Willoughby was sweating fiercely as he climbed up onto the flat spot he’d seen through his binoculars earlier that morning. The ridge of rock, behind him now, had hidden it from all but those who saw it from a distance. Now that he was here, he planned to look for fossils and any other items of interest he might find.

As he walked along the rough but flat path before him, a small earthquake shook the rocky ridge. The quake only lasted a few seconds but moved a lot of the loose boulders and rocks strewn around this odd, flat part of the small mountaintop. Willoughby had no idea of the seismic stability of this area, so he kept an eye open for loose rock and any other changes that the mini-quake might have made to the rocky ground. One place, just up ahead, was hidden in a small cloud of dust. As he cautiously approached it, the dust began to clear slowly. Curiously, his eyes were drawn to a darkened spot near the center of the dusty area. He approached to discover a hole in the rock that might be a cave. He remembered his pledge to be careful, so he took out his water bottle to have a drink and waited for the dust to settle.

After several minutes, the dust had cleared. Willoughby could clearly see that this was a small cave. He walked carefully to the entrance to see how far in the cave went. The walls were of solid rock and there didn’t seem to be any loose pieces that might collapse. He cast his fate to the wind and went inside.

As it happened, the cave was really an anteroom to a much larger chamber. Willoughby stepped inside and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Two things had become apparent when he could see well enough to recognize them. The first thing he saw was the skeleton of a bipedal humanoid lying on the floor of the cave. There was a primitive-looking stone-tipped weapon lying beside it on the ground. He had to call it a bipedal humanoid because it didn’t look like a regular human to him. The skeleton was very tall and thin, at least seven feet tall or more. It’s skull looked fairly regular at the face but the back of the skull was elongated like a melon. The back part had been crushed, apparently with the stone ax that lie beside it. The other thing he noticed was an opening into another chamber that exposed something big and shiny. Willoughby could see that whatever it was, it was round and shiny with an odd light from within. He didn’t know which of these two things shocked him the most.

He began to realize that it wasn’t so much that his eyes were adjusting to the dark as it was that the shiny object in the next room was emitting enough light to see with. As he waited, the light grew brighter until it lit up the cave well enough to see clearly inside. When his heartbeat slowed down a little, he stepped carefully around the skeleton and walked over to the entrance to the larger chamber. The small earthquake had collapsed the opening to this chamber as well as the one he entered first.

In stunned silence, Willoughby entered the next chamber to see a shining, disc-shaped craft that must have been at least forty feet across. Right in front of him was an open doorway large enough for a man to walk through. He approached the craft cautiously and looked inside. The craft was open throughout and it was obvious that there was no one inside. But what caught his attention was the chair and instrument panel in the center of the open space. The chair was tall enough to have seated the tall being in the outer cave. He decided to step into the craft for a better look before he went back to the small village where he was staying. No one would believe him when he told them about this. As soon as he had stepped inside, the door behind him smoothly and quietly closed. For an instant, Willoughby panicked. He thought he was trapped and began to look for a way out. But a slight sound and vibration began to reverberate through the craft that seemed to calm him down somehow. When his panic had decreased, the sound decreased too until he was calm again. It was once again quiet in the craft except for a small sound coming from the instrument panel in front of the chair. Curious, he walked over to it to see a small, dim yellow-orange light slowly flashing on and off. The panel was as smooth as glass and was dimly backlit. His curiosity was aroused enough to put his finger near the light. But as he was having second thoughts about that, the light stopped blinking.

Willoughby noticed that some kind of energy was being played over him. This warming energy soothed and comforted him. He began to relax a little. After a brief moment, a warm breeze gently touched his face and a thought entered his consciousness. When there was no response from him, the thought repeated itself. Willoughby was too stunned to speak. He was confused and concerned, but the calming sound persisted and after another moment, he was once again calm. He began to realize that someone was putting a thought in his head, but he didn’t understand what they were trying to say. He stammered out that he didn’t understand. The thought stopped and a light played on his head for a few minutes. He found himself relaxing into the chair, which had adjusted itself to his shape.

He snapped back to attentiveness when a comforting female voice asked him, in English, if he was unharmed. The voice helped Willoughby regain his composure and some of his wits. He responded that he was ok, but didn’t understand what was happening. The voice then began to speak to him about where he was, what this craft was and why there was a skeleton out in the front entrance to the cave.

The intelligence in the craft, some kind of built-in computer/intelligence, had sealed up the chamber and all cracks in the cave walls and filled it with an inert gas that had preserved everything inside the chamber. The skeleton had been mummified for a while, but even that wore away and the flesh had turned to dust. The scene had been left “as is” to preserve it for a future investigation that never came. All traces of the previous civilization had been destroyed and eroded by time. This craft was the only thing left of that time.

Willoughby never knew when the light shone on his head again. He fell asleep instantly and awoke later outside the cave entrance dizzy and hurt by an apparent blow to the head from some falling stone shaken loose by the earthquake. He was unsure why he was here but reasoned that he must have wanted to go inside this small cave. A loose rock must have tumbled down and knocked him unconscious. He looked inside the shallow cave but saw nothing really interesting about it. He checked himself to find that he hadn’t been seriously injured. There was a small amount of blood and a slight scalp wound but nothing serious. He stood up shakily and made his way back to his room in the village before the sun set. Tomorrow he’d try another spot here in the Principality of Andorra.