by Steve Alten
“But why Earth? What made them come here?”
“They were concerned. Among intelligent biologics, there is a natural progression that determines whether a maturing Type-Zero civilization will survive. Energy is the key to equality, and equality is what ultimately transforms a Type-Zero civilization into a Type-1 civilization. It is at this point that the dangers of splitting the atom are replaced by zero-point-energy. Type-2 civilizations terraform other worlds within their solar system while Type-3 civilizations—the highest level attainable for third dimension physical beings—have mastered transdimensional, faster-than-light travel, uniting them with the community of intelligent beings within their galaxy.”
Michael nodded. Screw humans. I want to know what the aliens know … I want to live how they live.
“Man had discovered zero-point-energy as far back as the early 1900s, only the technology was purposely stymied. From the 1950s on, a cabal composed of oil oligarchs, bankers, and defense contractors secretly black-shelved all ZPE breakthroughs, as well as all clean energy and anti-gravitic technologies. Greed not only caused billions of people to suffer needlessly, but the forced extension of the fossil fuel age was poisoning our planet.”
The view of Earth disappeared, becoming a river reflecting a clear blue sky. Brown-skinned children were playing along a grass-covered shoreline, elder men fishing from a modern pier.
“Do you recognize this city, Mr. Sutterfield?”
“I don’t know … somewhere in India maybe?”
“Correct. This is the Yamuna River in New Delhi … the way it looks today thanks to a robust economy ushered in by zero-point-energy. Over a hundred state-of-the-art sewage and water treatment plants were opened in the last fifteen years. New clean energy industries have taken root, employing what was once a destitute and dying lower class. Now observe the same scene twenty years ago.”
The image changed, the river darkening into brown sludge, its putrid surface specked by islands of garbage. Piles of refuse lined the shore. The pier was gone, replaced by a wrought-iron bridge, its belly bleeding rust into the waterway. Naked children bathed and drank in the shallows while adults unabashedly squatted into the cesspool, emptying their bowels.
“That’s disgusting. Don’t they have toilets?”
“The toilets are backed up with raw sewage, and there are no sources of clean water. And it wasn’t just the Yamuna. Eighty percent of India’s human waste ended up in its rivers, which could no longer support life. Dysentery and disease swept through the country, the death toll in the millions. But water pollution was not their only problem. Air pollution, caused by vehicles and coal-fired plants had created dark cloud banks of smog which covered much of India and China, blotting out the sunlight needed to grow crops while altering weather patterns in North America.”
The scene changed again, this time to an African village where half-naked dark skinned natives were running in fear from dark-skinned soldiers firing assault rifles. Several women carrying young children were chased into a white stucco church.
The teen found the violence enticing. “Where is this place?”
“At the time, the nation was known as South Sudan. The country remained divided by a civil war between multiple tribes that raged for decades. The men assaulting those women were members of the White Army, a heavily armed Nuer civilian youth brigade. Invading a Dinka village, they would steal their livestock and then rape and mutilate the women, butchering the men and enslaving their children. Unable to farm, the people were systematically starving to death. Things got so bad that two million Africans actually abandoned their homes to live in refugee camps. One of the poorest countries in the world, South Sudan and its people had no future … until a new energy technology was introduced in Africa.
“This is New South Sudan today.”
As Michael watched, the image of the burning straw thatched huts faded into a modern rural community of brick and mortar. An agriculture center sat adjacent to miles of corn fields, the crops supplied with water from feeder pipes linked to high-tech industrial wells powered by small hockey-puck-sized devices—the zero-point-energy unit humming with power.
The view changed. Rising silently in the sky, Michael looked down upon a new network of tarmac roads connecting African village to African village. Soaring higher, he passed over a gleaming metropolis before heading west over the Sahara.
What was once tens of thousands of square miles of empty desert had been transformed into farmland communities, the crops, orchards, and grasslands drawing water from man-made reservoirs. Above-ground pipes connected these enormous caches to city-size filtration plants situated along the Atlantic Ocean.
Michael knew about these giant desalination factories; each was powered by a zero-point-energy device no larger than the pod he was now sitting in. The Sahara Project was not only feeding the African and Asian continents with pesticide-free food, but the artificial lakes and reservoirs—each built with retractable roofs—had been strategically placed to disrupt the intense dry summer heat rising over North Africa’s desert—the cause of Atlantic Ocean-bound hurricanes. As a result, man could now diffuse one of the deadliest and most costly weather systems on the planet.
With free, clean and abundant energy, anything was possible.
His instructor continued the tour, contrasting the problems of the past with the solutions of the present. They traversed the Persian Gulf where oil refineries and rigs had been replaced by modern neighborhoods; then flew over the California coast where desalination plants similar to the ones used in the Sahara. They ensured the harsh droughts, which had threatened to extend the desert all the way to the Pacific coastline, would never return.
After a few more stops, Michael found himself back in space, staring once more at the Earth.
“We are now observing our planet as it appeared twenty years ago.”
“It looks about the same to me.”
“The extinction threat cannot be seen by the naked eye.”
As Michael watched, a lime-green haze appeared to bloom over North America. “What is that?”
