An Alien Device

Ralph sat on the hood of his car and looked up at the night sky. "Lots of stars out tonight," he said to himself. It really was clear, and as he looked up, he saw a plane flying over.

Suddenly, the plane seemed to be getting bigger, and he noticed that the lights looked odd. Ralph suddenly realized that the plane was going down, and not far from him! He watched it come down about a mile away--no explosion, just a big thump sound. He hopped in his car, and headed down a dirt road towards the location. He saw no flames ahead. Eventually, he reached the site. It wasn't what he expected.

A silvery disk lay shattered on the ground before him. Two small figures lay near an opening on the disk. Warily, Ralph approached them. They looked like textbook aliens! They also looked heavily wounded or even dead. One held a small suitcase-looking object.

Ralph decided to leave. This looked dangerous, in a lot of ways. Then he noticed a slight glow from the suitcase. On an impulse, he reached out and picked it up, then ran back to his car, threw it on the seat, and drove off.

He stopped a couple of miles down the farm road and then took a side road to a small pond he knew of. After he took the turn and headed down the side road, he looked up into his mirror and saw 3-4 cars moving down the previous road towards the crash site at high speeds. What was going on?