FOO FIGHTERS
 by R.S.Causo


    'You care too much for people who died more than fifty years ago.'  
    William Parks looked up at his wife, Barbara. She couldn't sit down at the breakfast 
table. She rarely could sit down anywhere at all. Barbara was a restless woman-and she was 
always minding Parks's over-scheduled job at the USAF Historical Research Center, at 
Maxwell Air Base in Montgomery, Alabama.
    A P-47 fighter had been dug out of a stone-field in Italy, and the plane's wreckage ended 
up in the Air Force Base in Monte Vergine. They were still digging evidence from that field. 
Anyway, USAF had forwarded Parks the case-mostly to identify the aircraft unit, and the 
pilot's remains in order to clarify his identity, which was Parks's main concern.
    There were some 78,000 military personnel still missing from World War II. Families 
waiting clarification. And Europe was a million-year-old graveyard for warriors. Yet it 
happens all the time-American soldiers's remnants found out and put up to identification 
through dental records and techniques alike. But this case  was different. Harder. There was 
something wrong with the investigation back in Italy-Parks had not been given all the 
available data, he knew. However, they've sent him in advance the serial numbers of the P-
47's eight Browning M-2 .50 machine guns.
    The machine guns were trustworthy evidence. They're heavy and stocky and can 
easily survive a plane crash to further identification. 
     Though not in this case. Parks couldn't find anywhere in the US. military records the 
plane that carried those guns. Parks cared for the pilot's family. He was a story without end. 
All the links that man had made during his life were ending in a void of grief and memories 
never settled down through a funeral, or a closed family-book. 
     'Those dead still have links with living people today,' he said. 'Families, you know. 
Wives, children and grandchildren, friends. They have a right to know. That's a basic thing, 
honey. You should know that. You got a degree in history, and that's what history's all 
about!'   
    'Oh, you got me now. I'm concerned. You worry too much, and you're not even in the 
military.'    'I work for them, anyway. Civilian clerk.' Parks swallowed down the rest of his 
cold coffee and stood. 'And if I get late, they'll deal with me as if I were another foot soldier 
gone AWOL.'
    'Wait a second,' she said, holding him. They shared a kiss. 'That case you're working into, 
Will, that ghost plane-'
    ' 'Ghost plane.' Well,  that's quite an image,' Parks said. 
    'Have you ever considered it is not an American plane? There were a lot of Allied forces 
in the war, many from other places. Even more in Italy.'
    'That's an idea, honey. A good one. I'll check it out. Gotta go now.'
    Parks drove his treasured Chevy Camaro under Alabama's sun. Maxwell was not very far 
away from home, but he had time to review the case and Barbara's insight. She's right,  he 
thought. I should blame myself for not having come up with this line of investigation before. 
*    *    *
    There was peace up there. The cockpit was cold but he felt well-nestled and comfortable. 
Down on land his fellow countrymen were crawling on snow and mud, risking stepping on a 
mine or being ambushed by German soldiers, or receiving artillery rounds upon their 
foxholes. 
     Sun-bathed clouds piled up to east like huge mountainsides rising kilometers up straight 
to heaven.  Heavy and rock-like, scarped faces of boiling CB's cliffs, those reddened clouds 
should be avoided. 
     So should enemy flak guns. 
     Second Lieutenant Rubens Scavone was doing just that now. It wasn't a bombing 
mission. He was taking his Thunderbolt from Tarquinia to a better airfield in Pisa. He 
should have Captain Marcondes's plane going along with him, but Marcondes's P-47 had a 
generator failure right after take off and returned to Tarquinia. Scavone was allowed to go 
ahead alone. 
     His Thunderbolt had no bombs or rockets under its wings. He feared no enemy planes-
Italy's airspace was mostly controlled by the Allies.
     Scavone has had his share of missions by now. He joined the 1st Brazilian Fighter 
Squadron later than most, missing the instruction period the boys spent in the Canal Zone in 
Panama. He came from a time flying P-40s in Brazil's northeast, and almost missed the war 
entirely-a hernia troubled him for some weeks, until it was operated in time for the Fighter 
Squadron selection. 
