ENCOUNTER by Hep Aldridge (bill gates books recommendations .txt) 📕

script above the door and even more inside. The unique thing about it was the script was faintly glowing the blue color we had been seeing. We entered the next room, and they were all standing there, wide-eyed and mouths agape. I started taking in the room and saw a raised circular dais maybe a foot high and a large carved chair to one side of it. The room had more benches up against the walls, but the chair and the dais were the focal point.

Again, everything in the room looked like it had been carved from one piece of stone. I mean, there were no seams visible. The chair looked like it had sprouted out of the floor, and the room was filled with a bluish glow. I looked at Joe, and he said, “Colt, check out the chair.”

I walked up to it. It was completely smooth stone, no ornamentation or carvings, only handprint indentations, one on top of each of the chair’s arms. They were slightly larger than my hand when I compared them, and I have big hands.

Joe walked to the chair and said, “Watch this,” as he sat down and placed his hands palm down in the indentations.

I was totally startled by what happened next. From the floor at the center of the dais, a very bright blue glow appeared, growing upward in the form of a person. My mouth dropped open as the form of a female in long flowing robes appeared. Her facial features were different, somewhat elongated, almost aquiline, but exquisite, and she stood at least seven feet tall. She had a Mona Lisa smile, and the hands extending from under the robes were long and slender, crossed in front of her. I was standing there, stunned and immobilized, as the figure took full shape with an almost expectant look on her face.

“A hologram?” I muttered.

“Umm, I don’t think so,” Joe replied. “I worked with all types of holographic projections at DARPA, and there is something very different about her. She is a solid figure; you can’t see through her. It’s as if she is really standing there in person.”

As I stared, I realized he was right. I slowly walked around the dais, trying to look at her from all angles, and she turned her head to follow my progress. I’m sure my jaw was still dropped when I came around to stand next to the chair.

“Did you see that?” I said in an astonished voice. “Her gaze followed me the whole way.”

Joe was looking at the figure before us now, smiling that enigmatic smile, and managed to say, “Yeah, I did. As I said, I don’t think she’s a holograph or projection.”

Everyone was now staring wide-eyed at her as I whispered, “Then what the heck is she?”

As I stood there, Joe asked, “Who are you?”

The female figure turned her gaze to Joe and said something in a strange, almost melodic language.

“What?” I said to no one in particular and noticed Joe staring at her, mesmerized and smiling. She stopped talking, and Joe looked at me and said, “She indicated she is the teacher or guide, or something like that.”

“You can understand her?” I sputtered.

Before I could say more, Joe asked her, “Where are we?”

The figure raised one arm and pointed to a section of the wall, and on it appeared a map of South America; it slowly zoomed in to what was now Ecuador and continued its zoom until mountain ranges were clearly visible. Suddenly, it stopped, and a blue dot appeared. We had been using topo maps of this area enough lately that I recognized our location. The figure then spoke in a soft but well-enunciated voice again in the language I did not understand. As she talked, I looked at Joe, who was staring intently at her and nodding his head. In a few moments, he removed his hands, the figure disappeared, and he turned to me.

“Well, is that amazing or what?” he asked. “I think this could be an encounter of the fifth kind; you know direct contact with some type of an alien, or goddess, or who knows?”

I stood there for a moment and finally gathered my wits and said, “That’s so far beyond amazing. I don’t know what to say, but yeah, I think you’re right—it’s definitely contact.” The questions pouring into my head were mind-boggling, and I didn’t know where to start.

Then, Doc said, “How did you find this? I mean, how did you make it work?”

“I just sat in the chair and saw the handprints, so I put mine there, and she appeared,” Joe said. “At first, my brain was bombarded with snippets of voices and stuff, like spinning the tuning dial on a car radio really quickly, and then all of a sudden, it got quiet, and I swear she smiled at me. It’s like she was tuning into my brain, trying to make the right connection.”

“And you understood what she was saying. I heard her speaking, but it was like no language or dialect I’ve ever heard before,” Doc responded.

“Yeah, it was the damnedest thing. I could hear her speaking. I didn’t understand the words, but the meaning of what she was saying was perfectly clear in my head. Does that make any sense? I know it sounds crazy, but she described our location in detail, and I knew it. I understood it. It’s crazy—not something I can begin to explain.”

Joe looked puzzled. “I asked her name, and I got a sense of worldly knowledge and strength enveloped by calmness and accompanied by a cool breeze. Very real; no ego or attitude, but no name.”

Doc said, “Try again, and ask her something else like where is she from.”

Joe placed his hands in the indentations again, and the lady in blue appeared just as before. She looked at him, and, as he was about to speak, she pointed up, and a star map appeared floating overhead in 3-D and full color. It was like