Archangel of Sedona (11 page)

“I was filling in at St. Mark’s in late summer while the pastor vacationed. An accountant from Scottsdale came to Sedona. He walked in and said that he was looking for someone who knew about the piece McMannes had written. I tried to reach David at St. Luke’s, but he wasn’t available. So I talked to the man,” Hansen said.

“That’s pretty much what happened to me,” Father Pat said. “That’s how I met Tony.”

“The accountant asked a lot of questions about the Chapel of the Holy Cross and Ms. Staude
. He wanted details about the architects and the sculptor. I did my best, but—even though I grew up around here—I didn’t know all of the answers.”

“What happened then?” I asked.

“I don’t know. He disappeared. He never went back to Scottsdale. I remember that it was in September, sometime during the week before the Labor Day Weekend.”

“Why do you remember that?” Gretchen asked.

“Labor Day marks a change in the nature of our tourists. In the summer, it’s Phoenicians who own property up here, or tenderfeet who want to escape the heat. When it’s one-twenty in Phoenix, it’s at least twenty to twenty-five degrees cooler here. The folks from the Valley of the Sun come up in droves. Try getting near Slide Rock. After Labor day, we start seeing tourists from everywhere else in the world.”

“Don, something else happened. Tell us,” I said.

“The guy’s family knew he was coming up here. They thought he was a little crazy. He seemed fixated on something that had happened to him back in the day. When he didn’t return, they started an investigation. He was an important guy—a senior partner in a big three accounting firm in Phoenix. I had a visit from detectives from both the Maricopa and Coconino County Sheriff’s Offices.”

While Hansen was telling the story, the déjà vu overwhelmed me. This time I did sweat and shiver. Everyone at the table noticed my change in demeanor.

“Tony, are you OK?” Gretchen asked.

“Are you sure that this occurred in September?” I asked Hansen.

“Positive.”

“What year?”

“It had to be 1998,” Hansen said after he thought for a moment.

I took out my cell phone and tapped the Safari app. I went to the Google search window and entered a query for a calendar for 1998. I had a strong premonition.

“Honey, what are you doing?” Gretchen asked, as both men watched me.

“Confirming a suspicion,” I said, as I brought the calendar up. “Just as I thought.”

“What are you talking about?” My wife said in a worried voice.

“Don, was the name of the missing man, Dan Ostergaard?” I asked.

“Yes, I believe it was,” Hansen said, while shaking his head. Those evil gray eyes bored right through me.

“Ostergaard went missing sometime around September 2, 1998?” I asked, as I began to sweat through my knit shirt.

“After all these years, I don’t recall the exact day. The second seems right. I presume that would be the week before Labor Day that year.”

“Did they ever find the man?” Father Pat asked.

“Not to my knowledge. They kept the case open for a while. In 2003, a Maricopa County detective called and said that unless I had something more, they would close the case. I’m not positive, but I recall that Ostergaard’s wife had a court in Phoenix declare him to be deceased a year or two after that.”

“Tony, Ostergaard was your high school buddy, wasn’t he?” Gretchen asked.

“Yeah,” I said, startled by the turn of events.

“What is all of this?” Father Pat asked.

Gretchen looked at me. She knew that I wanted her to keep quiet and not explain. She couldn’t resist the impulse to reveal everything to these men.

What would follow would usher in the most momentous time of my life. Part of me wanted to bolt from the Cowboy Club and run all the way back to Tampa. Another part of me wanted Gretchen to explain, so I could watch these two men as she spoke. I’m much more of a fighter than a fleer.

I recognized that I would face my life’s biggest test. How I fared would determine my fate, maybe for eternity. I suspected that one of these men would try to destroy me and the other would try to save me. I had to learn which was which.

I smiled at Gretchen. Understanding, she went into her information dump mode.

“Tony and Dan were friends in high school and college,” she said.

“Are you saying that you knew this missing man, Tony?” Father Pat asked.

“Yes, Father. I did.”

“What’s the connection to the Christus?”

“Tony brought him up here in September of 1966 to see the Christus. While they were at the Chapel of the Holy Cross, they had an encounter with a UFO,” Gretchen said.

“Is this true?” Father Pat asked.

