They both watched in transfixed silence.
Then, as quickly as it appeared, the width of the light beam suddenly shrunk until it disappeared completely, followed by the original light source within the cloud disappearing. It didn’t seem like the light was instantly “switched off;” more like the source of light had shrunken in size until it simply was no more.
Beyond the illuminated cloud, halfway between their location and the horizon, a large commercial aircraft appeared through the clouds on approach, its navigation lights blinking as it headed toward the airport situated behind them. The size of the aircraft, possibly a Boeing or Airbus, gave some scale to the scheme of things. It appeared to be cruising at the same altitude as the mysterious lights; the source of the mysterious lights looked as if it could have been approximately the same size as the plane, but when it departed it left Jake with the impression that it moved away at near light speed.
A heavy silence hung between them for a long while.
“What w…w…was that?” Jackie finally managed.
Jake paused a moment, weighing his words carefully. “Well, it wasn’t a plane…it wasn’t a helicopter…it obviously wasn’t a shooting star or a satellite.”
Jackie’s voice was a confused whisper. “It seemed to shoot off when that plane came through the clouds.”
“And it sure as hell wasn’t lightning!” Jake continued, as if not hearing her.
Jake studied the approaching airliner then traced its path toward the cloud that shrouded the mysterious lights. His mind ticked over as it sifted through every possible explanation for what they had witnessed. There was no hint of any other aircraft in the sky besides the airliner. The clouds didn’t seem to be of the type that could evoke lightning or a storm.
Jackie was still puzzled. “Jake, what did we just see?”
Great question: what the hell was it?!
He refocused on the area of the sky where they saw the bright light. The airliner was now flying through the same patch of cloud. Its lights disappeared when it entered, making no difference to the brightness of the cloud as it flew through it.
Jake had no answer. More to the point, he didn’t have an answer that he was comfortable sharing.
He didn’t respond to the question.
Jackie tried asking again. “What could have made the light shoot down like that?”
Jake now traced his eyes from the cloud in question in the direction of the beam of light, down to the ground directly under the beam. He approximated their distance to the cloud, which roughly triangulated the beam to be over a cluster of suburban rooftops in the distance.
Was it shooting down onto a house? Into somebody’s backyard?
Without an exact frame of reference, Jake couldn’t be sure.
Slowly shaking his head, Jake finally answered Jackie’s question, his tone ominous. “I don’t know.”
CHAPTER 19
The small suburban parklands peppered among the sea of domestic residences were intended to be a green initiative enforced by the city’s local council. Though too small to have any significant impact on its surrounding concrete jungle, the small park only walking distance from Natasha’s home was a place where she frequently liked to spend time.
Following Jake’s return from dropping Jackie off downtown, the two decided to stay in and had taken a walk to the nearby park after dinner. Jake was lying on one of the half-dozen scattered lumps of timber that approximated a park bench. He was staring up at the sky, out into the emptiness of space. Natasha sat upright beside him, his head resting on her lap.
She was enjoying the simplicity of his company, but in the silence sensed that there was something weighing him down.
“Jack said that tonight you guys saw something in the sky on the way to the city,” she inquired.
Jake was pulled back from his fixation on the star sprinkled sky. “When did you get a chance to talk to her?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve already received a full report on the guy she’s meeting. She texted me while I was cooking. What do you think it was, a UFO?” Natasha giggled.
He drew in a deep breath, allowing his head to once again relax on her lap. He felt an unexpected heaviness, as if her question had aggravated an old injury from the past.
Jake’s response was a tense whisper. “I don’t know.”
For years Jake had tried not to think about the troubles his family had had to endure, or think about the times he was taunted as a young boy. For as long as he could remember, and whenever anyone recognized his family name, he hated the way it felt to hear people belittle his grandfather.
Whenever the topic came up, and without fail, people would always discredit his grandfather as they probed his father. “That’s right, wasn’t it your dad who mistook that weather balloon for a flying saucer? It was all over the newspapers.”
The comment would always be followed by Jake’s father recounting the events and justifying facts. But then would come the inevitable round of demeaning jokes and laughter.
In his grandfather’s younger years Major Jesse Marcel ate, drank, slept and bled the military. But after the infamous “Weather Balloon” incident Major Marcel seemed to have been pushed aside, his life’s hard work and achievements demeaned. After a life of devotion and dedication to his military career, his grandfather’s disillusionment with the army he once loved gathered momentum. Although he would never openly condemn the military for chewing him up before spitting him out, it did take its toll in other ways. The distance between his grandfather and the rest of the family grew over the years.
But for the Marcel family the story never went away. Jake watched as his grandparents grew apart, and how people would discredit both his grandfather and father. And yet despite his father following in his grandfather’s footsteps, going on to enjoy a distinguished military career and ascending to the rank of colonel, Jake held a deep hatred toward the military for how three generations of his family were affected by a single event. Jake had vowed never to be a part of it, to never join any military branch or government organization. Worse still, he was ashamed of how he would eventually neglect to defend his grandfather against discrediting comments and prying questions whenever the topic of conspiracies and downed unknown aircraft in the desert came up, as in the end it was just easier to play along instead of having to constantly fight against narrow minds.
