Close Encounters of the Third Kind Read Free

She rushed out the front door into the yard. Trying unsuccessfully to adjust her eyes to the darkness beyond the porch light, Jillian found herself whimpering. Catching hold of herself as best she could, she cried, “Barry! Barry!” and ran into the darkness in the general direction of her son’s disappearing laughter.

3  

    T he world inside all air traffic control centers is unreal. There are dozens of them scattered across the United States; the one half-buried in the earth near Indianapolis is as typical as any.
    The artificial world created within these great concrete bunkers is only dimly perceived. The place is dark. The only light comes from small, shaded bulbs of low wattage that barely show where the doors are.
    Most of the light comes from radar screens that sweep the sky over Indiana’s airspace. Here there is no day, no night, only an artificial gloom and the bright radar glowing its electronic picture of what is happening in the real world overhead.
    The nation’s air traffic passes in review, noted on radar, interrogated by radio, announcing itself, making proper identification, receiving approval and advice, and either landing in Indiana or, more often, passing above at speeds nearing 600 miles per hour to its destination elsewhere.
    False as this dim world is, it presents what every air traffic controller hopes is an accurate picture of real events. He hopes that every jumbo jet, every low-flying Piper Cub, is duly noted and neatly notched into an arrangement that assures everyone safe passage through the state.
    That is the controllers hope. That is not what always happens.
    Harry Crain was working midwatch that week. On midwatch there were only five or six men at the radar scopes. Harry usually moved behind them, pacing back and forth or resting occasionally on a tall stool, his headset connected by a long coiled wire to the radio bands in use, a small curving plastic tube that picked up his voice and conveyed it by microphone to the real world high above his head.
    This night, four controllers made up the front-line team. They sat side by side, in pairs, all in open-necked white shirts, the sleeves rolled up one fold, each pair watching their scope. Above their heads, loudspeakers squawked and rasped the usual radio air traffic drone, sparse now because in the airspace over Indianapolis it was as black a night as it was in the air traffic control center below.
    “Air Traffic Control,” a pilot’s voice came in. “You have any traffic for Aireast 31?”
    Harry Crain looked intently at one of the scopes. There were only three full data blocks and one partial data block. The two going in the same direction were fifteen miles apart; the third going in the other direction was a great distance away from Aireast. The rest of the scope was clean.
    Harry cut his mike into the circuit. “Aireast 31, negative. Only traffic I have is a TWA L-1011 your six o’clock position, fifteen miles and an Allegheny DC-9 your twelve o’clock fifty miles. Stand by one. Let me take a look at the broadband.”
    Harry reached up and pushed a button. The radar scope changed from narrow band computer radar to broadband normal radar. Harry took a quick look, pushed the button again, then another button. He looked at the primary picture in computerized form. There was a non-beacon target in Aireast’s vicinity. Harry peered at the scope more intently just as the pilot broadcast again: “Aireast 31 has traffic two o’clock three to five miles, slightly above and descending.”
    One of the controllers leaned over to look and grunted surprised confirmation.
    “Aireast 31, roger,” Harry said. “I have a primary target about that position now. We have no known high altitude traffic. Let me check with low.”
    Harry turned to his interphone man and said, “Call low and see if they know who this—”
    “Center, Aireast 31,” the pilot came back on, cutting through Harry. “Traffic’s not in low. He’s one o’clock