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4 October 1871, an undertaker named William Robert Loosley awoke and took a walk in his garden in the town of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England. Mr. Loosley recorded subsequent events in a manuscript that was locked away until 1941. The ms. has been authenticated by British antiquarians. It probably represents an example of a "probe" from some sort of nonhuman intelligence.
    When he went outside, Mr. Loosley observed a light like a star move across the sky. He then heard a clap of thunder, which, in view of the fact that the sky was clear, struck him as strange . The lighted object flew lower, stopped, then dropped in a "falling leaf" pattern into some nearby woods . This pattern of motion is also characteristic of modern flying disks .
    The next morning Mr. Loosley went into those woods and observed something metallic in a pile of leaves . He soon uncovered a strange metal container approximately 18 inches long and covered with knobs.
    The thing moved and, making a sound like a lock clicking, opened what appeared to be an eye behind a glass lens. Then another eye opened and emitted a beam of purple light. A third eye extended a thin rod.
    At this point Loosley decided to vacate the area, and began to move away -
    running, no doubt. To his considerable consternation the machine followed, leaving a trail of three small ruts. He observed that similar ruts crisscrossed a nearby clearing.
    The metal box shot a claw out into the brush and grabbed a rat, which it killed with a flash of purple light. It then deposited the carcass in a panel that opened in the side of the machine.
    The device then rushed after Mr. Loosley, who ran off in a panic, only to find himself being herded toward a larger machine, which appeared from a nearby clearing. He observed a "moon-like" device in the sky which seemed to be signaling with lights. He managed to escape from the machines and return home.
    The next night he observed a light come down from the sky, then rise up again and disappear into the clouds.
    The fact that this account was written in 1871 greatly diminishes the likelihood of hoax. Robots of the sort described are only just now being speculated about in circles considering methods we might employ to explore planets such as Mars and Venus. It may be that Mr. Loosley observed a robot on a reconnaissance mission, and that it has now been followed by a larger expedition. If so, we can anticipate that it will be exploratory in nature as well, and that it will almost certainly center on analysis of the human species, which would have been the most interesting discovery made by the earlier reconnaissance.
    It may be that human beings have since been successfully taken by strange machines.
    The first seemingly related case of disappearance in U. S . history took place on 2 3 September 1880 near the town of Gallatin, Tennessee. At approximately three-thirty on that sunny afternoon, Mr. David Lang, a farmer, dematerialized in front of five witnesses, including his wife , his two children, his brother-in-law and a local judge.
    The brother-in-law and the judge had just pulled up in a carriage. Mr. Lang moved toward them across a field, followed by his family. Without warning, he simply ceased to exist. There was no cry, no sign of distress. Mrs. Lang, distraught, rushed up and pounded the ground where he had been walking. All that afternoon and into the night the field was searched. Subsequently the county surveyor determined that there were no hidden caves or sinkholes in the area of the disappearance .
    The subsequent April, seven months later, the children heard their father crying distantly underneath the field. He seemed desperate and tortured , and was begging for help. His voice gradually died away and was not heard again.
    Where he had last been seen, there was a circle of withered yellow grass twenty feet in diameter.
    The family moved away from the farm.
    It can be surmised that Mr. Lang was not removed above ground, but rather was