“That’s just crazy old Grandpa,” Jake used to agree, biting down hard on his pride, trying not to display any signs of anger at their simple-minded judgements.
Eventually Jake just shut out those early years of his life and convinced himself that whatever his grandfather found in the desert all those decades ago just wasn’t real.
Natasha understood that the pain was still a presence in his family.
“Sweetheart, are you okay?” She was now gazing down at him, lightly stroking his hair.
The words shook Jake from his daydream. “Yeah, I was just thinking.”
She pushed on. “Well, do you think there is life out there in the universe?”
Jake’s eyes again looked toward the scattered pinpoints of light above them. “Well, since we’ve been able to detect planets orbiting other stars we thought there may have been one star in a hundred that have orbiting plants. Now we know from years of observation and our understanding of how stars form that every star will have planets, and of those, one in five is likely to be able to have the right conditions to support life. So they’ve worked out that the number of planets outnumber the stars, and there are as many planets in the universe as there are blades of grass on earth. So there could be as many earth-like planets in our galaxy alone as there are trees in the United States.”
In a nearby tree a pair of owls cooed at one another, capturing Natasha’s attention. “So you’re saying we’re like a couple of owls wondering if it’s possible that there are other owls living in any of the other trees?”
“That’s a cute way to look at it, but yes.”
Natasha now gave a playful smile. “So, do you think there is life out there on other planets?”
Pressing his lips together, Jake heaved a ponderous sigh. “I used to, but I don’t know anymore. If we were the only life in this immense universe then I guess that would be an even more incredible discovery…it would make our little blue planet infinitely more valuable and precious than we could imagine.”
CHAPTER 20
Groom Lake is a vast flat salt bed located in the southern portion of Nevada, about 80 miles from Las Vegas. Home of the iconic SR72 Blackbird spy plane and colloquially known as Area 51, or to its employees Dreamland and The Ranch, the base is a leading edge military avionics and aeronautics weapons system integration, production and research facility. It has produced avionic advances such as the U2 spy plane, the F117, the B2 stealth bomber, the secretly produced and unacknowledged TR3B “Space Plane” and the hypersonic Aurora.
The 575 square mile airspace directly over Area 51 known as “The Box” is restricted. Unauthorized entry of aircraft into The Box triggers the immediate scrambling of four F18 Hornet fighters with standing orders to escort away or terminate non-compliant intruders.
Approximately 10 miles south of Groom Lake lies Papoose Mountain. Built into the mountain and on the edge of Papoose Lake is the lesser known five-level, ultra-secret underground facility referred to as Section 4. Its nine-hangar bay doors are built at 60 degrees and set flush with the side of the mountain, its color and texture specifically designed to seamlessly blend in with its surrounding topography. Another smaller dry lake bed sits at the toe of Papoose Mountain; built over it is a barely detectable tarmac that leads to the hangar bay doors, facilitating the entry and exit of exotic craft hidden within.
The sky above Area 51 has been the location of countless sightings of strange looking aircraft. Since Section 4 is close to Area 51, the general public has had its attention focused on the airspace over Area 51 and away from Section 4. This misdirection was preplanned and engineered for one specific reason – to shroud the existence of Section 4.
The matte black Gulfstream was on approach to Papoose Mountain. Even though the pilots could only see a pitch black desert floor under the clear star-filled night, their navigation screens plotted the outline of the unseen runway ahead. The black Gulfstream executed a textbook landing solely guided by their instrumentation. It then taxied toward the toe of the mountain, coming to rest in front of Section 4’s camouflaged hangar bay doors.
Mr. Sabre stepped out onto the aircraft gangway ladder. The agent was in his forties, but nobody really knew how old he was. With dark hair and piercing eyes, he had a powerful presence, which drew respect from those under his command.
Stepping off the gangway ladder, the agent was greeted by four bulky framed and heavily armed sentries in black fatigues. The soldiers stood at sharp attention, no-one moving a muscle. They nursed well-used FN SCAR assault rifles, their side-arm holsters cradling semiautomatic Glocks. With two at the front, and two behind, his greeting party silently marched him along a path marked with parallel lines painted over the tarmac. As Sabre’s eyes adjusted to the night, he recognized the familiar pair of parallel blue lines painted inside red lines identifying the walkway that led to the entrance of the underground facility. All arrivals, no matter their rank or security clearance, were to remain inside the blue lines at all times. Sentries had standing orders to use terminal force against any non-compliant visitors who stepped over the external red lines.
Hollowed out of the mountain rock at the southern end of the hangar bay doors was a small recess allowing entry into the base. As they approached, Mr. Sabre stole a quick glance at one of the sentry’s name patches. His designation was 45851.
All sentries were Special Forces personnel from all four military branches, usually ex-Delta Force or ex-Navy Seals with “Black Seal” status, the highest rank a marine could achieve. Sabre always wondered if the sentries gave each other nicknames, as personnel seconded to the NSA’s Sub-Division at Section 4 were stripped of their names, to be called only by their designated service numbers. To ensure long-term security, sentries were never to know the identities of the others within their own detachments. Even though they all lived at the underground base, socializing was discouraged.
