[PART 42]

Radio Mars

‘Operation Contact’ – August 1924

Despite the fact that most programs the Committee was working on involved some type of planetary recovery or preparation for outright war there was a group within the Committee whose sole purpose was to learn as much as they could about the Martians and then make an attempt at peaceful contact with the inhabitants of Mars. Several suggestions were brought to the table. Director Tesla suggested that a series of lights be set up and flashed in sequence towards Mars to show our willingness to communicate directly with the inhabitants of the planet. Another Committee member felt that perhaps we could carve a large scale ‘proof’ of the Pythagorean theorem on a vast plain to show that humans understood complex mathematics and were willing to communicate with math as a base. It was even suggested that we attempt light or radio communication with Martians now suspected to be in orbit around the Earth.

Now let me just say from the outset that I was one of those who felt that any attempt to contact Mars for peaceful purposes would end in utter failure. I say this not as an attempt to highlight my intellectual prowess, as I was certainly among the majority opinion who felt that contact would not only not bring peace, but could inflame the Martians to even higher levels of hate for all things human (if that were even possible). Marconi called it “fantastic absurdity.” I simply state as a fact that I felt the brutal Martians, who were still sending spacecraft to Earth for various nefarious reasons, could not be swayed from their seemingly single minded culture of war and planetary conquest by a few words transmitted by “lesser beings” on Earth. However, having now stated my view I must also state that even though I never felt it would succeed it was certainly proper that a peaceful civilized planet (for the most part at least for now) do all it could to avert a planetary war if there was even the slightest chance of success. After all, up until that point the Earth had never threatened any type of war on any other planet. It simply never came up because no one on this planet would have had any idea of how to execute that threat considering that most of the time they killed and ate us. I am proud that at least an attempt was made to avert war by we “lesser beings” on Earth. Because Mars had recently lost a city with a good many deaths, it was time to make an attempt at dialogue with these brutes.

Ever the optimist, Dr. Tesla was all for this work and he reported, “We can construct a machine which will carry a signal to our nearest solar neighbors as certainly as across your muddy Skykoll River. We can also feel safe about receiving a message, provided there are other fellows in the Solar System knowing as well as we know how to operate this kind of apparatus. Certainly those on Mars have the technology, but do they have the will to dialogue with Earth?” No earlier attempts to contact Mars directly were made as we came to understand that the recently discovered ‘Heaviside Layer’ ionosphere absorbed or randomly scattered radio signals sent from Earth using the frequencies adapted at the time. We would need to transmit on much higher frequencies to be able to send any radio signal to Mars. The more powerful Martian wireless devices (including ones we had no idea existed at the time) however, would have no such problems.

With this in mind members of the Committee selected August of 1924 as the proper time to attempt peaceful radio contact with our enemies on Mars. During that month, as I stated earlier, Mars would be in opposition only 37 million miles from Earth. This was the closest planetary opposition since 1804 and we did not want to miss out on the opportunity to test our new radio equipment, which had been recently developed by Edison, Tesla, and Marconi along with others. To aid in this effort a series of “Martian Transmitters” were set up in America, South Africa, England, Russia, South China and Hawaii, in order to send an almost continuous series of messages to the Red Planet. Selected to organize the broadcast was Professor David P. Todd who at the time headed up the Amherst College Astronomy Department in Massachusetts. Professor Todd was of course a member of the Committee from Directorate H. This was however, only the civilian side of the equation. Major General Charles Saltzman for the United States Army and Admiral Edward W. Eberlen, Chief of Naval Operations for the United States Navy and Committee liaison for the United States military who actually had the original idea for the contact, would set up their own stations to cover any perceived gaps in the network. Their job would also involve setting up listening stations to intercept and report on any messages or answers the Martians would care to send to the people of Earth. We all knew they had and would continue to monitor Earth wireless and we knew well that they understood our major languages. But, would they respond to the people of Earth? The messages were sent in Earth’s major languages including English, German, Mandarin Chinese and French and what must have sounded like very simple broken Martian – if we were lucky.

