The Elicon

by Rob Roth

  Captain Severs understood the implications of that statement immediately and felt a shiver prickling across his head and shoulders. The hydrogen line was in the microwave spectrum around 1420 MHz, the frequency restricted by the International Telecommunications Union since Radio Telescopes monitor that particular band. It was normally the quietest band in the EM spectrum.

  “Davis, do you know what is causing this spike?”

  “Not exactly. Electromagnetic radiation is generated on the hydrogen line whenever hydrogen atoms change energy states. As you know, hydrogen is the most prevalent element in the universe. Scientists can use the doppler shift on the hydrogen line to determine relative distance and speed of galaxies, but more importantly for us, scientists speculate that if life exists in other star systems, they may use the hydrogen line. That WOW! signal back in 1977 was in that frequency range.”

  “Understood Gromit. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. As you say, it is terrestrial in origin. Can you isolate where on Earth the signal is coming from?”

  “Not exactly, because we can’t triangulate with just our location. But I can tell you based on the strength of the signal, it’s probably pretty darn close! I’m switching the receiver from one of our omni antennas to one of the dishes so we can at least get a direction. Hold on.”

  After a few seconds of quiet static, Severs heard Davis’ voice again. “It’s north by northwest from our current position on the edge of Barringer.” Then dispensing with the call signs in his urgency, Davis’ next words came out rushed and ominous.

  “Captain, this signal is stronger than anything I’m aware of with our own technology. I can’t imagine how it would be possible to have a signal like this being caused by the change in state of hydrogen atoms. The atoms just don’t change states that frequently to the degree we are seeing. There would have to be one heck of a lot of hydrogen atoms located in one spot changing state to the higher energy level simultaneously. Maybe something like a water source could do it, although those hydrogen atoms are bound to oxygen, And splitting water molecules and generating that much energy I imagine must produce one hell of a lot of steam, which should be visible. Maybe even produce vibrations.”

  Severs paused for quite a few seconds considering the ramifications of all this, and then responded with excitement. “Davis, it sounds like this was meant to be an intentional beacon of some sort! Wherever it is, I bet that’s where we will find the object the aircraft is searching for! We need to nail down exactly where this signal is coming from. Take a precise reading on the angle to the beacon from your current position. Then drive halfway to Leupp on Route 99 and take a second reading. That will position you north northeast. By doing that you should be able to intersect the angles and determine a very precise location. We need to find whatever is producing that beacon before the aircraft does.”

  TUESDAY NOON - TUFO

  About forty minutes later, Captain Severs received the expected call from Davis.

  “We are on the road about halfway to Leupp, currently stopped alongside the road. No cars in sight right now. Looking to our left is the desert, and there’s not much out there in our view — just rock, sand, and shrubs as far as we can see. Using a map, we plotted the two lines and they intersect out in the desert about 20 miles southwest of Leupp. I can send you the specific GPS coordinates based on the angles.”

  “Please do so. Thank you Davis, Vickers. You’ve confirmed what I suspected. The fireball was headed in that same basic direction. It seems like it is related to the meteor event last night, but how the hell could a meteorite be giving off a beacon? Maybe it impacted near the beacon, but that’s a pretty huge coincidence. Keep monitoring the hydrogen line frequency in case anything changes. I’m going to see if Colonel Steinmacher will authorize me to dispatch a team of four soldiers in one of the military helicopters to go to those coordinates and see what they can discover.”

  About ten minutes later, Gromit reported back.

  “Captain, the signal suddenly stopped a few seconds ago. Now we detect no signal whatsoever. If that was a beacon, it just turned off for some reason. We are getting no readings on the hydrogen line.”

  “We received no radar alerts," Severs replied, "so our visitors didn’t show up to fetch it. Why then would the beacon abruptly stop? It’s just lucky for us that the signal lasted long enough to get the coordinates. Keep monitoring in case the signal reappears. Once I get authorization for the helicopter, I will have you move Gromit to those coordinates and rendezvous with the helicopter reconnaissance team."

