The 1947 flying saucer incident at Roswell, New Mexico, was a secret so closely held that even future presidents were denied access to the truth. The key to that secret fell to the protection of the CIA under the mercurial Allen Dulles who compiled an Alien Affairs team to discover the invaders’ intentions. They do so by deciphering a reading device recovered from the crash site. The extremely devout, yet promiscuous Dulles did not like the answer, but the revelation propelled us to the moon to make sure there was not an alien base there with malignant intent.
In his retirement one of the original Alien Affairs team amuses himself by teaching the aliens’ language to his young niece, Carrie Player, but conceals its origin from her. On his deathbed he reveals the truth and charges her with the minor responsibility of saving humanity. Twenty years later the CIA has fallen complacent, the threat from space becomes eminent and only Carrie can intervene on behalf of the human race.
Georgia Turnbull is the hard-bitten director of the CIA under a weak and indecisive president. When Carrie explains the facts of the approaching aliens’ purpose, Turnbull puts her in charge of the newly revived Department of Alien Affairs and together they devise a two-pronged plan to protect the planet. Since the end of the Space Shuttle program the United States has had no way to send astronauts into space and has to pay the Russians to carry them to the International Space Station, so Turnbull is forced to rely on the private sector to launch weapons capable of intercepting the alien craft.
Carrie’s Alien Affairs staff realizes that she is the only person on earth who might negotiate for our survival. Their plan puts Carrie in a very precarious position—a middle-aged divorced CIA linguist becomes the spokesperson for the planet earth and she finds herself involved in an alien affair that no one could have ever predicted.
Excerpt
Pan-STARRS operates a 1.8 meter telescope at the summit of Haleakala on Maui with which the Near Earth Project tracks objects having the potential to collide with the planet. After explaining their camera’s enormous seven-degree field of view to the visiting high school class, the docent told them, “Your timing is great. Last night we found something pretty exciting.” He aimed a remote at a flat screen monitor. The students saw three specks of light against the background of stars. He clicked the remote again and with a laser pointer circled a bright star. “Notice that these three objects have moved relative to this star. These images were taken an hour apart.”
“What are they?” a boy asked.
“We don’t know. We estimate they are roughly two-hundred meters across and they are going to pass very close to the earth in about forty days. We’ve never seen an object moving this fast.”
“Cool. Three alien ships heading for us and you found them on Columbus Day.”
“What if they’re only asteroids and they hit us?” a Polynesian girl asked.
The docent said, “Either would be bad.”
NASA runs the Near Earth Project and duly notified the CIA. The director was unfamiliar with the events from the early fifties and had to make inquiries as to protocol. She was advised to call George Bush, Sr. who was thought to be the last person living with direct knowledge of the Roswell matter. When she got the aging former president on the phone, he sounded worried. “Madam Director, somewhere in your archives is all the information that you need. I just hope to God you can find it.”
Archivists, in their mole-like existence, had little trouble finding the files and a team of analysts began absorbing documents. Carrie Player was not one of them.
Carrie was at home fixing dinner and watching the news. The report from NASA of three objects travelling in apparent formation on a collision course with earth was not being treated as an alien encounter. Speculation about an asteroid having been broken into thirds by a collision with another remained in vogue. The next morning she went to her supervisor.
“I need to be involved in whatever we’re doing about the three alien craft that on their way here,” she said.
The man gave her a look that said he was thinking of calling security. “Alien craft? Have you had a psychological evaluation lately?”
“I’m not crazy. I know what they are and why they are coming.”
“And who is telling you this?”
“My late uncle, Miles Ashly, told me the truth about the Roswell incident and his part in it for twenty-five years.”
“Did your uncle tell you this before or after he died?”
“He told me on his death bed. Look, I speak their language.”
“You speak their language. Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s just say that you’re not crazy, what are you proposing?”
“The Company has vital information for dealing with this threat. I need to be part of the team evaluating it and making policy decisions.”
“You’re serious about this, aren’t you?”
“You’re damn right I’m serious, and I do speak their language.” She gave him a spoken sample that implied his parents were asexual degenerates.
“Right, I get that a lot. I’ll get this news to the director.”
The director said, “She speaks their language? I’ve got to meet this woman.”
During twenty years of service Carrie had never been to the top floor at Langley. In twenty years she had never been involved with or even heard of anything being done with respect to UFOs.
CIA Director, Georgia Turnbull, was a tall, broad-shouldered woman, who kept her striking figure into the latter half of middle age. She wore her platinum gray hair in a graceful sweep that framed her oval face in a dramatic manner. Her smile was wide and engaging but hardly anyone ever saw it.