“Yes, it is.”

“Were there any other witnesses?” the priest asked.

“Yes. A husband, wife, their kid, and a dog were there too. After a time, the parents took the kid and the dog and ran for it. I never saw them again.”

“Do you remember their names?”

“No,” I lied. “Father, that was forty-seven years ago.”

I dissembled because I didn’t know which of these men I could trust. I knew the husband’s name was Bob and the dog’s name was Rommel. Those facts were two very slim reeds, but they were all that I had. I didn’t want to give that information up yet.

“Honey, don’t you remember, the dog’s name was Adolf Hitler?” Gretchen offered.

“Thanks, baby,” I said, grateful that she got the name wrong, but with enough sarcasm that she’d see that I didn’t want any more personal or private data revealed.

Don’t get me wrong. Gretchen is a five-star prosecutor. She’s very careful and circumspect in her cases. She’s a great chess player.

This wasn’t her case. It was mine.

“I can see why you’d remember that. I never heard of anyone naming a dog after Adolph Hitler,” Father Pat said.

“What kind of dog was it?” Hansen asked. His eyes had narrowed even further. He focused on me like a laser.

“It was a mutt, intelligent, obedient, and playful. German shepherd mix.”

“Sounds like a perfect dog for that kid,” Hansen said.

“I suppose.”

“So you’re saying that you encountered aliens at the chapel in ’66, and now this friend of yours is missing,” Father Pat asked, pulling us back from the tangent.

“No, Father. In 1966, Dan and I saw lights do things that were impossible, but we encountered no live alien life forms. I lost track of Dan decades ago. I didn’t try to contact him when I started obsessing over this issue. I first learned that he disappeared five minutes ago—during this conversation.”

“That’s interesting, Tony. But you shouldn’t worry too much. UFO sightings are quite common here. Most people in the Verde Valley have seen unexplained objects in the sky and strange lights,” Don said.

“Fine, Don. How many of these observers vanish without a trace?”

“A few. The trails, canyons, and wild country outside the small towns and villages from Prescott to Flagstaff can be unforgiving. We lost twenty brave and dedicated firefighters down in Yarnell
. Tourists, those who are unprepared, unfit, and unwise lose their lives in mishaps every year. If you take the wrong step on the wrong trail and don’t make it back, we may never find you because the wild country is full of critters that will recycle you back into the environment.”

“How serious can it be, if you’re a mile from an upscale neighborhood like Little Horse Park and you run out of water?” Gretchen asked.

“That happens all the time around here. Sometimes it doesn’t end well. The intelligent hikers prepare,” Hansen explained. “Have you ever read Jack London’s
To Build a Fire?”

“I don’t think so,” Gretchen admitted.

“A miner in the Yukon freezes to death less than a mile from safety because he’s unlucky and unprepared.”

I looked at Gretchen and adopted my smuggest expression. As you already know, she’d carped about the volume of equipment that I brought along for the day trips. She noticed my facial put down. She rubbed her left eye with the middle finger of her left hand.

“Do you believe in UFOs?” Father Pat asked, readdressing the main issue.

“Good question, Father,” Hansen said.

“Father Pat, Hansen is the expert on these matters. You can ask him. For me, your question is wrong. The term UFO means unidentified flying object. UFOs exist. We don’t know what they are, where they’re from, or who’s responsible because we haven’t identified the source of the phenomena,” I explained.

“I see,” Father Pat said. “Let me rephrase. I forgot for a moment that you’re a lawyer. Do you believe in aliens visiting the Earth?”

“I don’t know.”

“Mr. Hansen, what do you think?” Father asked.

“Father, the universe is a big place. Tonight we’ll be able to see billions of stars in the Sedona sky. If we had the right equipment, we could see whole galaxies over thirteen billion light years distant. We see the galaxies as they existed thirteen billion years ago. It would take thirteen billion years traveling at the speed of light to get to where they are now. If we got there, they’d be farther out in the expanding reality.”

“It is hard to conceive,” Gretchen added.