     He came out of a family with a tradition in flying. He was only fourteen when he learned 
to fly. His fate was to come to Italy-the country his grandparents once left to 'make 
America'-and  drop his loads of bombs on the already battered Old World's soil. He had 
done just that in twelve missions. His P-47's tail had being flak-peppered twice. The bubble 
canopy perforated by light-arms fire once. Yet in all his missions he has hit the targets and 
brought the plane back home.
     For a second his mind was lost in a storm of images-bombs leaving his wings to blast 
away an enemy fuel depot in the Po Valley, bursts of tracers from the eight machine guns 
pursuing trucks on small country roads; explosions, and the sharp flashes of flak erupting 
around in the air. Scavone tamed the memory flow, his heart pounding in his chest.   
     He's seen fellow pilots being shot down, or dead in stupid accidents. He feared a similar 
destiny, but had enough control of it. War was no place for fear-not at mind surface, at 
least.
    And flying was a joy. Here he found peace.
*    *    *
    Will Parks called Barbara at her part-time job at the Montgomery public library to thank 
her.
    'It worked, honey! Get ready to dine out tonight.'
    'Wow, Will, this really seems to matter for you,' she said. They seldom went out for diner. 
'I'll be ready.'
    Parks arrived home later holding a pile of papers and books. He and Barbara kissed each 
other and he rushed upstairs for a shower, leaving his homework all over the bed. 
    Barbara made an effort to sit down, and took a quick look at the stuff. Photocopies and 
old Jane's catalogs and brochures. 
    When Parks came out of the bathroom and started to gather his clothes, she asked him 
what was going on.
    'We've got the Ghost Plane identification,' he said. 'Thanks to your insight this morning. 
We searched for the machine guns serial numbers in the documentation of the Lend-Lease 
program we had at the time of the war, and they armed a Brazilian P-47, mind you.'
    'Brazilian? I didn't know they've had a part in the war.' 
    'Well, Brazilian Air Force was some two or three years-old when they set a fighter 
squadron up to fight in the Mediterranean Theatre of Operation, under the XXII Tactical 
Air Command. They had an infantry division on the ground, an 'Expeditionary Force,' as 
they called it, so it was mostly a good idea to have some guys in the air too. They lost a 
number of aircrafts and crewmen in accidents during the first week in service, I guess they 
were inexperienced with that kind of operation, you know. But a story goes that these 
Brazilians were pretty good at dive-bombing and such. An old timer in the office told me 
they even were awarded with the Presidential Unit Citation, which's a pretty rare commend 
to non-US units. Only a RAF fighter was awarded with it, too. The Brazilians did their job, 
sure.'
     'And what about our Ghost Plane?'
     'Aircraft number 42-26428, as registered in the Brazilian Air Force. This was as far as we 
went. We called some areas of Brazil's Air Force for clarification of the pilot's name, but it 
seems their archives are even more in a mess than ours. They seem unable to understand 
what we're interested in. Maybe those guys have never faced this sort of situation. It's going 
to take time, I guess.'
    'You're in the right path now,' Barbara said, smiling. She could feel he was excited, like a 
detective about to close a major case. 
    'Yeah. We're getting closer.' 
    By then, Will was almost dressed up. Barbara got up to help him with his tie. 'How this 
pilot not being an American strikes you, Will?' she asked in a soft voice.
    He stood there for a while in silence, facing himself in the mirror. 
    'I've been thinking about it, be sure. Sometimes we tend to see that war as a private 
business of America, but what difference does it make the nationality of the people who died 
there? It was called a World War for good reasons. I would be doing this even if that dead 
man was a God-damn Nazi.' 
    'You'll find him, I'm sure,' she said, embracing him for the kiss that would begin the 
night.
    *    *    *
    The sun was going down, a blazing globe bellow the horizon. But the P-47D, high above, 
was still being hit by sunlight. The huge Cumulus Nimbus at his right was split in two by the 
Earth's shadow. Its top was washed in red-and-gold light; its bottom was deep-blue, dark-
gray and black. Scavone thought he could see lightnings exploding muffled by the clouds, as 
if the CB was burping electric gas and wet heat.
