From the observation post a thousand feet above the Mojave Desert, we watched. Instruments clicked and beeped steadily as the sun dropped below the horizon. Trent sat staring at the telemetry now trickling in from the probes mounted outside the tiny cabin while I looked westward through one of the windows. Holding us up was an elevator shaft with an attached ladder that we hoped we would never have to use.

 

“Steffenson said we should keep an eye on one point five gigahertz,” said Trent with his eyes fixed on his screen. Data was coming in slowly (the same data that had been recorded the last five nights).

 

Moving towards us from the direction of the mountains I noticed several white lights that danced around like fireflies.

 

“They're here,” I said.

 

Trent glanced at me. “Cameras recording.”

 

The orbs of light came closer until they seemed to be only a matter of feet away. Unlike previous nights, their movements about each other slowed down and they started to pulse gently.

 

“I can’t get a reading. I can’t pick them up on anything – even infrared. The only way we know they are there is that we can see them visually.” Trent shook his head at his screen. “We’re getting the usual radio interference.”­

 

“Maybe they’re not physically here,” I ventured.

 

This spot above the desert had been a place of interest for scientists for some time. Bright flashes of blue light, highly localized unusual weather and the orbs of light that were now floating so very close to us had all been reported for many years in this exact position. And always at night. The local tribes of the Fort Mojave Indian Reservation told us stories of the dancing orbs which always focused their activity on the position now occupied by our cabin in the sky. They say it’s a portal to another realm.

 

“Hey!” Trent raised his hands. “My screen’s gone dead.”

 

The lights in the cabin flickered.

 

“What’s that?” I looked toward the elevator doors. The sound of the elevator cables moving for several seconds made me jump. Then again as if it had descended and was now coming back up to us. “The next crew aren’t due ‘til 2 a.m., right?”

 

“Right.” Trent’s screen blinked on. “I’m back on and can see no one below.”

We looked at each other in silence. Trent’s screen went dark again as the sound of the ascending elevator stopped. The doors opened: it was empty.

 

“That’s a new one,” I said to Trent who was staring past me out of the window. I turned to see a thick bank of fog outside. “And that!”

“My infrared is back on. There’s something above us.”

 

I stared at Trent for a second before looking upwards out of the window. Of course, it was futile, the fog being so thick. I could no longer see the orbs although I knew they were there. I had the strangest feeling we were being watched. Not very scientific, I know, but the sense of a presence was intense.

 

“Do you feel like–” Trent didn’t finish his sentence, but I knew what he was going to say. A buzzing alarm took his attention as he was pressing buttons on the radio receiver. “All channels are dead. I’ve got nothing.”

 

“Are cameras still recording?” I asked.

 

“Yes.” Trent furrowed his already crinkled brow. “I just played back a few seconds of the north and east cameras. Just static. They went off when the fog appeared.”

 

Outside, the murky haze that had seemingly come from out of nowhere slowly whirled, moving like liquid. It surrounded us completely until it seemed to coalesce into patterns and shapes. After a few minutes, we noticed that it was now completely still. There was no movement at all.

 

“What does that look like to you?” I pointed out the north widow at a particularly striking pattern.

 

“It looks like a face.” Trent squinted.

 

“It does.” We both tried not to see it. “They are most definitely human features: the cheeks, the hair, the eyes. The eyes are very dark.”

 

“They look terrified,” Trent suggested, in almost a whisper.

 

We both watched over the next few hours, our machines blind. The face faded into the surrounding mist which, once again, started to move and slowly whirl. The fog itself then dissipated into the local skies and the instruments gradually came back to life. The orbs too had left us with now just the big empty night.

 

“Camera one is back on. The car with the new crew is here.” Trent looked at me, still a little shaken.

 

I shrugged. “Let’s go.”

 

We descended to the ground in silence to switch shifts and report to the new guys. They were both standing waiting for us when the elevator doors opened. We froze and stared at one of them. I felt Trent look at me. We recognized one of the new scientists from the face in the fog. Such unmistakable features. I don’t know why, but Trent told them nothing had happened and that it had been a quiet night so far. I guess he just didn’t know what to do and that the guy wouldn’t believe us if we told him what we saw.

 

We got into the car and sat in a kind of daze. The driver looked over his shoulder at us and said, “You guys OK? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

 

We didn’t answer. We just looked up at the clear starry sky as our car drove off into the night.