On 15 August at zero hours Greenwich Mean Time all radio stations on Earth, even those with a rather low broadcast range went silent. For the next 24 hours Earth sent a message of peace to the inhabitants of planet Mars on a wide band of frequencies every 30 minutes. Each broadcast lasted 10 minutes, at which time Earth went radio silent and listened for twenty minutes for any word from Mars. And it was not just an official series of Committee listening stations, which spent the day “tuned in to Mars.” Private as well as many national and military stations around the world also attempted to tune in to one of the primary antennas in an attempt to hear from the Martians. There was great hope, but no real expectations. “WILL MARS RESPOND???” headlined many newspapers around the world.

The New London Tribune – 14 August 1924

WILL MARS RESPOND?

Effort to be made to contact Martians

Peaceful relations to be presented to Red Planet

The Executive Committee of Twelve has announced a major effort is to be made to contact the ruling species on Mars. Inside sources report plans have been in work for some time to adapt wireless technology to broadcast a message of peace from Earth to the Martians in the hope of avoiding another interplanetary conflict. Special civilian and military receivers have been constructed in several locations around the Earth in order to maximize the ability to ‘hear’ any signals which might be sent to Earth by the Martians.

The effort is to be headed up by Professor David P. Todd of Amherst College. Professor Todd heads up the Astronomy Department at Amherst located in Massachusetts, USA. The effort is being attempted at this time due to the close approach of the Planet Mars in opposition to the Earth. The planets will pass each other at only 37 million miles. This close approach, closest since 1804, should allow Earth transmitted signals to be picked up on Mars should they have the required equipment to listen in. Sources close to the Committee assured this reporter the Martians would have no problem picking up the signals. When asked if he thought the Martians would answer the call the source, requesting not to be identified, replied, “I have great hope as we all do. An effort such as this must be made no matter what the result. We are after all seeking only a dialogue for peace. Naturally, we continue to build for any potential interference by Martians on Earth.”

At the appointed 24 hour period all commercial radio stations will go “radio silent” to allow the “air waves” a clear opportunity to send a message to Mars as well as a clear radio band for possible return messages from the inhabitants of Mars. All Earth awaits the results of this effort at peaceful contact with Mars.

Before long, and on many receivers, people on planet Earth began to pick up a series of weak, but distinct signals clearly not Morse code, yet certainly not coming from a natural source. These “clicks” were first reported by amateur radio operators in Vancouver, Canada, as “four groups of dashes in groups of four.” At the time the signals were coming in, anyone in Vancouver could go out into their backyards, look up and see the bright red glow of Mars. They were directly within the line of sight of the planet. Before long radio operators in Hawaii, south China, Russia, and England and then New Washington Center could hear the clicks. The New London team, using a specially designed 24-tube wireless set was able to receive what they later reported to be “a series of harsh notes of unknown origin on a frequency not generally used by Earth based radio.” Even the team lead by Professor Todd at Amherst College, were able to record the signals. The most powerful Earth-based radio station, WOR in Newark, New Jersey in America was able to pick up the same signal on the same frequency recorded by the New London team. While at the same time the local Boston radio station reported that their equipment had picked up a “strange ringing tone which came to a close with a distinctive ZZIP!”

Greenwich recorded the best copy of the signal, but “Radio Moscow” recorded the longest series of clicks. Clearly something or someone had sent a signal, but what did it mean? Was it actually some version of Morse code perhaps?  …./.…/…./…. Was this Martian Code?

A call immediately went out to William F. Friedman, chief of the Code Section for the Committee. Friedman and his staff went to work on the signal, but unfortunately all that was ever recorded was the same series of clicks on the same frequency. This was a real signal. It was clear and it was solid. As far as our directional equipment could confirm it did originate from Mars (or at least the direction in space where Mars was at the time), but what did it mean? The final two hours of the attempt was devoted to sending a recorded transmission of the clicks back to Mars to see if an answer would be forthcoming, but nothing new was ever received. In fact, once we began to send out the ‘clicks’ no other signals were ever heard during the attempt. Mars had gone radio silent. After the attempt the Mars Watch Radio Stations were officially funded and set up to continuously monitor Mars radio noise as part of the expanded Mars Watch Program.