“Methane. It is a greenhouse gas thirty-five times stronger than carbon dioxide. For decades methane had been escaping from underground coal seams and at natural gas rigs. The oceans absorbed much of this methane, along with CO2 from coal plants and carbon monoxide from cars. Then a new technique known as fracking was introduced.
“Fracking released intolerable levels of methane gas, but because the gas was invisible and the fracking generated vast amounts of wealth, humanity was slow to act. Then, in 2017, the Trump Administration removed virtually every environmental safeguard, and within two years, our planet experienced a runaway greenhouse effect.
“Over three hundred million people died of cancer and respiratory illnesses related to methane poisoning from 2019 through 2021; their deaths kept hidden from the public. Another two billion starved when the planet’s ecosystem shut down because of banks of smog clouds which blanketed parts of Earth’s atmosphere, cutting off the amount of sunlight needed to grow food.
Only the planet-wide shut down of fossil fuels, coupled with the advent of zero-point-energy and new technologies which eventually reversed greenhouse gases, prevented Earth from ending up like Mars—
—a dead world.”
12
Dallas, Texas
THE LATE NIGHT TV HOST sat behind his studio desk, allowing his wife, Claire, to powder the shine on his forehead.
Richard Gatenby was born and raised in Portsmouth, a city in the south of England. He had dropped out of school at sixteen, was married by nineteen, and spent most of his free time playing football (rugby) where his “win or die” persona could be properly directed. When a brutal tackle by two rivals sidelined him with a broken leg and a ruptured thigh muscle, the weekend brawler channeled his gregarious personality into a satirical talk show called “Let’s Get Randy with Dickie.” Uploaded onto YouTube, the videos quickly went viral where he was discovered by a program d
irector for a local FOX affiliate in Dallas, Texas … and another talk show phenomenon was born.
Gatenby chased his wife back behind the curtain as his producer signaled that they were coming out of commercial. Locating the teleprompter, he waited for his D.J. and co-host, Kyle Knori, to finish playing Abracadabra by the Steve Miller Band.
“Thank you, K.K. My next guest is a retired United States Army Colonel who has written a book about aliens … and not the ones we’re building a wall to keep out … let’s give a big Dickie welcome to Colonel Alexander Johnston!”
The white-haired man in his seventies waved at the studio audience as he strode across the stage to occupy the vacant couch next to the tattooed Brit.
Dickie held up the hard cover book that was lying on his desk. “The book is called, UFOs and Extraterrestrials: All You Need to Know. Personally, I need to know a lot. But before we talk about the book, let’s get a bit randy, shall we? You’ve had an interesting career, Colonel. Back in ’Nam, you commanded Special Forces ‘A’ Teams.”
“That’s correct.”
“Ever kill anyone?”
“Suffice it to say, I’ve seen my share of death.”
“You’ve not only seen your share of it … I understand you earned a degree in it?”
“Thanatology. It’s the study of death and dying and the psychological mechanisms of dealing with them.”
“Seems like a strange major. For the final, did you have to go out and kill someone?”
The colonel grimaced through the sustained applause and laughter.
“The subject of thanatology deals with the thoughts and reactions of the dying, something that varies from culture to culture. How an oncologist or priest prepares a terminal patient for death in America is far different than what a shaman in the jungles of Thailand will do. I was most interested in the multitude of reactions of the dying.”
“Is that how you earned the nickname, ‘Dr. Death?’ ”
The colonel forced a smile. “That was more of an academic nickname.”
“After ’Nam, you returned to the states where you went to work at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. This is a place normally associated with a whole lot of death and destruction, yes?”
“True. Los Alamos is where the U.S. government conducted its top-secret nuclear weapons programs.”
“But that’s not what you did?”
“No. My focus was on developing non-lethal warfare programs.”
“Is that because of all the death you witnessed in Vietnam?”
“I just felt that there were more efficient methods of subduing an enemy than scorching the earth with napalm.”
“For instance?”
“Well, let’s say your village was being threatened by a hostile air force. Instead of shooting them down, you could direct an electromagnetic pulse that would scramble their controls and have them dropping out of the sky.”
The colonel smiled at the applause.
“Speaking of things dropping out of the sky … UFOs. Are they real, or is this all nonsense?”
“Before I answer that, Dickie, let’s be clear here—I am not your average Joe. I’ve spent most of my adult life in the military and as a government liaison. Having spoken to hundreds of pilots and radar personnel, my view on UFOs is that, of the tens of thousands of sightings on record, approximately 5% remain unexplained. Having investigated both the military’s and the government’s responses to these unexplained sightings, I am convinced there is definitely something to these encounters. However, I can also state unequivocally that there is no government or military cover-up, no conspiracy.”
“What about Roswell?”
“As I’ve detailed in my book, the Roswell crash was nothing more than a top secret military program called Project Mogul. It was essentially a weather balloon experiment that a bunch of yokels turned into an episode of War of the Worlds. Unfortunately, the American public, God bless ’em, can get a little riled up.”
Boos rose from the studio audience.
The colonel responded with a smirk. “Settle down. I didn’t say I don’t believe in UFOs. I was simply telling you the truth about Roswell.”
