Disclosing the Secret

by Vincent Amato

  Reilly was nodding in agreement. “And you can see it on the expression in his face; it’s unmistakable in that famous photo. He’s saying, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’ That was the day that heralded in the US military intelligence’s truth embargo on the entire ET subject.”

  The words seemed to hang in the air before they fully registered in Jake’s mind. “But why the big secret? The question of whether we were alone in the universe had been answered once and for all.”

  Dr. Reilly knew the question was coming; he wondered for a moment how much he would have to reveal to Jake.

  “That’s a bigger question than you think, with many intertwining layers.” The scientist’s tone was pensive.

  Looking up, Charles drew in a deep ominous breath. “There are billions and billions of potential earths out there based on what we’ve learned from the Kepler probe, and the number is only going to get bigger as we learn more. On those potential earths live thousands of civilizations. It would be the height of arrogance to assert that humans are the only sentient life in the universe.”

  Charles lowered his eyes to meet with Jake’s. “But the primary reason was the Cold War. That’s the plain and simple answer.”

  Jake looked confused.

  Reilly continued. “The rise of unexplained sightings occurred in the 1940s; it was no accident that it coincided with the beginning of what could have turned out to be a hot war – a third world war fought with nuclear weaponry. At the time there was a massive stand-off between the superpowers. It was before your time, but each side was building up their stockpiles of nukes. And we had literally thousands of nukes pointed at each other ready to launch at short notice.”

  Jake was beginning to follow. “If a third world war was triggered, none of us would be here now.”

  “That right,” Reilly agreed. “So you may begin to understand that introducing the ET presence into the mix could have potentially disturbed an already very fragile political climate. The risk was far too great. If one side was to launch a strike because of the fear of being overpowered by ET technology…”

  Jake glimpsed an unimaginable web of connections materializing before him. “It could have triggered off World War III.”

  The scientist’s expression was uncertain. “Well, there were too many scenarios to contemplate, let alone predict. And none of them ended well for any side.”

  “So back then,” Reilly went on, “some very clever people, the people who ended the Second World War, people a cut above the ones running things now, made the decision that until we understood more about who these off-world visitors were – where they were coming from, why they were here, what their technology could do and what Stalin’s plans were – they thought it was best to keep the arrival of the visitors a national secret.”

  Jake looked skeptical.

  Charles’s tone was resolute. “If you understand the political climate in which that decision was made, then you will also understand that they did make the right decision at the time. I still believe that.”

  Jake eyes narrowed. “So then what happened when the Cold War ended?”

  “An excellent point.” Charles was pleased that Jake was now following. “The Cold War, the stand-off between the superpowers, lasted 44 years till 1991 when the Soviet Union was disassembled. But in that time the national secret, the truth embargo if you will, had become institutionalized. We’d had over four decades to study their technology in complete secrecy, and in that time created for ourselves some pretty nifty toys. We developed technologies centuries ahead of anything our enemies possessed.”

  Reilly hesitated a moment. “Most of those very clever people who made the right decision over 65 years ago are no longer with us. But the new people now running the show aren’t yet ready to deinstitutionalize the national secret.”

  Shifting uncomfortably, Jake asked, “But what about the new technologies, the new toys? Let me guess; they want to keep them to themselves.”

  The scientist’s tone darkened. “That’s one way to look at it. They’re of the opinion that the few so-called toys they have let filter through to the mainstream is enough for now: integrated circuitry, fiber optics, stealth metamaterials, laser technologies. All back-engineered from what your grandfather found in the Corona desert. I’m not the first to confirm it; there are numerous books that have been written on the subject if you know where to look. But to deinstitutionalize the national secret is also to open Pandora’s Box.”

  Jake was again lost.

  “Think about it,” Reilly went on. “Admitting that the government had lied to it citizens for over 65 years means admitting we have had technologies that can produce clean energy; that we haven’t needed to pump oil out of the ground for decades; that we didn’t need to go to war to protect Kuwait’s oil assets; that we have kept the means to end world poverty and hunger to ourselves; that we have kept our petroleum-based economic system running at the benefit of those selling oil; that trillions of citizens’ tax dollars have been sunk into the black budget to develop ET technologies only to benefit those pulling the strings; that we now have a governing system run by an elite governing group within our government, no matter which side of politics are voted into the White House.”

  Jake couldn’t believe what he was hearing. How can it all be connected? Jake thought to himself.

  Reilly was still explaining. “And worse of all, that the US Government, even if it was the secret governing group within our government, did some very, very bad things to its own tax-paying citizens. All to keep its national secret hidden for all those decades. There are some very powerful individuals who do not want to be held accountable for the bad things that were done over the years to keep a lid on the ET presence.”

  Jake’s felt his head spinning. With every passing sentence he had another two more questions to ask. He felt himself disappearing down the rabbit hole fast. This can’t be real!