The Committee eventually came to the conclusion that the Martians had sent the signal merely to test how sophisticated our radio equipment was – it was not – and to learn how powerful our radios were – they were not. In other words, we had played directly into their hands. They now had a good example of the level of our primitive radio technology and exactly how far and how well we could broadcast and for that matter how well we could listen in on their broadcasts. It was a complete wash, but at least the people of Earth had given it their best try. We would need to find another way to communicate with the Martians, at least that was the new plan. The New York Times would report to their readers that “…men would never cease trying to establish communication with Mars.”

It must be stated however, that since the Martians now expected a certain low level of radio technology from humanity any greater advance in radio technology by us would not be expected by them in the near term, which would in the future give us a slight edge in that arena of battle if we could develop higher technology in the field. Additional Martian advances in the field were expected to be minimal at this point in their long development. However, 82-year-old astronomer Camille Flammarion, and Committee member from France, felt that perhaps in the near future “more civilized members of the Martian community would perhaps attempt to communicate by mental telepathy.” Only later would we discover how truly advanced the Martians or rather their technology was when it came to communicating over long distances. Radio, even very advanced radio, was only an antiquated system used by the Martians as a backup. They had a system, which when compared to radio, made radio look like two children speaking to each other using two tin cans and a string!

Even though the attempt at meaningful communication with Mars was a failure we were able to bring a new series of astronomical devices and new methods to bear on our continuing examination of Mars due to the close approach in opposition. These new methods helped us obtain new general temperatures for several areas of the planet’s surface. Readings showed that at sunrise it was minus 49 degrees Fahrenheit and at high noon at the equator it read 41 degrees. It would be very cold, but survivable and in the darker areas it was anywhere from 50 to 68 degrees. This would constitute balmy weather for the Martians. By sunset (barely visible by instruments on Earth) once again at the equator it was 32 degrees. There was no doubt that some type of hearty cold adapted plant life would be able to thrive on Mars for many thousands of years into the future if only the atmosphere was not so rarified at most lower surface areas.

THE GREAT MARTIAN DUST STORM OF 1924

The great Martian dust storm of 1924 began early in the year. It was first spotted in the southern hemisphere as a powdery yellow cloud of material apparently near the Martian surface at Hellas Planitia. It soon spread as an ever widening band of dusty yellow until the entire southern hemisphere glowed yellow from the dust. From there the winds of Mars pushed the dust clouds into all areas north. Within weeks the entire surface of Mars glowed with the yellow dust of this great storm. No matter what telescope we used on Earth no surface features on “the Red Planet” could be seen. Mars had become a large ball of faint yellow dust with absolutely no discernable pattern.

Nevertheless, our scientists assured the Committee that despite planetary wide storm systems the Martians were well adapted to these storms. In fact, we were informed that these frequent planetary episodes mostly affected the thin upper atmosphere of Mars and that life on the surface would be little affected with no effect at all under the domes of the surface cities or the vast underground facilities. These storms did however give great cover for the Martians who knew we were attempting to learn as much about them as they had about us. If they were going to launch an attack on Earth from the surface of Mars at night or during daylight hours during a major dust storm it would be perfect cover. The Mars Watch Program would be blind! Due to the storm we increased our capability to listen in on all radio bands directed towards Mars. If we could not see perhaps our radio ears would fill in some of the information gathering gaps.

MAGIC – MOST SECRET CoT

Magic Order MO-285

Immediate: Operatives are to be placed at critical locations in order to create demonstrations critical of any peace talks with the Martians. Anti-Martian feelings must be continued until such time as economic and military power on Earth is able to match or surpass that which is able to be used against Earth by the Martians. Goal: We must protect funding for anti-Martian operations at all costs and quell any opposition to our goals at any cost.

MAGIC SIX-NEW YORK

MAGIC – MOST SECRET CoT

In late 1924, while working with several teams within the Committee, French physicist Louis de Broglie detailed his theory that matter will at times behave as both a wave and a particle. His work would speed the development and improvement of Tesla’s work on particle beam weapons. At the same time Edwin R. Scott, Harry Grindell and Antonio Longoria joined Tesla in his workshop with the primary goal of developing a Death-Ray to use against the Martians. Tesla now had a first rate team of scientists working on both a particle beam weapon and an electromagnetic ray weapon at the Wardenclyffe facility.