“Dr. Death, have you ever heard of Steven Greer? We had him on the show two weeks ago talking about his new book, UNACKNOWLEDGED: An Exposé of the World’s Greatest Secret, and I think he might disagree with you about Roswell.”
“Dr. Greer is a charlatan.”
More boos.
“Now, hear me out. Greer makes a lot of money taking groups out to the desert and other remote areas to talk to the aliens. It’s a bunch of nonsense, and it’s one of the reasons I wrote my book—to protect the unsuspecting public from being ripped off.”
The host held up his hands, attempting to calm his audience. “Easy now. The man has a right to his opinion, just as you have a right not to buy his book.”
The boos changed to applause.
“I don’t think they like you, Dr. Death.”
The colonel’s face flushed pink.
“Colonel, I understand you were part of a group of researchers and scientists who investigated reports of cattle mutilations and other strange alien occurrences. Was that our Mexican aliens sneaking over the border, or were these actual ETs?”
“It’s hard to say, Dickie.”
“Whoa … fella. This is public TV. You can’t say ‘Dickie’ and ‘it’s hard’ together.”
Laughter.
“Hey Al, I just realized … we’ve got a Dickie and a Johnson sharing the same stage. This interview just turned into a sausage party!”
More laughter, followed by wild applause—prodded by the producer.
“Actually, it’s Johnston … Colonel Alexander Johnston.”
“Do aliens have penises? You never hear about that, only the anal probes. Wish we could talk more about aliens and alien sex but that’s all the time we have for this segment. The book is called, UFOs and Extraterrestrials: All You Need to Know. The author, Colonel Death … I mean Johnson. We’ll be right back with Theresa Ritter and her flock of sheep dogs.”
Before the colonel could correct the annoying Brit again, he was cut off by the Steve Miller Band’s Abracadabra.
“Thanks for being a good sport, Colonel.”
The white-haired military man’s eyes seemed to burn through the back of Richard Gatenby’s skull.
“You will not sleep well tonight.”
* * *
The vault was located underground, two miles beneath the Dugway Proving Grounds near Provo, Utah. The man who had personally trained the “Army grunts” operating the EMS unit stood just outside the tunnel entrance to the facility, awaiting instructions from his commanding officer.
Scott Muse swallowed the bile rising in his esophagus. He chased it back down with a sip of bottled water, then dug inside the pocket of his lab coat and fished out the roll of antacids. Peeling back the foil, he popped two of the chewable tablets into his mouth, hoping to settle the acid reflux. He had stronger stuff at home—prescription meds. But much like his job, they carried the threat of long-term side-effects.
Seven and a half more months and you can retire … assuming the colonel lets me walk.
What if I got my gastro guy to write up a report saying that I have cancer of the esophagus? He’d have to let me go then.
Or what if it really is cancer and the bastard gave it to me …
Four decades had passed since the engineer had been recruited straight out of the University of Cincinnati by NASA on the recommendation of Wernher von Braun, the German rocket scientist who had practically founded the U.S. space program. The year was 1975 and Muse—then a doctoral candidate—had published his second paper on anti-gravitics. Von Braun recognized a budding genius and set out to recruit him before health issues forced his own retirement. Interviews were conducted, an offer made—and then another recruiter came calling.
Major General Sebastian J. Appleton identified himself as the Director of U.S. Army Intelligence. A pro
ject under his command had run into technical challenges and he wanted Scott to join their team. An interview was arranged, the candidate flown first-class into Salt Lake City, where a limousine drove him south to the city of Provo.
A generic tour of the military base led to dinner at Scott’s hotel where Appleton made the engineer a lucrative offer. It was far more money than what NASA had on the table, but there were also red flags. Scott and his wife would have to move to Utah, and the project was strictly top-secret—no doubt funded by the Pentagon. In the end, the choice came down to science versus the military, and Muse passed.
But Appleton had one more card to play.
At four in the morning, Scott was awakened in his hotel room by two MPs who loaded him into the backseat of an awaiting car. After being forced at gunpoint to sign a national security oath, he was blindfolded and driven to an unknown destination. Forty minutes later, he found himself standing besides the Major General on a barren plateau beneath a pre-dawn gray sky.
Towering before them, floating ten feet off the ground was a flying saucer.
“This is what we call an ARV, an Alien Reproduction Vehicle. We built it by reverse-engineering the extraterrestrial crafts that were downed over the last three decades by our scalar weapon system. Although the ARV is not nearly as advanced as the real thing, it’s fully capable of accessing any star system in the Milky Way. As you can see, it uses anti-gravitics, similar to what you wrote about.
“Join us, and you’ll find yourself working on cutting-edge technologies you never dreamed of.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then you’re free to go. Of course, if you ever discuss any of this we’ll bring you back and let you pick out a burial plot.”
* * *
Forty years …
Appleton was not exaggerating, the projects involving ET technologies were so far above the latest developments in physics they essentially reduced his degrees to toilet paper. But while the work was exhilarating, MJ-12’s autocratic rules and the paranoia their military force instilled on a daily basis took its toll on his nerves.