    He checked his instruments once again. He was flying minimum cruise, manifold pressure 
gauge of 31" at 2150 rpm steady, mixture control at 'Auto Lean.' Since it was pretty cold in 
that October, he had the intercooler shutter control on 'Neutral.' There was light enough 
for him to see the razorback line of the Apennines at his right, very far on the distance, and 
the slight and dark curve of the Mediterranean at his left. Snow fields and mud holes all over. 
Maybe he would have to change his course to avoid the CB.
    Scavone had mixed feelings about Brazil in the war. They were fighting German tyranny, 
but had their own tyranny back in home. The officers who went to the United States for 
instruction came back talking a lot about democracy. 'We're fighting this war for 
democracy.' Americans used to talk a lot of democracy, and the boys were now quoting 
them. Yet the US was a divided society, with their black people at the bottom. Scavone 
couldn't understand that very much. In Brazil the only thing that kept the blacks down was 
poverty, and not political restrictions. Poverty was democratic-it could afflict everybody, 
regardless of color or origin. Scavone knew that because he came from a family of 
immigrants that had to work really hard to reach the welfare they now enjoyed. He also 
knew that Getßlio Vargas, the dictator since 1930, was accepting American bases in Brazil 
and sending the Expeditionary Force to Italy because he couldn't face the United States in 
the continent. Vargas and his supporters were used to the provincial politics of agrarian 
Brazil, but now they could see the outside world order demanding new repositioning. It was 
clear at this point the Americans and the Allies would win the war in Europe. Vargas wanted 
to be with the winners. He was wise enough to see that the Argentineans next door were 
arming themselves, and he cared more about his borders and his Spanish-speaking rivals 
than about the World War. The Americans would arm Brazil for him, in exchange for the 
bases and the small part Brazil would have in the war. And there was that awful business of 
German U-boats sinking civilian ships in Brazil's coastal waters. 
    Scavone had a strong sympathy for United States and England, as well as he had for the 
Italy of his grandparents. He was a reader of American and British literature since childhood, 
starting with Jack London's White Fangs. He still read as much as he could, on spare time. 
Mostly books in English or Italian, that he gathered here and there. He felt not just 
admiration for their cultures-he felt a longing, he felt homesick, he nurtured deep saudades 
for them. It was a weird thing, how much you can be shaped by reading. Yet Brazil, so far 
away from those higher cultures, was the place where he thrived to improve his life and the 
ones of his fellow citizens. He planed a career in law, but then the war came.
    He had a wife back home in SÇo Paulo. 
    Maria EugËnia had tried to dissuade him from volunteering for the fighter group. Yet 
Scavone gave up to that feeling, that he should join other Brazilians in the war, or another 
husband would be sent overseas in his place. At least he didn't have any children. It was a 
weird sort of call-the call of Armageddon. 
    He could not understand the feeling. And he certainly could not understand what would 
come out of the war, for Brazil. Perhaps the men who fought there for democracy would 
return and claim it to their home too. Perhaps change would come, tyrants would fall, 
bridges would be build to diminish division.
    Perhaps not. 
    Or maybe the men who put their lives at stake would be forgotten, along with their 
reasons. 
    Scavone glanced down. He saw lightnings bursting out of the ground as much as out of 
the stormy clouds. Shells falling. German guns upsetting Allies positions and vice-versa. 
Suddenly what happened down there seemed more real for him than any speculation about 
the future or politics. Men living and dying in fear. 
    Maybe he also would die soon. To be forgotten by all, another name on a sheet of paper, 
a casualty among million of others, from all countries, all orders, all beliefs and dreams. 
What made them equal?
*    *    *
    After the end of the war the 1st Brazilian Fighter Squadron went back home as 1.  Grupo 
de AviaÚÇo de CaÚa-1st Fighter Aviation Group. It was based in Santa Cruz, in the State of 
Rio de Janeiro. Nowadays they flew some old Northrop F-5s. Parks's small office was 
crowded with stuff from the 1.  GAvCa. A PR officer with whom he talked by phone in Rio 
have sent him magazines, brochures, and a number of fine postcards showing F-5s over the 
Guanabara Bay. Nice view. Barbara and Parks had thought about going abroad on their next 
vacations, and Rio now seemed a good option.
    Another thing sent to him was a stick with the 1.  GAvCa badge, a gun-wielding ostrich 
with a blue shield. In the shield was pictured the Southern Cross constellation, which was a 
national symbol. In Australia too, Parks remembered. Also in the badge was the curious 
motto Senta a Pua!  