Tesla would note at the time, “Arrangements with single terminal tube for production of powerful rays. There being practically no limit to the power of an oscillator, it is now the problem to work out a tube so that it can stand any desired pressure.” It would not be long before they were punching holes in research laboratory walls and setting things on fire at good distances. The problem to solve then would be one of control and reduction of the size of the units, which would allow these new ‘weapons’ to be practical and able to be deployed in the field. It would be quite impossible to deploy an instrument which was essentially the size of a large room! They also had the task of keeping this work not only away from the eyes of an ever powerful Press, but away from the ever prying eyes of the Martians and their hybrid allies.

OTHER COMMITTEE WORKS

Despite the great deal of work being done on the ‘Martian problem’ several workers from Directorate I were in the field attempting to discover more about our own long history on Earth. References had been made in Martian Electronic Documents that supported Mr. Darwin’s controversial work on evolution that included proto-humans and other primates developing from older, less developed species and all of this on the continent of Africa (Ref: Martian Electronic Documents 162T14, 175B19). On 28 November 1924 one such piece of the human puzzle was found by anatomist Professor Raymond Dart of the Southern African Witwatersrand University at Taung Quarry south of the equator in Africa and the Committee decided to explore this area in more detail. For many it was a matter of some concern to discover that the Martians seemingly had a much better understanding of human evolution than we did. To say the least it galled some people myself included. They certainly had been, “scrutinizing and studying perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water” as Mr. Wells reminded everyone in his work on the First Martian War. We had to do much better.

The skull had come “flying out of the rubble” after a dynamite blast at the open pit mine. The area that had been blasted was part of a rock cave. The skull was largely calcified and part of a large piece of breccias which would need to be chipped away to expose the full skull. The ancient yet human-like skull soon to become known as the ‘Taung baby’, perhaps only four years old at death, represented an earlier manlike creature which we later discovered to have lived some two million years ago. Dart named this creature Australopithecus africanus (A. africanus). Even though this small creature walked upright, shown by the hole in the base of the skull where the spinal cord comes through (the foramen magnum), it was not yet ‘fully human.’ It would take another million years of evolution before that event could become part of Earth’s history. Nevertheless, two million years ago this A. africanus child of perhaps six years of age would have walked around on small feet virtually indistinguishable from modern man. The apelike child had a small brain, a jaw which protruded with small human-like canine teeth rather than larger fangs found in gorillas and chimpanzees.

When I read the first reports coming in of this wonderful new discovery of a possible ancient human ancestor my mind could not help wondering whether or not these ancient beings on Earth had ever come into contact with other species we know nothing about? Perhaps off-planet visitors came to know them. Did the warlike creatures from Mars ever come into contact with these or other pre-humans and what if anything happened? Martian Electronic Documents shed very little light on these questions explaining only that human evolution had gone through many stages and had taken a few million years. That much they seemed to have understood (Ref: Martian Electronic Document 712Z14). So they must have gotten their information from direct contact with these creatures or their fossilized remains. The thought of a Martian digging around in layers of Earth was intriguing.

One thing we did soon learn was that A. africanus had made crude tools – perhaps the first ever made by an ancient ancestor of man – a pebble or large stone with an edge made on it by striking it with another stone. They were on their way to humanity, but I could not help but wonder if they had any outside help along the way? Did we have some type of Martian biological material in all of us? And what about the ones we called ‘others?’ Even today we don’t have a solid answer to that question. There is so much more we need to learn about ourselves if we have the opportunity to ever do so. No doubt there would be many more surprises as we continued our efforts to learn about ourselves and our warlike Martian neighbors.

DEMONSTRATIONS AGAINST PEACE WITH MARS

Even before we attempted to broadcast a message of peace to the Martians there had been small demonstrations in several countries around the world, protesting the effort. People were quite naturally concerned about any contact with Martians. This was to be expected. However, after the radio message to Mars there were several loud and some violent demonstrations against the Martians and any attempt to seek a peaceful resolution to the “Martian Problem”. People were calling for the arrest of all hybrids and the execution of any captured member of the Martian Brotherhood. (News of this terrorist group had come out however; the public was unaware that this was already general policy.) Recent terrorist attacks and the news that the Martians were unwilling to talk to Earth seemed to have set many people off. There was much fear that engaging in any dialogue with the Martians would only cause them to double their efforts to re-invade the Earth even sooner than they may already be planning. However, members of the Committee knew this was not a reflection of the general public’s sentiment. After 24 years some people had gotten “soft on the Martian question” and we needed to make certain that the world stayed united on this critical issue despite any other disagreements we might have on other Earth based issues. Unity on the “Martian issue” was paramount if the Committee was to continue its vital work or for that matter – hold power!