  It took Captain Severs longer than he anticipated to obtain the necessary authorization, prepare the team, and ready the helicopter with the anticipated equipment, but around dusk they were all set to go.

  “Davis, the helicopter is leaving shortly and should arrive a few minutes before you. Sargent DeMarco will be leading the team. When you arrive, I want you to do a full on-site sweep with the particle detectors to develop a radiation profile and confirm the levels are safe.”

  “Copy that,” Davis replied.

  After packing things up, they drove Gromit north to Leupp and then headed west as far as they could by road before turning south, which took their off-road equipped vehicle into the desert toward the impact site. Meanwhile DeMarco and his team ascended in the helicopter to about one thousand feet and took the shorter and more direct route flying over the desert.

  TUESDAY EVENING - DESERT

  “Man, ever since that fireball went over, I’ve been dying to go see if it touched down. I am so glad the Captain finally decided to send us out to these coordinates,” Evan Davis commented to Dwight Vickers as he was turning Gromit off the road and heading out into the bumpy desert.

  Once off-road their travel slowed down quite a bit as they meandered around rocks and brush, although navigating the desert was relatively easy for Davis, as the crescent moon sufficiently lit the broad terrain making the off-road driving relatively easy using Gromit’s headlights.

  “I know what you mean, Davis. Seeing a recent meteorite impact sight would be awesome! Personally, I think the lights we’ve been seeing are just a glitch in the computers or some weird signal reflection off one of the satellites. But dude, that fireball sure was real,” Vickers responded as he was looking at the map they had drawn with the two intersecting lines.

  Davis mused over what Vickers said. Both were well trained analysts, and even though their appearances were totally different, they each had a friendly personality and a very quick mind. Davis was short, red-headed, and freckled. He hated his first name and always went by his last name. In fact, many people thought 'Davis' was his first name. Dwight on the other hand was tall and dark and proud to share his father’s first name. Both analysts were equally sharp and exceptionally well-trained.

  While Davis considered Vickers’ explanation the most likely, he wasn’t yet ready to write off those lights as some glitch. 'Davis had a dual degree in particle physics and electromagnetics and had been at TUFO longer than Vickers. He’d seen his share of unexplained things, and these recent events only added to his list of 'hard to write off' events.

  “What do you make of the hydrogen signal, Dwight? Do you think a meteorite could have produced that somehow?” Davis asked, given that Vickers’ training was in astrophysics and he was more familiar with the composition of the various objects in interstellar space.

  “It’s hard to imagine anything known producing it. But then there are theoretical things like dark matter, I suppose, that have properties we don’t know anything about. I guess we won’t know until we get there, Davis. I’m guessing DeMarco may already be at the site, but those military guys wouldn’t know a meteorite if they stepped on it. Let’s just get there so we can at least keep those boys safe by sweeping for radioactivity."

  In a few minutes, Davis and Vickers saw the familiar lights of DeMarco’s helicopter just as dusk turned toward evening, painting the desert sky a deep violet color. The helicopter came into position h
overing over what looked like some sort of canyon. Gromit was still a couple hundred yards out when Davis needed to slow down quite a bit due to the boulders and small arroyos they were encountering.

  “Gromit to Wallace. We just spotted DeMarco’s team at the coordinate site. It looks like they are hovering above some sort of canyon.”

  “Copy that Gromit. We are in contact with DeMarco’s team as well. They are performing a visual survey as we speak. Go ahead and find a convenient spot to stop close to the canyon and they will land in a few minutes.”

  Just then, hardly believing what his eyes were seeing, Davis saw a large metallic craft pop into existence several hundred feet above the helicopter. It was smooth and rounded with very reflective silvery metal — sort of an egg shape made of mercury lying sideways and having red lights on the lower rim that were flashing in what produced a circular pattern.

  “Captain!” Davis yelled into his mic with a tremor in his voice.