    Maybe he was going too far with his passionate involvement with the investigation, but he 
knew that when it was over, he'd put the whole stuff in a scrapbook, close it, and call the 
next.
    He had a list in front of him. Sent by a Brazilian archivist, it had the names and related 
data concerning all Brazilian crewmen in Italy at the time of the war. It was a start.
    He heard a knock at the door, and then Major Ellis entered. Ellis was Parks's supervisor 
in the Historical Research Center.
    'Can I talk to you for a minute, Will?' he said. Parks stood, wondering what would that 
be. When Ellis was polite, it meant incoming trouble. Ellis took him to a meeting room. 
There was a man waiting for them. The man rose, touching the table with his knuckles. He 
was wearing a dark suit, and his hair was cut short, almost military fashion. 
    'This is Mr. Hinson,' said Ellis. 'This is our main archivist, Will Parks.'
    Hinson shook his hand. 'Thank you, Major. Sit down, Mr. Parks.' Hinson then produced 
a Military Intelligence badge. Parks had never seen one of those before. He always thought 
secret agents would be introduced as 'agent' and would avoid showing any identification. 
'This meeting is not to be commented on by anyone else.'
    'OK,' he said, feeling a bit intimidated. 'What's the matter, sir?'
    'I'll be as clear as I can, Mr. Parks. The investigation you're presently conducting is 
classified.'
    "Classified..." Parks wondered the implications of that. "I bet that's why we have not 
received all the available data on that plane."
    "Yes, and I'm sorry that your findings had brought us problems. We don't want that 
crashed plane to be sent back to its country of origin-"
    "The aircraft is Brazilian," Parks said. "We have already contacted officers in the Brazilian 
Air Force. We have not yet received any request to have the pilot's remains back, but it may 
arrive at any minute, you know."  
    "Well," said Hinson, smiling. "This makes our job easier."
    "What do you mean?"
    Hinson smiled wider. He made a gesture with open hands. "There's no body."
    Parks sat back with a sigh. He did not want to think what he was thinking. Yet he just 
went on and spoke it out loud. "You mean you made the body disappear? Just like that?"
    Hinson's smile vanished. Ellis glanced hard at Parks.
    "No," said Hinson, dryly. "I just mean there was no body in the wreckage. Probably the 
pilot bailed out before hitting the ground."
    "Probably..."
    There was a moment of silence. Then Hinson resumed the talk, repeating, "We don't want 
the plane back to Brazil. There's a chance they are not going to ask for it to be returned, yet 
anyway you are our front line of defense, Mr. Parks. They've been talking to you, and we 
want you to handle the situation for us, to hold them at bay till we're finished with what we 
are presently doing with the plane."
    "May I know what's that?"
    "No."
    "How long will it take?"  
    "We don't know. Maybe one month, maybe six. No way to know at this point."
    "Point of what?"
    "Enough, Will," said Ellis, calmly. "You'll do as they're saying. That's all."
    Parks glanced to the hard-looking officer. At least he didn't say we.
*    *    *
    It was pretty dark now. The lightnings inside the CB seemed to increase. The clouds 
seemed closer. 
    There was a sudden bolt of obfuscating light, and Scavone thought he saw a group of 
three planes getting out of the clouds. He blinked repeatedly, in pain. He wondered about 
what he'd just seen-no plane could come in one piece out of a cumulus nimbus.
    Blinking, he looked again. He saw three spots of white light. Those guys were using their 
wing tail lights bright, instead of dim as the war procedure demanded. The sight of them 
leaving the CB could have been a trick of the eye. They would be surrounding the clouds, of 
course. Scavone understood it could only be friendly airplanes.
    Scavone pressed the channel B button, for communication with aircraft of other groups 
or commands, on his VHF radio set, and plugged the microphone and headset into the 
receptacle on the lower right side of the cockpit. Then he pressed the mike button on the 
toggle switch. He said to the oxygen mask mike, "Here's Jambock Blue Three, over," and 
released the mike button for receiving. Nothing came. He called over twice. 
