 What they had seen, what they had heard, they literally whispered. They were scared and horrified, but they were also burdened. They needed to talk about it, though not on the record. They needed to know that they were not alone and not crazy. Things were bad, and they knew things were bad, and they knew others must also know things were bad, and yet they would need to pretend outwardly that things were fine. That, my friends, is called a cover-up, by the way.