Flying Saucer (v) The Secret American Air Base

"What?" I said, incredulous.

 

"Aye, she's right," the Boatman said. "All this talk of flying saucers is arsehair wool being pulled over yer eyes." That was the longest sentence I've every heard the Boatman use. It was also my first encounter with the concept of arsehair wool.

 

I was thrown, my life's passion for the mystery of UFOs was revealed as nothing more than arsehair wool. My mind boggled, but not for long. I was, after all, a jounalist, albeit a third rate UFO mag journalist. If there was no such thing as flying saucers, if there was no chance of ever getting definite proof of the existence of aliens, then I would do the next best thing,  I would prove that the lights over Scotland were from a secret American base, I would prove that the whole flying saucer story was a hoax.

 

"So where's the secret base?"

 

The Boatman said something to the Lass in Gaelic and she said something back.

 

"She says she'll take you there." 

 

"It might be dangerous," I said.

 

The Boatman laughed. "Lucky you'll have her with you then."

 

The Boatman agreed to wait while I collected my things. As I was packing I made plans. Finding the base would not be enough, no newspaper was going to publish the location of a secret air base, I needed to find the actual planes and take photos, I already had footage of the planes flying, I would then use my column in the UFO magazine to expose the reality behind the recent UFO sightings in Scotland. 

 

I met The Lass back at the boat. I told my plans to the Boatman, who translated them for the Lass, who in turn translated them into a series of whistles for Stoaty. With another whistle Stoaty followed us onto the boat.  I tried to tell the Lass that we couldn't take a sheepdog on a secret spying mission, but instead of translating the Boatman just shook his head sadly.

 

"She won't go anywhere without Stoaty sonny," he said. "Better get used to it."

 

The Boatman left us at my car, which was where I'd parked it just four days ago, though it seemed to belong to another lifetime. I had a map in the glove compartment and was surprised that the Lass could point to an exact spot. I drove towards it. Along a B-Road there was a dirt track, which was blocked by a sign which read 'Danger Rocks'. This was clearly the way to the base, there were no mountains, hills or anywhere rocks could come from, some military official had clearly borrowed a trick from another secret military site not realising that the reason it had worked there was that it was a plausible way of scaring off the general public, whereas here it just pinpointed the exact location of the base.

 

I drove on until I found a secluded place to hide the car, a cluster of trees behind which it was completely hidden.  We had a walk of just over two miles there, which meant, I had carefully calculated, that we had a walk of just over two miles back. This was risky, but not as risky as driving up the track or leaving the car too near. Breaking into a secret military base in the middle of the cold war carrying a selection of cameras and video equipment was not a low risk enterprise, but I put all thoughts of the possible consequences of being caught in the section of my brain I like to call 'do not think about this'. 

 

The most boring job in the world is working as a security guard in a place nobody knows exists. At first it must be great, time to read a book, catch up on sleep, but before long you're crawling up the wall, desperate for some drunk yobs to walk by outside singing and shouting loudly, but of course there are no yobs, there never have been, never will be, there is no-one, nobody, nothing, just you, and your book, that fucking book you've read a thousand and now and hate, hate as much as the silence. The silence. The silence. All there is is silence.

 

So multiply that by a thousand and you're part of the security team on a base that doesn't officially exist. There's a square mile to patrol, security cameras covering every square metre (except the square metres you're not allowed to know about), nearly everyone in the base is a god, or demi-god, a thousand ranks above you, you daren't ask any of them for sight of their pass, anything, so although this is the most secure base in the western world nobody is ever stopped, because the goods being transported are too secret for the security guards to be allowed to find out what they are, and they can't stop the rubbish trucks and catering vans because then they'd know which were the real rubbish trucks and catering vans. Even talking to the other soldiers on security patrol is a risk, as some of them will be spies, and what if you say something you shouldn't, or don't say something you should, or look at something you're not supposed to look at. Life as a security guard is as lonely as life alone on an island where nobody visits.

 

In other words breaking into the most high security base in the country would be a piece of piss. Nobody would ever think to look to see if anyone was breaking in, because there almost certainly wouldn't be, and if by some freak chance there was, it was better not to know about it.

