DIVIDED WE FALL

by Alfred Coppel
The aliens took their cue from Benjamin Franklin. "United we stand..."

From the San Francisco Herald, December 12, 1949:

"Well, they're back, indeed they are. Along with Santa Claus, Christmas neckties and hot Tom and Jerries, those
Flying Saucers are here again. No less than eight 'sightings'. have been reported in the last three days. Wags are
suggesting that what has been seen by observers in various parts of the country is Saint Nick's sleigh and deer making
their pre-holiday test flights...."

***

From a statement to the Allied Press by Lt. Col. E. M. L. Butler, Public Relations Officer of Air Force Project
SAUCER:
"It is regrettable that the announcement that Project SAUCER would be abandoned has brought on another rash
of so-called 'sightings' of all manner of strange airborne objects. Mass hysteria is infecting many otherwise normal
individuals. Not to be ignored, too, is the simple fact that people like to get their names in the papers—like to attract
attention. In view of the strained international situation, your Air Force feels that SAUCER has done its work and
should now be disbanded. Money, gentlemen, is important. We plan to spend on useful things, ships and planes and
bombs... and fewer fanciful speculations."

***

From an intelligence report to the President of the United States, March 27, 1950:
"....their intent is obvious. Agents within the Red security cordon report that the city of Atomgrad will soon be the
site of a hydrogen-fusion bomb test. If this test is successful, and we have reason to believe that it will be, then war
within four years becomes a definite probability. Under the circumstances, this evaluation board must recommend
that Strategic Air Command be placed on a combat readiness basis and prepared to retaliate...."

***

From a note handed to the U. S. Charge d'Affairs, Bucharest, May 1, 1950:

"....by the People's Government of Romania. Further violations of our borders by American aircraft of unfamiliar
design and belligerent intent will be met with direct action by the People's Air Forces...."

***

From a letter to Fact Magazine, June 6, 1950:

"....since you people are probably the only ones who are interested anymore; everybody else thinks I'm seeing things
and believe me I'm not at all. On the first of the month, this month that is, about six thirty AM I was heading for work
at the mill and this thing I saw come over the Saginaw Hills just south of here fast. It was long, sort of cigar-shaped
and it shined like metal where the sun hit it, but is wasn't any airplane. I know what an airplane looks like and this
was more like a zeppelin trailing smoke."
"It come low over the valley where I was and then it pulled up right straight and disappeared into the sky right
over my head. There were no clouds and it just disappeared like these pictures I saw in the newsreels of those
German rockets going up. I really saw this but I'm not telling anyone else about it because everybody just laughs
when I bring it up. Now I read your magazine all the time and I like it real well and I don't figure you'll think I'm lying
about having seen every last thing I've said I saw because you said in your ed. column that anybody who should see
something funny like that should get in touch with you...."

***
From the Syndicated Column As I See It by Commentator Robert S. Wisdom, July 30, 1951:
"....while men are dying in Korea. I am reminded that not so long ago, our people were seeing discs and saucers
in the sky. No, imagination is not what is needed in this half of the century. Rather fortitude, resolution, and above all
—forbearance."

***

From the Fortean Society Magazine, Doubt, December 1, 1951:

"....fireballs in the sky, red rain and spaceships. We are property. We are property and let no one deny it along
with the Hollow Earth Theory and the Gelatinous Sky Hypothesis. Merry Christmas, fellow readers, from the Retail
Merchants Association, for whom JC died."

***

From a flight report filed by a transpacific pilot, March 3, 1951:

"....seven discs, flying at eighty to ninety feet above the water, at high speed...."

Addendum in manuscript:
"Evans: —I think Willoughby needs a rest. See to it."

***

From the Syndicated Column As I See It by Robert S. Wisdom, April 10,1952:

"The news tonight is bad. No armistice in Korea, and the talks at a standstill. Rumors of an H-bomb test by the
Soviets are breathing new life into demands for a preventative war. Here in Washington, Republican and Democratic
lawmakers are saying privately that a shooting war may start at any time. The UN, weakened by Korea and a
thousand petty squabbles, is in mortal danger. One result of all this tension is a new rash of hallucinatory reports of
flying discs and similar objects. People, perhaps seeking a unifying danger, are seeing men from Mars in every loose
weather balloon or burning meteor. Vain hope. Hoax is piled on hoax and if any serious observer were to suggest at
this time that the Air Force's Project SAUCER left too many questions unanswered, he would be alternately lionized
and victimized...."

***

From a confidential report to MVD chief Laventry Beria, June 20, 1952:
"....discoid aircraft operating at high speed and great height over Atomgrad. Our interceptors were helpless, as the
discs remained above the defender's operational ceiling of 50,000 feet. No hostile action. However, the reluctance of
the Americans to actually start a conflict is well understood, but the violation of territory involved would make a
sufficient causus belli should Politburo decide to use it."
"The American Air Force denies that these craft are American, indeed, that they exist at all! It is my opinion that
we may well be at the mercy of some deviationist American air commander, and since the craft are dangerously
superior to our own, we would do well to consider that the time to strike is very near...."