With this in mind the Committee formed several small, but very loud anti-Martian groups. Naturally, those who joined these groups had no idea that the Committee had formed and controlled most of them. Being on the inside allowed the Committee to not only form the ‘proper opinions,’ but allowed us to keep close watch on groups who may take things a bit too far. When the situation looked like it might become a problem, individuals could be detained or “permanently removed” and the direction of these groups could be changed. The Committee had virtually full control. We also formed pro-Martian groups, which proved to be a bit trickier, and I might also say, a bit more dangerous since such groups were mostly against the law with some very stiff penalties. Naturally Committee operatives were under deep cover in these groups even as they attempted to keep us informed. At one point it became a very close thing as Tango forces did a sweep at one of these organizations and damn near killed two of our operatives without even knowing it! Thankfully, that little problem was solved by passwords that were spoken if this type of situation was ever repeated. “I’ll have the soup!”

We would continue to see demonstrations in the coming years both for and against contact with the Martians. More often than not Committee operatives were in the thick of things and at times facing each other. We needed eyes and ears in as many places as possible and not just in these types of organizations. Knowledge of all things was and is true power.

Interestingly, this was the same time another ‘popular’ book on the Martian War was making the rounds. Dr. Presten Washington, who had lectured extensively on the political aspects of the war, published his now famous dissertation The Cause and Effects of the War with Mars. It was a very good seller, but not perhaps from Dr. Washington’s perspective. His work, for the most part, blamed the First Martian War on humanity not immediately offering to these interplanetary invaders just about anything the Martians wanted. (Not that the Martians ever asked as they crossed the ethereal interplanetary border and invaded the Earth, which he seems to have missed in his somewhat laughable work.) Several of the more ridicules ideas championed by Dr. Washington included the idea that all road signs on Earth and all businesses should include Martian language on them and that we should teach school children of hybrids Martian history rather than Earth history and in bilingual classrooms that include Martian as the primary language! He also advocated that school children should be taught that the Martian invasion had “some positive aspects for humanity,” despite the fact that half the world’s population had been slaughtered by the invading Martians! They of course were still murdering humans. He even advocated that full Martians and hybrids be given priority in our schools over those born on planet Earth. And as if that were not enough Dr. Washington advocated “full Martians budded on Earth from any invading Martian be given full Earth citizenship” and identification cards as well which would allow them to travel anywhere on Earth! This of course would give these murderous invading ‘aliens’ more rights than real human citizens of Earth – which of course was the whole point. He also seemed to have overlooked the fact that these enemy aliens had brought to Earth deadly diseases which had taken the lives of millions of humans! As far as I was concerned this was high treason against the people of Earth.

It was the backlash against his statements and book, which caused it to be such a good seller. It also seemed to find its way to more than a few bonfires. This was perhaps a natural response by the public and I can say without contradiction that the Committee had no responsibility in that situation. That is not to say we did not delight in the public’s response. It was great anti-Martian publicity.

His ‘accidental’ death from a fall several months later, just before he was scheduled to be arrested for his often stated pro-Martian views, and his illegal contacts with the Martian Brotherhood was never definitely connected to his writing even though many felt that it was. It did however turn out to be very good for future book sales! Investigations into his death were “quickly put aside and best forgotten.” On a final note, it must be said that when his book originally came out the Committee did take a very close look at the author, but it was soon shown that he had no connection to any Martian or anti-Earth group at the time. That would come later. His thoughts, clearly misguided as they were, had been his own. And his death if it was not an accident was completely outside of any Committee or Tango authorized operation that I know of.