  Suddenly, the red lights circled faster and faster, and a tight red beam shot down to the helicopter and it erupted in an exploding ball of flame, lighting up the sky momentarily in a blinding flash, as it came crashing down on the edge of the canyon. A secondary explosion erupted when it hit the ground.

  Davis was stunned at the scene unfolding before him, shocked at the suddenness of the attack and the dawning realization that a tragic loss of human life had just occurred. A secondary reaction of intense fear enveloped him. Davis reacted quickly and stopped Gromit, shutting off the engine and all lights. Fortunately, the fear was also a trigger for his training to kick in, enabling him to provide a field report in an automatic and almost detached way.

  “Gromit to Wallace. The helicopter was just blown out of the sky by a UFO. I repeat, the helicopter was just destroyed! I doubt anyone could have survived the resulting fireball. We have visual confirmation of both the UFO and the downed helicopter. We also have eyes on the UFO as I speak. It is an egg-shaped metallic vehicle apparently levitating in the sky. Hell, forget about calling it a UFO, it’s a freaking alien spaceship!”

  Back at Command and Control, Severs was stunned, hardly believing what he heard. Not another loss like this! Davis was one of his best. A spaceship? How could that possibly be? It just didn’t make sense.

  “No visible signs of how the ship can fly,” Davis continued. “No propellers or exhausts for any propellant. We have now turned off Gromit about two hundred yards from the canyon and gone as dark as we can. We are partly obscured by boulders and brush, but not by much.”

  A long pause in the silent dark night seemed like minutes to Davis before he heard the solemn reply from Captain Severs.

  “Copy that Gromit. Maintain your position.”

  As Davis and Vickers watched from their position, the spaceship lights started to spin slower, and a broader less intense red-orange beam came out from the bottom sweeping over the helicopter wreckage, as if they were viewing or scanning the remains. Then the craft lowered much closer to the canyon and the beam switched to some position inside the canyon apparently scanning something on the side of one of the interior walls. The beam remained positioned there for several minutes.

  “Captain, the craft scanned the wreckage with some sort of beam, and then seems to have locked that beam onto some position within the canyon. I think they were looking for something, and they just found it.” The words had no sooner come out of Davis’ mouth, when craft rose suddenly, and the beam swung over, right on top of Gromit.

  “Captain! I think they just found us!”

  The panic in Davis’ voice chilled Captain Severs, whose first thought was, What was I thinking? Why didn’t I just tell them to bug out! But then after three or four seconds Severs heard a slight sigh and a calmer voice from Davis.

  “The beam switched back to the top of the canyon, about five feet from the mouth. I guess they didn’t perceive this woolly-worm being a threat or something,” Davis said with a nervous, relieved half chuckle. Then Davis continued as if he was a live reporter at a disaster scene.

  “Captain, I can see something floating in the center of the cone of the beam. It seems to be slowly descending toward the edge of the canyon. Ok, now it has reached the ground. The beam has switched off. The craft is now ascending. Wow! It either vanished or moved out of sight at an incredible rate of speed. In the dark I couldn’t really tell which it was. But it seems to have left some sort of artifact here.”

  Not willing to risk more lives, Captain Severs gave quick orders to Davis and Vickers.

  “Get to the crash site as quickly as you can and look for survivors. Rescue any you find and confirm that the remaining are dead. Then immediately get yourselves out of there and return to TUFO as fast as you can. That’s an order. We don’t know if they will return or what their intentions will be.”

  “Copy that, Captain.”

  Davis followed orders and confirmed what he already knew — it was a gruesome crash site with four badly burned bodies strewn about on the rocky desert plain. Several fires still burned on fuel-soaked wreckage, adding a strange flickering look to the scene. There were no survivors. The crash site was about twenty yards from where the artifact had been deposited, but other than a casual glance in that direction, Davis and Vickers focused on their task at hand. Soon they were headed back to TUFO across the dimly lit desert, which now to them had the eerie feel a graveyard.