 

Which is great, if you know that. But otherwise, if you're say a hopelessly naive school-leaver turned accidental superspy, then you think that every step you take is your last, every move you make, every breath you take is potential death, death described using Sting lyrics, which is the most horrible death imaginable.

 

The Lass led on to the enormous security fence, topped with barbe wire. She'd led the two mile walk like someone who'd walked this way before. We decided to walk normally, we were a couple walking their dog, so up to the point we crossed into the base we'd done nothing wrong, even if we were searched  I'd talk my way out eventually, I was a UFO spotter after all, so I could explain away the cameras. No, up until now we'd been safe. It was only once we crossed that we'd have broken the law, that we'd become fair game for any trigger-happy soldier.

 

"We'll never climb that," I said, in a brave-sounding voice, because as she didn't speak English it was possible to be cowardly and appear brave.

 

She pointed to a section of the fence which had been cut through with wirecutters. The torchlight showed that there was a clearly trod path running from the fence to the main compound. Clearly the soldiers and staff on the base had been using the hole in the fence as a secret exit and entrance for a long time.

 

Security's mind was elsewhere, making plans to build a pattio, speculating on the outcome snooker semi final, wondering if they were going to have that dream again, you know, the one where Maureen Lipman is their mother and they slowly realise that she is also the devil and is going to rip out their soul, and they wake up just in time, though too late to notice that someone has just wandered past on the security screen they should have been watching.

 

My mind was also elsewhere. How did The Lass find out about the hole in the fence in the secret base. I imagined lonely security guards on an all male base, discovering a woman living nearby, alone on an island, and smuggling her into barracks through the secret hole in the fence, because what harm could come of it, when she lived alone on an isolated island and never saw anyone.

 

Or, maybe Stoaty was chasing a rabbit one time and it ran through the hole in the fence.

Either explanation was plausible. 

 

We crept slowly. There was nobody, no nothing about. The Lass led on, a low whistly sending Stoaty skimmering along the field to our left. If the security guard did wake up now, if Maureen Lipman had struck early, he would surely have believed he was dreaming, the screen showing as it was a surreal version of One Man and His Dog.

 

The Lass tugged my sleeve and pointed to a large building which looked like an aircraft hanger. She mimed lights in the sky. The universal language for 'Your UFO is in there'.

 

We crept on, man, woman and dog. The next problem, I had anticipated, was how to break into the hanger. It would be locked, alarmed, probably patrolled. I was wrong on all three counts, it was open, unlocked, unpatrolled and we just strolled through. In no time at all I was taking photos of the new, secret plane, the one I'd mistaken for a UFO. Stoaty, meanwhile, went and relieved himself against the wheel.

 

Because my dad was ex-RAF I knew what pictures to take, what was unique about the craft, the wing-shape, the engine position, stepping back to take a distance shot that showed the overall shape of the plane. I even got shots of the instrument panel, which, rather helpfully, was illuminated all night when it wasn't in use.

 

We explored. There were more planes of the same design. I used up all my film taking photos, as well as video footage. It was time to go. I was spied out.

 

In movies and spy novels, this would be the point at which we were spotted, leading to an exciting chase in which Stoaty would no doubt end up the hero. But in reality this was a base staffed with hundreds of military personel, packed with observation cameras and armed with all the latest anti-terror weapons, we would have had no chance.

 

We crept carefully all the way back to the car, where, once seated in the driving seat, I burst into tears. We sat there a long time saying nothing, the Lass conforting me, me comforting the Lass and Stoaty comforting the both of us.

 

It was time to go. I could have driven to London, handed over the film to my editor and that would have been it. But we were in Scotland, and there is only one way to run when you're in Scotland and that's the John Buchan run.

 

I explained my plan to the Lass.

 

"Let's catch a train, leap off in the middle of nowhere when the train slows, run across empty moorland for miles, throw everyone off our track by completely losing our track, and eventually head to London, because if you want a Scottish story to have an ending you have to go to London."

 

The Lass said something I didn't understand, which was probably "Yay, let's go."

 

We had a plan. We were going the full John Buchan our way to the Smoke, to report the biggest UFO story in history to the biggest UFO magazine in the UK. What could possibly go wrong?