    He got no answer. The UHF waves might have been obstructed by the atmospheric 
conditions. For a second he thought his best move now would be to call Tactical Air 
Control Center and ask about other Allied planes in the area, but he gave up to it-he 
wouldn't get an answer in time. As the three strange planes approached, he would find their 
true face soon enough. 
    Scavone wondered what to do then.
*    *    *
    Hinson embarked, right after his talking with Ellis and Parks, into a small jet at Maxwell 
and took off for Washington, D.C. Things seemed to have gone fine in the meeting with 
Parks. The clerk was quite hostile, but most were, when told how to conduct their jobs 
because of unknown, "secret" reasons. Hinson used his time in flight to review once again 
his for-yours-eyes-only dossier. 
    There was some points in it he hadn't figured out yet. That Brazilian squadron had 
operated mostly in the Apennines area and southwest of it. How come the crashed plane 
had been dug out of a stony field in the Dolomites Alps, so far north it was almost on the 
Austrian border? The aircraft was intact, as if it had been kindly laid down on that field, and 
not crashed onto it. And no sign of the pilot-Hinson had not lied to Parks. It was the 
craziest thing Hinson had ever known of. Or faced in his professional duties.
    He wondered what would come now. He was heading for another meeting. 
    Hinson's plane landed at Andrews Air Force Base. From the plane he got into an 
unmarked car that took him to a nearby building. He showed his identification to the 
security personnel at the entrance, and was escorted to a meeting room. At this meeting 
room three men were waiting for him. Hinson immediately gave a sharp report concerning 
his meeting with Parks, and what Major Ellis had told him about the clerk and his work so 
far. "It seems all's under control there," he concluded. 
    "Well done," said James Dixon, who was the special coordinator for everything 
concerning the Brazilian P-47 affair. "Hinson, you were promoted to new levels of 
clearance," he handed Hinson a number of papers over the table. "We want you to handle all 
the liaisons with military personnel involved in the case."
    "Thank you, sir." Hinson was excited. That was a major decision, and meant this meeting 
could be his first complete briefing about the case. Until now he had been some sort of 
message-boy to the military, something he couldn't say was the best position available. At 
least the CIA people had the sense to send someone from the Military Intelligence to do the 
liaison.
    Dixon nodded to one of the other men, a CIA operation manager called Simmons, who 
reached for his showcase. He took a number of large photographs from it, and threw one to 
Hinson over the table.                          
    The P-47 in point appeared in the first photo. It was remarkably intact. 
    "You already know where this aircraft was found," said Simmons, giving him another 
photo. It showed a small glass-like artifact. "This object was found inside the aircraft's flight 
commands."
    Another photo, another glass-like object. "This one in the engine."
    "They don't look like original parts," Hinson said, smiling. "Look more like jewelry." He 
still could not figure out what was going on, but he felt it was close to be revealed.
    "No, they don't," Simmons confirmed, in a humorless voice. He threw some two dozen 
photos of other objects alike. "All found in the plane, and they were not smuggled jewelry." 
He looked at Dixon, who said: 
    "They're not from this planet, Hinson." 
*    *    *
    "I just think the Brazilians have a right to know what has happened to their airplane, if 
they want to, Major," Parks told Ellis.
    Major Ellis rose from behind his desk.
    "You will not come to my room to tell me which people are entitled to what, Will. This is 
a matter of national security, and even you must be able to figure out what this mean."
    Parks withdrew, clutching his teeth in anger. Yes, he would not bring the issue back to his 
supervisor. Ellis dismissed him and Parks went back to his crowded desk. There was a stack 
of faxed messages from Brazil waiting for him, under a short note: "All we could find 
concerning the matter. Somebody may call you later. Stand by."
    What was that? Somebody would call? Who? His phone rang at that right moment. I can't 
believe it, he thought.
    "Hello?" a woman's voice said, hesitantly. "I have asked for Mr. Parks."
    "It's Parks here. Who's speaking?"
    The woman spoke as if relieved to know it was him. She had an accent. "My name is 
Maria EugËnia, I am speaking from Brazil." 
     From Brazil? "Yes, ma'am. What can I do for you?"
     "Somebody from the... uh, Brazilian Air Force told me you are investigating an airplane 
from Brazil that, uh-"she had problem with the words. Parks was tense but forced himself 
to be patient. "I will tell you, I... I had my husband missing during the war. His name was 
Rubens Scavone. They never told me whether he died or not. His plane was never found. 