At about this same time Dr. Walter Hohmann (Director K) published an internal paper for the Committee titled The Attainability of the Celestial Bodies. He had now completed his “investigation of the orbits that would be traveled by future spaceships.” Thanks to Director K our scientists now had a fuel-efficient mathematical roadmap to planetary and interplanetary orbits. His work on orbital mechanics showed that the transfer orbit he had calculated used the spacecraft’s engines firing only twice to achieve the results of moving from one circular orbit to a larger circular orbit or reverse using a half elliptic path from one orbit to the other by firing the engines 90 degrees out of the orbital plane. The bottom line was that we now had a practical mathematical method (a road map) which would allow us to change the orbit of any spacecraft using a minimal amount of fuel – if and when we were ever able to actually “put one up there!” The rocket teams still had a great deal of work remaining.

This was the same year that the American Chrysler Motor Car Company began production on its “Chrysler Six”, their newly designed automobile with a powerful six cylinder engine with a price tag of $1,565. The Committee ordered twelve of them which naturally included the one I drove. The Committee would later order several more of these fine automobiles as general staff cars.

We also became aware of the new 401 “alphabetic tabulator” which increased computational capabilities to 150 cards of calculations per minute. Despite this work however, Dr. Tesla referred to it as a “snail counting grains of sand.” For his new devices the good doctor informed the team that a 10,000 fold increase in speed was required!

Meanwhile American President and Committee member Calvin Coolidge signed a new bill into American law which limited the number of people allowed to immigrate to the United States to “limit the massive influx of people from eastern and southern Europe to help stave off ‘race suicide’!” Pressed by American eugenicists Coolidge was also concerned about overwhelming his nation’s still recovering society. His efforts were applauded by the American Eugenics Society who were not only concerned with hybrids but others thought by their group to be of “lesser quality of men.”

“The time has come when the science of humans husbandry must be developed, based on the principle now followed by scientific agriculture, if the better elements of our civilization are to dominate or even survive. If we are to defeat our enemies on Mars mankind must now develop a stronger more intelligent species of man leaving behind those who would weaken our future such as the feebleminded, the insane, and the alcoholic among our people.”

One leader of this group declared “defective classes must be eliminated from human stock through sterilization.” When asked for a comment the Committee simply reported that the study of eugenics would continue for the time being but no decision had been made in either support or non-support of the theory. We were walking on a very thin tight wire on this one.

The Tunguska Project Continues

December 1925

By the end of 1925 work was still going very slowly on the Tunguska Project despite its priority, as there were many defense and rebuilding projects, which needed valuable resources, all of which were competing with each other for funding as well as qualified personal at all levels. It was proving to be a very tough job, both technically and otherwise. In this light Dr. Einstein wrote an internal memo to the Magic Twelve to voice his concerns about the slow progress. He certainly had the connections, as he was one of the few people not in that group to know the names of all the members. His advice on many matters was of great value to the group.

PRIVATE CoT

Directors: It has been made probable through the work of the Committee that it may indeed be possible to set up a chain reaction in a large mass of uranium, by which vast amounts of power and large quantities of new radium-like elements would be generated. Now it appears almost certain that this could be achieved in the immediate future.

      This new phenomenon will lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable, though much less certain, that extremely powerful bombs of this type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this type, carried by boat or submarine and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory. However, such bombs might very well prove too heavy for transportation by air by Earth forces.

      It is certain however, that the Martians have the capability to develop such weapons and as such Earth must be prepared to develop and deploy the same capability for use if and when they return to once again wage war on the Earth. If the Martians do not have such a weapon then it is possible that such a demonstration of raw power in the hands of humans could form the basis for the Martians to pause in their efforts to attack Earth and as such could very well prevent such an a attack in the future. As we all realize they are watching our developments with great care and even though such a device could not in and of itself terminate all possible Martian adventurism it may in fact delay any major military moves. This work is indeed critical as is the work presently being conducted on so-called beam weapons.

      I strongly urge the Committee therefore to redouble their efforts to develop this technology and deploy such a weapon at the earliest possible opportunity.

                                                                                                                Prof. Albert Einstein

                                                                                                                December 21, 1925

Needless to say, the Magic Twelve took Professor Einstein’s memo very seriously. In executive session with the good doctor the members decided to speed up the Tunguska Project and to increase the budget and personnel to expedite the project as much as possible. The good professor was correct. If the Martians could successfully deploy an atomic weapon, Earth needed to be able to strike back with the same power. At the time it was felt that we had no more than ten years to develop a deployable weapon using nuclear fuels. This would be a race for a new super weapon.