Director Turnbull received Carrie warmly. She said, “You may be more up to speed on this than I am. Please tell me what you know and how you know it.”
Carrie took a seat and began. “In the fifties my uncle cracked the aliens’ language by studying a sort of ereader that was found at the Roswell crash site. He and two others translated hundreds of documents stored on the thing. The most important contained the information that they were here to destroy the human race by releasing something into the atmosphere that will make everyone sterile. My uncle’s team also figured out that, given where they were coming from, this year was the soonest they could get here to finish the job.”
“Good Lord. And it’s true you speak their language?”
“My uncle taught it to me when I was little.”
“Incredible. Well, you just won the top spot on the Alien Affairs team.”
Professional Reviews
Brilliant Classic Sci-Fi
Alien Affairs is not the first Scott Skipper book I have read but it is definitely my favourite. From the beginning, I was intrigued as to the direction in which Scott would take the Roswell story, having read other stories that mentioned the place and having watched the entire series of Roswell on TV. Let me make it quite clear, THIS one is different. ALIEN AFFAIRS is sci-fi at its best. There is enough techno info to make it believable and plenty of down-home incredulity from the characters to make it credible.
Without wishing to spoil anything, the developing relationship between our heroine Carrie and a character called Deshler is as romantic as it is unusual. They have a magical spark missing in so many in-your-face romances despite the fact that from beginning to end she calls him names like "deceptive bastard". The rest of the characters provide much amusement, especially the never seen, never named president of the USA.
It is rare for me to say "I couldn't put this down" because, for one thing, in general I read books in less time than it takes most people to read a comic. However, this time, I have to say, I genuinely did not want to stop page turning and just knew the end would be brilliant. It is. Stick with it however long it takes you....the ending is a cracker.
Couldn't recommend this higher. It's different, it's wonderful!
By Theresa Dawn Sinclair
Fabulous! Must Read
This wonderful book begins with an alien air craft, a flying saucer, crashing somewhere on an American ranch land. Three of the crew were dead, one survived and was found holding an unknown device that today would resemble a Kindle. The language on it was totally unknown. The government called in a linguist who spoke eight languages. He was able to decipher the words and their meaning because the device taught the holder how to understand it by showing pictures along with their meaning verbally. Only this one man could understand the alien text and he passed on his knowledge to his niece before dying, leaving her as the only person on earth to be able to understand their misión and to speak with them. The aliens claimed to have created mankind millions of years ago and now found it useless and planned to end our existence by attrition, spreading a gas that would eliminate all human’s ability to procreate, therefore removing us without killing anyone, just letting us die off. The author fascinates in telling with details such as the Space Station with our and Russia's astronauts has 5 or 6 hookers aboard for obvious reasons, surely $5000 a night caliber. He writes with such attention to military detail and with frequent sly humor that it is a book one literally cannot put down. And I didn't. Nor will you. I am very good at spending other people's money so I urge you to BUY THIS BOOK. I did and I congratulate myself on my good judgment.
By Burt Boyar, NY Times #1 Bestselling Author
Entertaining Combination
If you have read any of Scott Skipper’s previous books, Alien Affairs is a must read. If you like science fiction, it’s a must read. If you don’t like science fiction, it’s a must read. If you like....I could plug in almost any kind of genre here…and I’d still tell you it’s a must read.
Alien Affairs begins with what many believe to be a factual event…the July 1947 crash of a UFO, along with four alien bodies. It didn’t take long for a veil of secrecy to be drawn over the event. The tightness of the security blanket led inexorably to Area 51 and multiple conspiracy theories, resulting in a mystery that continues to this day.
Once the initiating event was established, the author creates multiple branches in the plot that leads to a CIA operative by the name of Carrie Player who, along with an Alien by the name of Deshler, engage in a cat-and-mouse game with the survival of the human species at stake. I’d provide more details, but if I did, then…as the CIA is famously known for saying…”I’d have to kill you.”
In the final analysis, Alien Affairs is a fascinating mix of probable fact, mystery, romance, drama and a whack you up the side of the head conclusion that you will never see coming. If that isn’t enough, the whole thing is wrapped up in an Indiana Jones style narrative that makes it nigh on to impossible to put the thing down until you’ve read the last word. Oh, yeah. One word of warning: Don’t any of you dare flip to the back of the book and read the ending before you’ve read the rest of the book. You’ll never forgive yourself if you do. You’ve been warned!
Scott Skipper has created a cast of characters and a world that truly lives. I’m only giving Alien Affairs five stars because I can’t find a way to give it six. Buy the book!!
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