Now somebody in the Air Force told me you have found an airplane that could be his. Have 
you...? Have-?"
     "How do you spell Schiavone?" he asked, being the investigator once again.
     While she corrected him and spelt the name, Parks felt a sharp pain in his left wrist, the 
one holding the phone. His grip of the phone was so tight he had twisted a muscle. How 
could he face that woman after what Hinson and Ellis had told him? "Listen, Mrs. 
Scavone-"
    "No, I am not Scavone any more. I have... went on with my life, Mr. Parks. I have a 
family now, a life, but I just could not forget that Rubens... you know."
    Yes, he knew. "Well, I... I don't have any information about the pilot of the plane we've 
found. There is no... body, you know. He probably bailed out before the plane crashed. 
Maybe you should try German records on prisoners of war."
    "We have done that already, Mr. Parks. It was of no use," she said.
    "Yes," what to say? "Many of those records were lost. I don't know how to help you, 
ma'am. I'm sorry."
    "Oh, it's all right." There was resignation on her voice. Parks pictured an old lady, almost 
seventy by now but still sharp, a worried look on her face. How much time had she spent 
searching for her missing first husband? How many years? She has a new life now, but 
cannot forget all the time of searching, of worrying. It was a lasting commitment. "Thank 
you for your time."
    "You're welcome."
*    *    *
    The three strange aircrafts were close enough now to Scavone recognize them as not 
being friendly planes. Yet he could not recognize them as being of any kind of known planes 
operating in this theatre of war. There was some atmospheric effect, weirdly blurring their 
contour-it was all clouded in globes of foggy light. All he could tell was that those were not 
Allied units. And they moved faster than he would have told possible.
    Scavone recalled some talking with North-American pilots. Some of them had told him of 
the so-called "foo-fighters," strange lights that followed fighters or danced on bombers 
wings. Some guys spoke of them with a sort of fear, other figured it out to be a natural 
phenomenon that could fool a pilot into pursuing false foes. The best measure would be to 
stick with the route and ignore them.
    But Scavone kept an eye on them, anyway. They moved fast and were quite sharp on 
turns. He felt they had him in a sort of target center, and they were closing in. The objects 
were so lightened up it was easy to follow all their maneuvers. 
    He quickly gave up to the idea of pretending there was nothing going on, and turned the 
gun sight on for maximum brilliance. After just a second spared, he switched "Guns & 
Camera" on, and busily started to deal with the throttle quadrant to increase power and 
velocity. He wanted to be ready, that's all.
    He tried the radio again, now that they were closer, but at no effect. 
*    *    *
    The third man in the meeting room stood up. He was gray-haired, in his fifties, and had 
an intellectual look. "This is Dr. Mark Rosenberg, Hinson," said Dixon. "He's here to tell us 
what this extraterrestrial theory is about."
    Rosenberg started up a slide show. He pushed a button in a small remote control and the 
lights went off. He pushed another button, a slide appeared in the opposite wall.
    "This is a computer-generated image that shows something of the molecular structure of 
the small pieces of glass-like objects found in the airplane. Mostly it shows that these objects 
were not evenly crystallized, or, should I say, were not crystallized at the same time. Yet we 
have no knowledge of a proceeding to hold together a device which's simultaneously crystal, 
liquid, and gas, and eventually end up with a perfect single piece. They were like, hum, a 
jellyfish or a sea-cucumber. Soft inside, but with a more solid layer outside to make them 
able to touch hard surfaces. Very malleable."
    "Device, you said?" Hinson asked.
    "Yes," Rosenberg confirmed. "Because, in the point they were set, the objects could 
clearly control the airplane's actions."
    "Sabotage," Hinson whispered to himself, but Rosenberg caught it and said it had no way 
to be sabotage.
    "It would take too much work and time from the saboteurs, and would have been easily 
noticed by ground crews. The only way the object could have been set into the airplane 
would be to put them there at the assembling of the plane itself. And they fit perfectly in the 
available space inside it, in order to produce the intended effects." Rosenberg held his 
explanation for a while, looking at his audience. "Let me put this thing as clear as I can. 
