[PART 7]
TESTIMONY BEFORE THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF TWELVE
“The world went in ignorance of one of the gravest
dangers that ever threatened the human race.”
— H. G. Wells
Towards the end of the first series of Committee meetings, as the Directors were preparing to begin the long hard rebuilding process, they took a moment to hear a personal report from one of their members. As a member of the Committee Mr. Herbert Wells was asked to relate what he had seen upon entering the once great City of London as the Martians were finally forced to end their brutal attacks on that world center which had once held millions of lives now almost completely devastated. What he had seen reflected thousands of stories now deeply held in the minds of the survivors of Earth’s greatest war. The expanded report to the Committee would later be put into print form marking his memories, The War of the Worlds, said to be one of the most remembered from the First Martian War. Students all over the world now read this firsthand account and think of what may yet come again from the “Red Planet”. On a personal note, to be certain, it is a recommended read.
As he addressed the Committee it was clear to the group that Mr. Wells was still greatly shaken and physically weakened by his recent experiences. He seemed almost apologetic to even be there – alive. He shared that feeling with many of the Committee members. He began slowly and in a soft voice, yet as his story unfolded he seemed to gather his strength as if the telling itself gave him the nourishment he needed to tell what he had seen on that final day when the men of Earth came so close to losing their ever so light and perhaps yet fleeting grasp on this their home planet.
“I awoke to find that dismal howling still in my ears, ‘Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla.’ It was now dusk, and after I had routed out some biscuits and a cheese in the bar, there was a meat safe, but it contained nothing but maggots, I wandered on through the silent residential squares to Baker Street. Portman Square is the only one I can name, and so came out at last upon Regent’s Park. And as I emerged from the top of Baker Street, I saw far away over the trees in the clearness of the sunset the hood of the Martian giant from which this howling proceeded. I was not terrified. I came upon him as if it were a matter of course. I watched him for some time, but he did not move. He appeared to be standing and yelling, for no reason that I could discover.
“I tried to formulate a plan of action. That perpetual sound of ‘Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla,’ confused my mind. Perhaps I was too tired to be very fearful. Certainly I was more curious to know the reason of this monotonous crying than afraid. I turned back away from the park and struck into Park Road, intending to skirt the park, went along under the shelter of the terraces, and got a view of this stationary, howling Martian from the direction of St. John’s Wood. A couple of hundred yards out of Baker Street I heard a yelping chorus, and saw, first a dog with a piece of putrescent red meat in his jaws coming headlong towards me, and then a pack of starving mongrels in pursuit of him. He made a wide curve to avoid me, as though he feared I might prove a fresh competitor. As the yelping died away down the silent road, the wailing sound of ‘Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla,’ reasserted itself.
“I came upon the wrecked handling-machine halfway to St. John’s Wood station. At first I thought a house had fallen across the road. It was only as I clambered among the ruins that I saw, with a start, this mechanical Samson lying, with its tentacles bent and smashed and twisted, among the ruins it had made. The forepart was shattered. It seemed as if it had driven blindly straight at the house, and had been overwhelmed in its overthrow. It seemed to me then that this might have happened by a handling-machine escaping from the guidance of its Martian. I could not clamber among the ruins to see it, and the twilight was now so far advanced that the blood with which its seat was smeared, and the gnawed gristle of the Martian that the dogs had left, were invisible to me.
“Wondering still more at all that I had seen I pushed on towards Primrose Hill. Far away, through a gap in the trees, I saw a second Martian, as motionless as the first, standing in the park towards the Zoological Gardens, and silent. A little beyond the ruins about the smashed handling-machine I came upon the Red Weed again, and found the Regent’s Canal, a spongy mass of dark-red vegetation. As I crossed the bridge, the sound of ‘Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla,’ ceased. It was, as it were, cut off. The silence came like a thunderclap.
“The dusky houses about me stood faint and tall and dim; the trees towards the park were growing black. All about me the red weed clambered among the ruins, writhing to get above me in the dimness. Night, the mother of fear and mystery, was coming upon me. But while that voice sounded the solitude, the desolation, had been endurable; by virtue of it London had still seemed alive, and the sense of life about me had upheld me. Then suddenly a change, the passing of something, I knew not what, and then a stillness that could be felt. Nothing but this gaunt quiet.
“London about me gazed at me spectrally. The windows in the white houses were like the eye sockets of skulls. About me my imagination found a thousand noiseless enemies moving. Terror seized me, a horror of my temerity. In front of me the road became pitchy black as though it was tarred, and I saw a contorted shape lying across the pathway. I could not bring myself to go on. I turned down St. John’s Wood Road, and ran headlong from this unendurable stillness towards Kilburn. I hid from the night and the silence, until long after midnight, in a cabmen’s shelter in Harrow Road. But before the dawn my courage returned, and while the stars were still in the sky I turned once more towards Regent’s Park. I missed my way among the streets, and presently saw down a long avenue, in the half-light of the early dawn, the curve of Primrose Hill. On the summit, towering up to the fading stars was a third Martian, erect and motionless like the others.
“An insane resolve possessed me. I would die and end it. And I would save myself even the trouble of killing myself. I marched on recklessly towards this Titan, and then, as I drew nearer and the light grew, I saw that a multitude of black birds was circling and clustering about the hood. At that my heart gave a bound, and I began running along the road.