That is not to say that the Committee people had not been hard at work building secret above and below ground facilities as well as conducting geology work in support of the Tunguska Project. By 1925 Committee geologists had identified eight primary areas on Earth where large uranium reserves (known as yellowcake) could be located. Field reports indicated that the world’s largest uranium deposits (23% of the world’s suspected total) could be found in three primary locations in Australia. The Committee soon had mining operations at Radium Hill, SA, Rum Jungle, Northern Territories and Mary Kathleen in Queensland, Australia. The teams also discovered large deposits in Canada at Alona Bay south of Lake Superior, Port Radium, North West Territories and Athabasca Basin in Northern Saskatchewan. Lower grade materials were also to be found in the Colorado Plateau in the American states of Colorado and Utah. When the time came to test and deploy these weapons we would have enough “weapons grade” material to do the job. Due to the fact that the three Canadian uranium sites were so far north the Committee based rather large military support teams at these locations along side Canadian and United States military forces in order to defend and if necessary disable these mines in the event of Martian attack or occupation. The Canadian mines were wired with high explosives (much the same as could be found at the Prime Mineral Locations), which could be armed and detonated within 15 minutes of a warning order being sent. These were set not to destroy the mines; rather they were set to close off the mines for a period of time. They were also extensively camouflaged. At all costs, we were not going to allow the Martians to take any of the uranium operations. New all weather radar sites were also set up in order to monitor any possible Martian aircraft in these critical areas of operation (part of an overall radar system being developed). In conjunction with the Tunguska Project the Committee was still hard at work developing rocket and beam weapon technology. It was hoped that in the future both areas would be well enough along to marry the two into effective weapons of war. But as always – would we have the time?

Editor’s Note: The Tunguska bomb project was one of the few Earth-based weapons programs that Mars Prime was completely unaware of until it was deployed during armed conflict.

The end of 1925 also found Committee members reading a report by one of our French teams working in the Sahara desert. The team had recently discovered a rather large cave that had been occupied in ancient times. We would soon know it as the “Cave of the Great Martian God”! On the walls of the cave were drawn many figures dancing around one central figure clothed in what appeared to be a rubberized garment with a face mask attached by some sort of a hose. Above the central figure was the clear drawing of a Martian flying vehicle looking quite primitive, but still somehow remarkably familiar. Below this figure, only half of which remained, were words in the Martian language, some of which we had yet to decipher. The symbols on the wall were also very clear O o o o–o. We interrupted the markings as a simple depiction of the Sun and the first four planets out. (Vulcan it would appear had yet to be discovered by the Martians at the time the drawing was made.) There was however a clear line connecting Earth with Mars! It was just one more proof that the Martians had been interested in our planet for a very long time.

Martian Electronic Document Report – 1924/62

Asteroid near miss in 1883

Martian Electronic Document 194D16 has established that an asteroid impact on Earth was narrowly avoided in 1883. The danger was indicated by Earth based astronomers at the time, however the flyby was much closer than had been suspected by Earth based observers.

In 1883 a ‘minor planet’ some 80 miles across at its widest point came within 120 miles of Earth’s surface and in fact came into contact with the top of Earth’s atmosphere before careening off towards the Sun. Originally reported in L’Astronomie in 1886 by French astronomers after it passed (it was not spotted before) the body was thought to have been much smaller, passing at a distance of 500 miles. This was of course a very close miss as noted in 1886 however, just how close the object came has just now been discovered. Only one image of the object was obtained at the time and it was of poor quality thus the error in size and distance of the encounter. One close-up image has been obtained from the Martian document. New calculations based upon Martian information obtained from very close observation indicates that the object’s path was diverted towards Earth’s moon and after this close flyby was sent hurdling towards an impact on the Sun. MED 194D16 indicates this near miss was considered a lost opportunity to destroy a large portion of humanity had it impacted on the Earth. However, there does not appear to have been any effort by the Martians to re-direct the object to impact the Earth during a possible future close encounter. No reason for this missed opportunity was noted in the document.

And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.

Christian Bible

[END PART 42]

Copyright © R. Michael Gordon, 2020

[Next week: Part 43: Chapter 7 with rockets, technology and Martians.]