the Long Beach area, I think," I added, puzzled at the lack of any lights. Straining my eyes in the darkness as the waves carried us up and down, the occasional flashes of lightning in the clouds above doing little to help, only showing more heaving waves as far as the eye could see! I became aware too that it was now raining, that some of the water striking my face was fresh, not salt! "It's raining, Sharon," I said, "That's why we can't see any lights." Keeping out of my voice the terror I felt knowing that we were further out to sea than I had guessed, perhaps a dozen miles or more! Being borne by the current to who knows where! How long would it be before the cold water sapped our strength and we lost the strength and the will to cling to our life preservers. HOW LONG DID WE HAVE TO LIVE? That really scared me!!
"I'm scared, Lorraine," Sharon whimpered, clutching at my hand. "When will they come to save us?" Her girlish voice now showing the terror that she felt. WHERE WERE WE? WHERE HAD WE GONE DOWN? DID ANYONE EVEN KNOW THAT OUR PLANE HAD GONE DOWN???
A little while later, my watch having died, its electronics burned out, as we still puzzled over the mysterious lack of lights anywhere to be seen, suddenly Sharon gasped and clutched at my arm! Crying out "LORRAINE!" to get my attention! Then to my utter amazement I saw it too! A brilliant blue-white light floating there in the sky! The sea brightly illuminated there beneath it. And above the light I could faintly see the glowing shape of a giant silvery saucer at least a hundred yards across outlined by a shimmering bluish glow that seemed to surround it! "It's A Flying Saucer!" she breathed, her teeth chattering a bit, her eyes wide there in the glow from the light, Sharon trembling with excitement that was mingled no doubt with a certain amount of fear of the terrifying unknown floating there nearly above us!
We watched a glowing beam of light from the craft dip into the sea and then to our amazement saw the dripping wreckage of my airplane being lifted from the sea! The battered craft held by that pale glowing beam of light that could only have been some sort of a "tractor beam" often written about by the authors of science fiction! My airplane lifted up into the sky and then drawn inside that great disc! The interior glowing with a reddish cast, tiny figures of something moving inside that looked suspiciously like ants! GIGANTIC BLACK ANTS! It was our first glimpse of the LORR! It would not be our last here in this strange new world into which we had just unknowningly flown! Had it been a clear night we might have also seen Deimos passing over like a rocky "potato" visually about a fourth of degree in size, or about a half the size of the full Moon as viewed from Earth.
"Did You See That, Lorraine?" Sharon breathed out, gasping as if she had been holding her breath, as well she might have, for what we had just seen raised questions for which I had no answers! I did not doubt that we had seen what we had, my thoughts chaotic and confused as I felt her hand clutching at mine. The silvery disc now closing up as it floated there nearly overhead, a strange tingling sensation going through me as if it used some sort of electrical process to stay up, and then suddenly it rose up into the cloudy sky with a soft hum of infinite power and was gone as quickly as it had first appeared! Leaving us to ponder what we had seen as we tossed helplessly there in the sea below!
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