There's no way those things could have been put inside the airplane but during the flight, by 
means we don't understand and have never heard before. No need to think the Germans 
would have them. The only explanation we've got is, they were put there by an alien 
intelligence, for the purpose of seizing the airplane, and its pilot. The pilot, since they've got 
rid of the plane."
    "I don't mean to make a joke, but you seem to be talking about the stuff from that sci-fi 
show, Star Trek," said Hinson.
    "A teletransport, or a device to project solid stuff from considerable distances," 
Rosenberg confirmed, and silenced. Hinson understood he was serious, and then he saw the 
true importance of that mystery. A complete new technology. "And now this," Rosenberg 
punched another slide into view.
    Hinson could not see clearly what was represented on the wall. A lot of lights leaving 
bright-white stripes against a dark background. They were serpent-like but there was always 
a number of other less bright or large converging to the center of the picture.
    "Tracers," he said, remembering some footage he's seen from old black and white film 
taken from fighters during WW2.
     "That's right. This was one of the best frames we could get back from the airplane. Now 
see this other. Here we see three globes of light. Unidentified-Flying Objects. You should 
see the whole animated film. They do impossible things in the air. And note the tracers do 
not hit the targets. They are deflected."
     "Dr. Rosenberg," interrupted Dixon, "what this all amount to? Do we have a real chance 
to understand what has happened, or to extrapolate something from those glass things?" 
    Rosenberg took his time. Hinson could see it was not a easy answer he had to give. "No, 
sir. We are trying the best we can, but all we have are glass pieces. Ordinary glass-that once 
probably were used as machines, but now they're like fossils of what they were at the time of 
the plane's encounter with the UFOs. Maybe one day we'll have the technical powers to 
understand more of it, bur for now whatever happened that night over Italy, it rests with the 
pilot." 
    "Well," said Hinson, only to break the silence, "at least our Brazilian friend did not go 
without some fighting."
    "Wherever he went."
*    *    *
    Will Parks and Barbara were sitting at their verandah, drinking lemonade and gazing at 
Alabama's night sky. It was a night plenty of stars, and Parks eyed them quietly. Too quietly 
for Barbara.
    "Oh, I can't take it any more," she said. "Tell me what's in your mind, for Chris's sake."
    He looked at her, and then smiled. "Baby, can't you just relax a little bit and share with me 
a romantic moment under starlight in this magic evening?"
    "Don't kid me, William Parks. I know you more than anyone in this world, and I know 
you're not having romantic thoughts right now." She paused and then said, quietly, "You are 
thinking about our Ghost Plane, the one whose story you'll never figure out."
    Parks sipped a bit of his lemonade. Then he pressed the glass against Barbara's cheeks. 
She cried  with its coldness. 
    "Shame on you," he said. "There's nothing in our marriage contract that says of 
telepathy."
    "You're an open book, boy."  
    Silence again. They embraced each other, refreshing themselves and watching the sky. 
    Parks thought he couldn't see the Southern Cross in this northern sky.
    "I've got a name, honey. It may or may not be the Ghost Plane's pilot, but it's a strong 
name and in my mind I've already put our pilot in a flight suit with a name-tag written 
'Scavone.' I have not told you about him. Scavone once had a wife-I can't speak her name. 
She called me this afternoon, you know. Once she was set to have a life with Scavone, but 
then he disappeared and now she has another husband and a family. Yet she could not rest 
without knowing she's done all she was able to try, without getting as much near as possible 
to the end of Scavone's tale. I wished to tell her we were pretty close to reach the end of it."
    "I'm sorry it's got so personal for you, Will," Barbara said. Only now she felt how much 
involved he was.
    "Those officers down in Brazil have sent me a thick bunch of stuff, and I've located a 
photo that shows Scavone. He was a sad looking guy. Dark and sad eyes.
    "I was here trying to imagine how he felt as he bailed out of that P-47. Scared maybe. But 
had he thought that all his plans for his life would not have a start, and that that moment 
would be the end of it? It was dark, cold, and lonely up there. He may have felt a lot of 
frustration. I know how it is."
    "No you don't," she said. "You don't know what his last feeling on this world were. 
Perhaps he was just... sad as you said he used to be. Or angry. Or merely calm. We don't 
know."
