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160 Unless parts of the craft were designed to be dismantled easily (that is, were attached with something like screws or bolts), scientists and technicians could have spent weeks, months, or even years just trying to reduce it to manageable proportions. One result could well have been the development of new methods for scientific testing, as the intellectual chal- lenge posed by such totally unexpected materials could have motivated men to become highly creative. They could just as easily have produced some nervous breakdowns. Small elements of equipment that may have been found in the main part of the craft could have offered simpler chal- lenges. Devices meant for extravehicular use were therefore intentionally removable, such as life-support equipment or sample-collection containers, might have revealed their pur- poses and even functions with the simple depression of a but- ton or flick of a switch. Or by the activation of unsuspected triggers purely by chance. If the craft had anything like an airplane or spacecraft in- strument panel, it may have been possible to remove one or more "instruments" and, by attaching a power supply and mea- suring devices, to learn something about how they worked. It is just as possible that, for example, systems used for indicating performance may have been completely baffling, suggesting no obvious ways of operation and understanding. It is probable that as the months wore on with something less than total mastery of this alien technology, more and more specialists would have been called in, and the total number of people aware of at least part of the nature of the matter would have grown considerably. The difficulty of maintaining abso- lute secrecy would thus have been increased, and so would the need for effective long-term techniques for controlling all pos- sible leaks of information. It is quite possible that a special laboratory was established to deal with the remains of the crash and the bodies, or even several laboratories in different parts of the country that may have specialized in work on materials, equipment, language, and so on. There is some reason to believe that one of these may have been at Kirtland AFB, near Albuquerque, New Mexico, CRASH AT CORONA