“There are billions of galaxies, with billions of stars in each one. There must be trillions, or even quadrillions, of planets orbiting those stars. It’s the height of arrogance to assume that Earth is one planet that has life. It’s mathematically impossible for Earth to be the one oasis in the whole universe. Scientists have concluded that in our own galaxy it’s probable that there could be eight billion planets like earth orbiting in the sweet spot around their suns. Logic dictates that some fraction of those worlds have developed life.”

“Then why is there so little evidence of extraterrestrial life?” Gretchen asked. “If life were so prevalent, we’d have seen plenty of evidence. Right?”

“Not necessarily. Carl Sagan used to lecture on this topic. The laws of physics, vast distances, limitations in technology, and the tendency of a species to foul its own nest are all factors in the answer. And why does the life have to be extraterrestrial? Why not inter-dimensional?” Hansen asked my bride.

“What do you mean by inter-dimensional?” she asked.

“We’ve discussed how vast the universe is. It’s also very small and complex,” Hansen said. “Three generations ago, we understood that molecules were made up of atoms. Today, we know that sub-atomic structure is as tiny and minute as the universe is vast. Scientists in France and Switzerland are on the brink of confirming the Higgs Boson, the so-called God-particle. It’s orders of magnitude smaller than protons, electrons, and neutrons.”

“You’re losing me,” Gretchen said. “I went to law school because there was no math, physics, or science.”

“Sorry,” Hansen apologized. “I tend to get carried away. In a way, the universe stretches from the infinitesimally small Higgs Boson, quarks, and dark matter to huge galaxies that are a million light years in diameter and billions of light years away. You get that, right?”

“Sure, I’m not a complete loss but I’m not a geek, like you,” Gretchen said.

“I guess, I am a geek at that,” Hansen admitted. “Try to follow this. The universe as we know it is vast, but it’s also not the only universe. There are other parallel dimensions that exist in the same space. We are a three-dimensional species and because of physical limitations, we can only perceive reality in terms of length, width, and height. We also understand passing time, so that’s a temporal dimension. The other dimensions exist. They are as complex as our universe, there are billions, trillions or even quadrillions of them.”

“That’s hard to believe, Don,” Father Pat said.

“Are you saying that an omniscient God cannot create the circumstances that I’ve described?”

“No. He can do anything, even that. I studied science. It’s still hard to wrap my thick Irish head around that concept.”

“Different issue, Padre. You’re a mortal man with above average intelligence who’s biologically confined to three dimensions. Think of it this way. You’re in a clothing store. You’re being fitted for a new suit. You stand in that space with several angled mirrors. If you look at your image in the right way, the reflection gives you the impression there are multiple images that stretch to infinity.”

“That’s a false metaphor. It’s like a mirage,” Father Pat said.

“True, but suppose this universe was a card in a deck of one quadrillion cards.”

“Are you saying that if these parallel realities exist and intelligent beings populate them, that they can come here?” Gretchen asked.

“Yes. Several advocates of that concept live in Sedona,” Hansen explained. “Some folks think that the energy you feel in Sedona is because the Verde Valley is a portal for inter-dimensional travel.”

“Have you seen these inter-dimensional beings, Don?” Gretchen asked.

Hansen hesitated for a long moment. He looked at each one of us. You could hear the wheels turning in his head.

“If I’d seen one, I wouldn’t admit it to you guys,” Hansen said. “You’re neophytes. I do know people in Sedona who swear that they’ve seen these beings.”

“What are the beings like?” Gretchen pressed.

“There are species from different parallel universes. There’s no standard type.”

“Do any look like the Christus?” Father Pat asked.

Hansen paused again. He nodded his head and said, “Yes.”

Father Pat looked distressed.

“How do you know this?” I asked.

“Some of my clients have had the encounter. They described the beings. They’re identical to the Christus. Eight or nine feet tall, thin, long arms and legs. These features indicate a being that evolved on a planet with less gravitational force than earth.”

At this point, the waitress returned and we ordered another round.

“Hope I’m not breaking the bank with my scotch,” Hansen said.

“
In vino est veritas
, Don,” I said.

“Yes. I’m giving it to you straight,” Hansen said.

“Don, if these Christus beings come here, why don’t we know about it? Are you suggesting that there’s a big government conspiracy?” Gretchen asked.

“Are you familiar with the conquest of the Aztecs in Mexico, or the Incas in Peru?