  While Davis and Vickers were confirming conditions at the crash site, Captain Severs began outfitting a larger team to go to the coordinates to recover those who were lost and determine what the craft had left behind. To maintain security, he gave a cover story that one of TUFO’s helicopters was investigating a meteor impact site, and some tragic accident caused the helicopter to go down.

  TUESDAY NIGHT - TUFO

  Captain Severs was struggling to deal with what had happened. He had to face the fact that Davis saw what he had described as an extraterrestrial spaceship. If it indeed left some artifact at the crash site, they needed to retrieve it. The object would either confirm or contradict Davis’ firsthand account.

  Severs was devastated over the loss of DeMarco and the other three soldiers, all exceptional men. He felt sympathy for the families who would have to bear this sorrowful burden for the rest of their lives. He would carry the burden as well, he knew, adding to the list of those he lost eight years ago, whose loss still haunted him every day. And to think he almost lost Davis and Vickers as well. Davis’ quick actions are probably what saved them, Severs thought. His cool thinking under pressure reminded him so much of Lieutenant Stevens. He couldn’t bear the thought of another loss like that. Severs promised himself he would keep an eye out for Davis from now on.

  For now, though, he had to put logical thinking above the turmoil of his emotions. If Davis was correct, this was possibly the first contact these visitors have ever had with the indigenous intelligent race on this planet, and misunderstanding, lack of knowledge, or confusion could account for their reprehensible deed. He was willing to keep an open mind for now and gather more facts. It would be prudent not to take any rash or vengeful actions. At any rate, if they had advanced technology, rash actions could prove suicidal, he realized.

  “Colonel Steinmacher, Davis and Vickers are now headed back. They’ve confirmed no one survived the helicopter crash, but of course we will need to go back and recover the remains of those brave soldiers. Since Gromit was not attacked, perhaps ground transportation is perceived as less of a threat to the visitors. Therefore, I’m recommending we put together a convoy of three of our covered army trucks with teams of six each, armed only with light weapons as a minor precaution. I doubt RPG’s or any other heavy artillery available to us would likely do any good, and their use could result in disastrous consequences.

  “With your permission, I’d also like to include Specialist Davis in the recovery mission, as he has first-hand knowledge of the previous encounter and could possibly provide some valuable insight. In fact, it might be better to assign
Davis to my staff for the foreseeable future.”

  “Proceed with your plan, Captain. I will call the Pentagon to make sure the highest levels of the Department of Defense are made aware of this attack. Given the advanced technology of the unidentified aircraft, regardless its origin, it has the potential to become a national threat. And Captain, let’s keep the report by Davis about an extraterrestrial spacecraft and some artifact being lowered from it a secret for now. We haven’t confirmed it, and I’d like for us to first recover the artifact, if it exists, before making it known.”

  While Severs was preparing his recovery team, Steinmacher called the Pentagon, which immediately decided to assemble their own cadre of people to fly to TUFO and take official charge of the crash investigation and unidentified aircraft operations. The Pentagon echoed the viewpoint that this was of the highest secrecy level and as far as anyone should know, an unknown event caused the helicopter to go down while examining a meteorite impact site.

  Captain Severs asked Davis to ride in the truck with him as they were preparing to depart, since he wished to gather more information from Davis. Severs took the passenger seat, leaving the driver’s seat for Davis. Four soldiers jumped in the back of their truck as well, when the call was given to depart for the crash site. By now it was past evening and well into the night, and the moon was no longer visible. A canopy of innumerable stars spanned the sky, high above, along with the ribbon of the milky way threading its path through the stars. Davis put the truck in gear and the convoy headed off toward the canyon.

  “Tell me, Davis. Describe what it was like being there on the ground. Tell me what you saw, what you felt, what your impressions were at the time. I was on the radio with DeMarco and he was describing a strange depression in the canyon wall when I heard him say 'what the hell?' and then radio silence. The radar confirmed we had lost them, and then I heard your description of the events, but you and Vickers were the only ones who actually saw what happened.”