  Charles could see the rising trepidation in Jake’s expression. “I know it’s a lot to take in at once, and believe me, I’ve barely scratched the surface.”

  Jake was uncertain how to respond. “Okay… If what you’ve said is in fact true, then why hold on to all these new technologies if they can solve so many problems? I get that the government needs to cover its ass over what had to be done in the early days, but the benefits have to outweigh the questionable things that had been done. Why are they keeping it all supressed?”

  “That’s the pivotal question: why?” Dr. Reilly turned to meet eyes with Jake. “How they did it doesn’t even compare. It distracts us from asking the most important questions: Why was the crash really covered up? Who has the power to maintain the secret for so many decades? And who has been benefiting all this time?”

  Dr. Reilly could again see Jake’s eyes being to cloud. “The day that General Ramey ordered Commander Blanchard to change the army’s story of a downed ET disk to a mistaken weather balloon marked the commencement of the truth embargo. That was the day your grandfather was ordered to present what was clearly parts of a weather balloon to the press.”

  Jake again shifted uncomfortably.

  “After they found the crashed disk,” Charles explained, “President Truman would have been negligent if he didn’t authorize the assembly of a special group to find out as much as possible about what came down and keep it under wraps until they worked out if it, or they, were a threat. Nobody travels light years, or traverses dimensions, or even through time, without an agenda. That special group would then be responsible for managing the secret and any consequential problems it may cause.”

  Charles winced as he repositioned himself upright, a flash of pain momentarily crossing his face. Jake pretended not to notice as the scientist continued. “Now fast forward a few more years to when President Eisenhower was a general during World War II. He once met with Churchill to discuss something that was photographed by a Royal Air Force reconnaissance plane over the eastern coast line of England. It had captured a detailed ph
oto of a silver metallic object that matched the plane’s speed and heading for quite a while before it accelerated away at an impossible rate before disappearing. Something in that photo made Churchill more concerned with the social impact than the threat of advanced technology from unknown origins to national, or even global, security. He ordered the photos to be immediately classified.”

  Dr. Reilly paused as if to emphasize his point. “He classified it because he feared it would cause mass panic among the global population, and instigate social disintegration let alone threaten the religious beliefs of billions.”

  Jake’s eyes sprang to life. “Fair enough. But that was a much simpler time, and the Cold War ended years ago.”

  “That it has,” Reilly agreed. “But there are a myriad of moving parts to the story. The issues are now so big, with implications so widespread, that it touches every single person on earth. The more that special group learned from their deep black programs studying the ETs and their tech, the more layers of reasoning they established as to why the truth should continue to be hidden.”

  Jake’s next question was instantaneous: “What did they learn?”

  CHAPTER 31

  Jake’s words rattled around in Charles’s head: “What did they learn?”

  If only our planet’s population knew the true history of our species’ evolution, Charles thought.

  Sensing that Jake was clearly overwhelmed, he wondered how much detail should be shared about the true history underlying humanity’s origins.

  He decided not to divulge to Jake that the human race is essentially a hybrid; genetically engineered approximately 275,000 years ago into Homo sapiens, and the reason for the absence of a smooth evolutionary transition between us and our closest known ancestors, Homo erectus. The cause of this monumental jump between the two genetic sequences has remained an age old mystery among mainstream palaeontologists.

  Reilly’s Special Access Program Group was tasked with studying the ETs and their technology, and had learned an uncomfortable truth. In the distant past our interstellar neighbors had bioengineered Homo sapiens by introducing elements of their own genetic material into terrestrial primate DNA. It added intelligence and agility to mankind’s ancestors; after several iterations the resulting species was to eventually be catalogued by science as Homo sapiens, otherwise known as human.

  The missing link between the two species isn’t actually missing, as the vastly advanced latter wasn’t the result of Darwin’s evolution but the product of very advanced genetic engineering.

  Over the next 125,000 to 150,000 years the Homo sapiens population flourished across the earth. Over time, however, a flaw in Homo sapiens’ genetic coding became increasingly evident. Humans were still too aggressive, obsessively territorial and lacked the ability to develop spiritual awareness.

  The interstellar visitors thus returned to earth for the purpose of implementing a mass genetic upgrade. This time the resulting species was to become commonly accepted by anthropologists as Homo sapiens sapiens, also known as “Modern Man.”

  The proceeding 125,000 years witnessed modern humans’ population develop into organized groups; new civilizations emerged as humans developed and an increasing spiritual awareness and understanding was born.

  Homo sapiens sapiens then reached the limit of their genetic potential when their technology and materialistic values far surpassed their spiritual and moral development. The point in history at which this occurred was when mankind entered the nuclear age.