    He turned his eyes to her. "Look who's talking about being calm." But then he kissed her 
and said, "I'm calm now, thanks to you.
    "Scavone met his destiny, whatever it was. I'm just mad because I liked the fellow-and 
I've never even met him!-and his story's a mystery for me."   
    "You got plenty of mysteries to solve waiting for you in your desk," she said.
    "That's true," he said, and smiled.
*    *    *
    Scavone saw the squadron of unknown aircrafts accelerating and moving boldly towards 
him. Their speed was so high in seconds they were as near as some hundred meters, and still 
unrecognizable. Scavone already had the P-47 on war emergency power, the turbocharger 
fully working. He moved the stick and made the plane do a long "lazy 8" maneuver to get it 
off the three strangers's interception course. It worked and put him on the tail of the tight-
formation of the foo-fighters. 
    He didn't care anymore whether he was seeing ghosts or some natural phenomenon-
they moved intelligently and quickly enough for him to fear them and set himself for a fight. 
Better to shoot them down than to risk whatever they could inflict on him.
    And they were moving right into shooting position ahead of his gun sight. 
    The P-47 shook a bit as the eight machine guns fired and Scavone saw a burst of .50 
tracers leaving his wings. The burst caught the three-planes formation and were deflected, 
spreading all over as inoffensive fireworks. As he fired, the gun camera automatically 
worked, recording his attack. The planes were unaffected by the bullets, and Scavone closed 
in during a tight curve and fired again, at no positive effect, though he was sure to have hit 
them bull's eye.
    And then they decelerated and moved to his sides so quickly he was barely able to follow 
them. Scavone couldn't believe somebody inside them would ever survive such abrupt 
movements. Now one of them was flying by his left wing and another by his right wing with 
him, while the third kept itself not far from his tail. 
    Scavone jerked the stick to shake them off, but whichever maneuver he made it was 
sharply followed by the foo-fighters.  
    He gave up, breathing hard, trying to control his pulse. His first-and-last dog fight lasted a 
couple of minutes, and now all he had left was waiting. He brought the P-47 to a minimum 
cruise speed, and at this moment the airplane quit obeying his commands. It started to fly by 
itself-or piloted remotely by the foo-fighters, he suspected. This was the time of real fear. 
If they could control the airplane, then there was actually an intelligence on them. Now 
resting in the Thunderbolt's cockpit, Scavone tried to imagine what kind of intelligence 
would have that power. He didn't lose a second thinking about Germans or any other 
human origin. He new enough of all principles of science to disregard an Earthly technology. 
And he was familiar enough with that weird American literature, science fiction, to be open 
to an Extra-terrestrial origin. 
    That was scaring. He more or less knew what to expect from German captors, but this-
what would they have for him?
    They were leading him to the cumulus nimbus. He then thought he would be destroyed 
before seeing any non-human face that might be waiting for him inside the stormy CB, but 
as they approached it the cloud opened up on their way, in a tunnel big enough to have a 
battle-ship cruising through it. The clouds slid away, up and down as waterfalls of boiling 
steam, spilling out short lightning bolts, and in the middle of the CB, in the very eye of the 
storm, it was all calm as if it was the quietest place in God's soul, and there he saw a large 
disk of blackness peppered with stars. Stars he could not recognize-there was no star-
navigation course for these ones. 
    It was all beautiful and astounding. The peace at the core of the storm had quieted 
Scavone down. Up there he found peace, in the still air, a second short from new, 
unexpected meetings.   
    His P-47 was held by unknown forces in the air, in front of the dark disk, and the foo-
fighters stood guard at their same escort position. 
    Scavone took a deep breath and thought it was the moment to forget all eventual fears 
and stand up. It was a one-way trip. He disconnected radio leads, oxygen tubes, safety belt, 
and shoulder harness, slowly going all steps by the manual. The toggle switch in the cockpit 
electrically opened up the bubble canopy. The air was ozone-smelling, but somehow clear 
and wet, as would be the air over his SÇo Paulo, after a tropical storm. 
    Scavone stepped out of the airplane.
    He was about to fly. 

- To Rubens Teixeira Scavone, who might have been a fighter pilot in Italy during W.W.2, 
but have not.   
    

RS CAUSO - 20	         Foo-Fighters