They wore brown uniforms during the day, black at night. Duty was four hours on with eight hours off repeated around the clock. Talking among themselves while on duty was strictly prohibited; even during their downtime and recreational periods they had standing orders to never discuss their missions or anything they may have witnessed while on duty. Sentries were never briefed on the events of the previous day or night, as all personnel operated on a “need to know” basis.
In addition to sentries there were four snipers on duty with starlight infrared scopes at all times. Any intruders outside the sights of the snipers were met with laser motion detectors that surrounded the perimeter of the underground base. That is, provided the intruders were able to safely traverse through the surrounding area within a radius of almost 600 feet of the entry, which was peppered with C26 landmines, a classified high yield plastic explosive that was denser and packed more destructive power than conventional C4.
Being the most highly secure and heavily fortified underground facility in the United States, Section 4 would shut down any external activities every 48 hours to allow Russian and Chinese spy satellites to sail over without witnessing any activity or unconventional aircraft within the surrounding area of Papoose Mountain.
Now arriving at a heavy metal entry carved into the side of the first hangar bay, Mr. Sabre was met by an additional two sentry guards. Despite Sabre being well known to all personnel stationed at Section 4, security protocols remained mandatory. After checking his credentials, the entry guards allowed Mr. Sabre to pass.
With a snap-hiss the heavy metal doors slid open, one metal panel sliding in front of the other before both disappeared into stone wall. Only two of the sentry detachment followed Mr. Sabre through another checkpoint, then through a long dull gray corridor that ran the rear length of the hangar bays. Sabre thought it was overkill that although most of the corridors were lined by solid walls on both sides, parallel blue lines inside the red lines were still painted along the edges of the corridor floors.
Would they shoot me if I tried to walk through the wall? Sabre mused.
Twenty seconds later the wall to Mr. Sabre’s left dropped away to reveal the expanse of the first hangar. The corridor transformed into a catwalk that bridged over all nine successive hangar bays.
Sabre eyes dropped down to the hangar below. He never grew tired of taking in the exotic form of the silver disk-shaped craft docked in hangar one. Seamless and sleek with an almost mirrored surface finish, it was the product of numerous Black Projects programs active at the underground base. Within the confines of Section 4, specialist scientists worked at reverse-engineering exotic technologies from non-terrestrial origins.
The term “Black” signified that, for the reasons of national security, the budget allocation provided by the US Government to exotic programs of non-terrestrial nature would never see the light of day under the scrutiny of Congress auditors.
Now passing the next hangar bay, Sabre feasted his eyes on the captured non-terrestrial interstellar vehicle housed below. It shimmered, its skin almost radiant under the hangar bay lights. With its disk-shaped form and componentry manufactured somewhere no human had ever seen, it was a sight to behold, serving as the blueprint for its distant earthy clone sitting in hangar bay one.
An ongoing program now in its seventh decade at Section 4 was the research and applied conversion of exotic non-terrestrial technologies into proven terrestrial technology along with its instrumentation that human pilots could control. The core directive of the program was to bridge the gap between alien technology and human instrumentation. Over the decades the program scientists came to understand solid state electronics, integrated circuitry, lasers and inferred optics. These spin-off
technologies were primarily cultivated and developed for military applications, but eventually filtered down to mass global consumption.
The rear wall adjacent to hangar bay three opened to a perpendicular corridor that stretched out deep into the mountain. Sabre’s two escorts continued to follow him down the full length of the perpendicular corridor. Sabre’s eyes rose to the ceiling to find the small audio detectors placed at regular intervals in addition to crystal-looking devices that functioned as holographic security cameras.
If the guards spoke to each other on duty, they would be disciplined.
After a series of right and left turns they came to a stop at a bank of three elevators. Three keys, a palm print and a retina scan were needed to access any elevator. Silently, Mr. Sabre provided the latter two requirements which biometrically confirmed his identity. He was then handed a flat laser-etched electronic key. The three men exchanged glances then inserted their keys simultaneously into the elevator console to unlock the lift.
*
Although he was alone when he stepped out onto Sub-Level 3, Mr. Sabre was greeted by a new pair of armed sentry guards who escorted him to the door of Thirty-three’s subterranean office.
Sabre paused momentarily; behind that door sat one of the most gifted men he had ever met. The door slid opened, and Sabre was ushered through.
“Please, sit.” Thirty-three’s voice was dry as he gestured for Mr. Sabre to join him at his slender desk.
As Mr. Sabre sat, Thirty-three’s transparent desk illuminated with three-dimensional images of a young man in his mid to late twenties. Although the desk was relatively thin, the images seemed to hover just under its surface, giving the desk an illusion of depth.
Thirty-three continued: “Do you recognize any of these people?”
Black and white 2D images now materialised, hovering in between the growing number of mixed 3D images; they were a collage of people and events.
Disclosing the Secret Page 8