***

From a sermon by Billy Christie, Evangelist, delivered to a mass revival meeting in Madison Square Garden,
November 30, 1952:
"....in the name of the Lord Jesus! These miracles have been seen by human eyes so that the Word Of God might
spread among the sinful nations of the Earth. Angels in the sky are writing with letters of fire! Beware, O Mankind!
Unite, O Mankind! Or Ye shall truly perish!"

***

From a letter to the New York Star, January 3, 1953:

"....seen by eight people, all qualified observers, pilots, weather personnel and aircraft dispatchers. It was disc
shaped and traveling at great height and great speed...."
 ***

From the New York Star, January 30, 1953:

"A Defense Department spokesman again reiterated that the so-called saucers are either mass hallucinations or
misinterpretations of commonplace astronomical phenomena. Project SAUCER will not be reactivated."

***

From Krokodil, March 4, 1953:

"First Soviet Worker: 'What do you think of the new warplanes the Americans are building to look like saucers?' "
"Second Soviet Worker: 'Don't worry, our fighter pilots will soon make them into our glass of tea!' "

***

From a confidential report to the President of the United States, April 17, 1953:
"Atomgrad H-bomb test successful.
Summary follows...."

***

From the San Francisco Herald, June 9, 1953:

"Decentralization of industry has begun. Essential industries will be relocated in less vulnerable areas than the
Pacific slope."

***

From Counterblow, anti-communist throwaway paper, August 2, 1953:

"....justify the money spent of Strategic Air Command. Hit 'em now. Hit 'em hard, in the old American Way. Let's
not wait for their Sunday punch. Round up the native ones and then use the BOMB!"

***

From Pravda, August 2, 1953:

"....warmongering deviationists. Our airmen are ready, our army is ready. The time is coming when the People's
Democracies of the world will be marching side by side in glorious brotherhood. The rottenness of the world will be
cleansed...."

***

From The Iowa Times, December 21, 1953:

"....fireball in a cornfield...."

***

From a code dispatch to all Soviet Commanders, December 25, 1953:

"....all troops in readiness to move...."

***

From a radio address by the President-elect of the United States, January 1, 1954:
"....with the extension of the war in Asia. In view of this and other developments, I must ask that the Congress
declare that a state of unlimited national emergency exists. I pray to almighty God that war may be averted, but if it
comes, I ask that He preserve our land...."

***
From the San Francisco Herald, January 2, 1954:
"With the world on the brink of holocaust, a note of whimsy. Sightings of flying saucers have ceased. Not one
report of a flying saucer has been made since the total mobilization of the Armed Forces."

***

From a dispatch from Kol Rhaniz Kar, Marshal of the Galactic Empire, to Vannor Thell Ten, Subcommander of Naval
Forces in the Sol System, U3/766/6 Solestial Era:
"....that I be cursed with such abysmal stupidity in my subordinates. I have warned you repeatedly that under no
circumstances should you allow yourselves to be observed, and yet their radio broadcasts have discussed you for
weeks, months—even years! Highborn you may be, but stupid you are without question. Gather what wit you may
have and read on."
"Our need is land. The population of the Galactic Empire is increasing tremendously since the enforcement of the
fertility laws by the gelid ones. Sol 3 has been under surveillance as a possible colony since before you were born.
Militarily, we cannot dispose of two billion of the indigenous fauna without colossal effort. The creatures are valueless
as slaves. But since they are warlike and unreasoning, and since they have found the means of self-decimation, no
risk of unifying them should ever be taken."
"You, a Subcommander of the Forces of the Galactic Empire, have injected such a risk into the situation. You
have done this with a bland stupidity so monstrous that it leaves me speechless. Ever since your task force took over
surveillance of the planet—June 1947, by their reckoning—the natives have been treated to views of scoutships,
destroyers, scanners, mother-ships, and by the Dark Gods of Space, even satellite guard-stations!"
"This must stop. It is only by the most fantastic chance—mixed with a mental torpor to match your own—that
these creatures have not pieced together the existing situation. Had you so flagrantly insulted the observational
powers and intelligence of any other race, you would have been recognized for what you are—the military agent of a
galactic conqueror, and we would have had to face a warlike and united planet."
"Now, in the event that you have misunderstood the import of this dispatch: STAY HIDDEN. Remain on the far
face of their satellite. Make no further reconnaissances until the war they are about to launch is well under way."
"You do, I presume, listen to their radio. Then try to remember one of their own pithy sayings and guide yourself
accordingly. They say: 'united we stand....' and more to the point: 'divided we fall.' "

***

From a coded radio dispatch to certain Soviet air commanders, — —, 19—:

"....attack attack attack attack...."