  As earth’s civilization enters its 21st century, the human population is again exhibiting flaws in its genetic coding, and once again in turn attracted increasing attention from our interstellar neighbors. Humans have become an immature warring race that plays with dangerously powerful nuclear technologies which they don’t fully comprehend. By reaching this point in their history while simultaneously developing space orbital capabilities, it should be no surprise that mankind has triggered other civilizations to have a vested interest in where humans will next be headed as they venture out to explore space with their new-found nuclear toys.

  Humans have embraced technology that destroys the natural environment, they fight over land, and worse still have used atomic weaponry against themselves. It’s this disruptive nature that has again drawn the attention of our cosmic neighbors, who have returned to further modify, or improve, our genetic coding. This has been ongoing in our recent history via their visitations to certain individuals within our population, borrowing samples of their reproductive material such that genetic upgrading can be again performed. They then return the reproductive material to the individual to later follow their family over the course of generations to monitor evolutionary growth.

  The individuals would have no recollection of the abduction event, but would go on to produce naturally gifted children. Being exceedingly more intelligent than their peers and in some cases possessing hints of advanced cognitive capabilities, some of these children have been mistaken as having psychic abilities. They would also grow up to naturally hold a cosmic perspective of geopolitics and possess heightened spiritual awareness.

  These gifted offspring think differently than other children, having abilities that can seem supernatural to the general population. Some genetically upgraded children are able to process information and arrive at conclusions in ways that don’t follow traditional methods, continually frustrating their teachers with their unorthodox way of thinking.

  These special children grow up to possess an intuitive understanding of nature’s forces and phenomena not yet explainable by Homo sapiens sapiens’ grasp of physics. Yet they would also hold an affinity for their fellow humans, and they would care just as much about atrocities happening around the world as they would for their friends at the local playground.

  When they eventually reached adulthood, these gifted children would have families of their own, cross-pollinating the next evolution of the upgraded genome within the global population’s gene pool.

  Dr. Reilly couldn’t help but wonder, What will future anthropologists call this next evolution of human species now walking among us? History can only decide.

  CHAPTER 32

  A comfortable silence had grown between Charles and Jake as they both stared across the park.

  Jake’s voice jarred Charles from his thoughts. “You haven’t answered the question.”

  “Sorry?”

  “What did they learn?” Jake repeated.

  Charles leaned back on the bench in thought for a moment. He felt it was too soon to take Jake down the road of human evolution and the role played by external influences.

  Perhaps we’ll leave that one alone for now.

  “We learned that we were not under attack.” Charles hesitated, as if searching for the words. “We are, however, under observation.”

  The scientist watched as Jake wrestled with the idea before turning back to Charles. “Why are they keeping themselves hidden?”

  The scientist gave a soft smile. “Find some night vision binoculars and look up; they’re not trying to hide themselves at all.”

  Jake looked skeptical, raising his eyes skyward.

  “One of the first visiting interstellar groups had told some individuals that they would appear over our nation’s capital on July 19th 1952 then again a week later on the 26th. They made it very clear to these contacts that it would be a benevolent show of force. But more importantly, it was a peaceful display of their presence. It was the mass fly-by over the White House, seen by millions and captured on film. But then the incident all of a sudden went quiet.”

  Images of old news footage showing small metallic craft flying over Washington flashed through Jake’s mind. He was still unsure, but sensed in Reilly’s patient smile that he was genuine.

  “And because of bureaucratic red tape, it took two years for them to be permitted to land at Edwards Air Force base in 1954. That was the day they met with President Eisenhower for the first time. That was the first officia
l contact with the government of the United States.”

  Jake was dead silent, staring in mute astonishment.

  “There ships landed on the tarmac at Edwards, right before government officials,” the scientist added, his tone conclusive.

  “In broad daylight?” Jake finally blurted out.

  “In broad daylight,” Charles confirmed. “They approached the President and in the interest of peace offered the government, and to all the residences of our planet, technologies that would help us make the transition from an oil-addicted race to a clean energy-based civilization. But there was a condition.”

  Jake’s eyes were wide.

  “They would share the technology with us provided that it would be made freely available to the entire population – 4.8 billion people at the time – and not be kept by only one nation or kept secret by a select few.”

  Jake’s eyes widened further. “This really happened? Why don’t we know about this?!”

  “There is archive footage of the event. Now remember this was five years after your grandfather was called out to see what crashed in the desert, so we already had a headstart on trying to reverse-engineer their off-world tech, not to mention it was during the height of the Cold War.”

  “Our government…” Charles paused. “Well, the controlling government group within our government, the ones that created the weather balloon story for your grandfather, had national security issues with the visitors’ offer. So they turned them down.”

  “What!” stammered Jake, not believing what he was hearing.

  “Wait, it gets better. Soon after that event the ET group now known as the ‘Grays’ appeared on the scene. They too made an offer; they were willing to give us working versions of off-world technologies that we already had in our possession but couldn’t back engineer because we didn’t understand how it worked.”