“I hurried through the red weed that choked St. Edmund’s Terrace; I waded breast-high across a torrent of water that was rushing down from the waterworks towards the Albert Road, and emerged upon the grass before the rising of the sun. Great mounds had been heaped about the crest of the hill, making a huge redoubt of it. It was the final and largest place the Martians had made, and from behind these heaps there rose a thin smoke against the sky. Against the sky line an eager dog ran and disappeared. The thought that had flashed into my mind grew real, grew credible. I felt no fear, only a wild, trembling exultation, as I ran up the hill towards the motionless monster. Out of the hood hung lank shreds of brown, at which the hungry birds pecked and tore.
“In another moment I had scrambled up the earthen rampart and stood upon its crest, and the interior of the redoubt was below me. A mighty space it was, with gigantic machines here and there within it, huge mounds of material and strange shelter places. And scattered about it, some in their overturned war-machines, some in the now rigid handling-machines, and a dozen of them stark and silent and laid in a row, were the Martians, dead; slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared; slain as the Red Weed was being slain; slain, after all man’s devices had failed, by the humblest things that god, in his wisdom, has put upon this Earth.
“For so it had come about, as indeed I and many men might have foreseen had not terror and disaster blinded our minds. These germs of disease have taken toll of humanity since the beginning of things; taken toll of our pre-human ancestors since life began here. But by virtue of this natural selection of our kind we have developed resisting power; to no germs do we succumb without a struggle, and to many, those that cause putrefaction in dead matter, for instance, our living frames are altogether immune. But there are no bacteria on Mars, and directly these invaders arrived, directly they drank and fed, our microscopic allies began to work their overthrow. Already when I watched them they were irrevocably doomed, dying and rotting even as they went to and fro. It was inevitable. By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the Earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain.
“Here and there they were scattered, nearly fifty altogether, in that great gulf they had made, overtaken by a death that must have seemed to them as incomprehensible as any death could be. To me also at that time this death was incomprehensible. All I knew was that these things that had been alive and so terrible to men were dead. For a moment I believed that the destruction of Sennacherib had been repeated, that god had repented, that the Angel of Death had slain them in the night.
“I stood staring into the pit, and my heart lightened gloriously, even as the rising sun struck the world to fire about me with his rays. The pit was still in darkness; the mighty engines, so great and wonderful in their power and complexity, so unearthly in their tortuous forms, rose weird and vague and strange out of the shadows towards the light. A multitude of dogs, I could hear, fought over the bodies that lay darkly in the depth of the pit, far below me. Across the pit on its farther lip, flat and vast and strange, lay the great flying-machine with which they had been experimenting upon our denser atmosphere when decay and death arrested them. Death had come not a day too soon. At the sound of a cawing overhead I looked up at the huge fighting-machine that would fight no more forever, at the tattered red shreds of flesh that dripped down upon the overturned seats on the summit of Primrose Hill.”
Mr. Wells finished with a warning. “A question of graver and universal interest is the possibility of another attack from the Martians. I do not think that nearly enough attention is being given to this aspect of the matter.”
The Committee recorder noted having finished his remarks the bruised and still slowly recovering Wells apologized for such a short presentation, but he informed the members he needed to be off for a dental appointment and a medical “look see.” He would return at a later date to help them with their recovery efforts. Mr. Wells you should know would become a life member of the Committee.
The final witness was an artillery officer, acquainted with Mr. Wells, who had been closely engaged in battle with the Martians. He had been in the fight and now had some clear ideas of his own. He was there to tell the Committee how he felt the organization should proceed with the recovery and how their efforts in his opinion should be organized.
“Well, it’s like this. What have we to do? We have to invent a sort of life where men can live and breed, and be sufficiently secure to bring the children up. The tame ones will go like all tame beasts, in a few generations they’ll be big, beautiful, rich-blooded, stupid-rubbish! The risk is that we who keep wild will go savage-degenerate into a sort of big, savage rat… You see, how I mean to live is underground, I’ve been thinking about the drains. Of course those who don’t know drains think horrible things; but under this London are miles and miles – hundreds of miles – and a few days’ rain and London empty will leave them sweet and clean. The main drains are big enough and airy enough for anyone. Then there’s cellars, vaults, stores, from which bolting passages may be made to the drains. And the railway tunnels and subways. Eh? You begin to see? And we form a band-able-bodied, clean-minded men. We’re not going to pick up any rubbish that drifts in. Weaklings go out.
“Those who stop [and] obey orders. Able-bodied, clean-minded women we want also – mothers and teachers. No lackadaisical ladies – no blasted rolling eyes. We can’t have any weak or silly. Life is real again, and the useless and cumbersome and mischievous have to die. They ought to die. They ought to be willing to die.
“But saving the race is nothing in itself. As I say, that’s only being rats. It’s saving our knowledge and adding to it is the thing. There men like [all of] you come in. There’s books, there’s models. We must make great safe places down deep, and get all the books we can; not novels and poetry swipes, but ideas, science books. That’s where men like you come in. We must go to the British Museum and pick all those books through. Especially we must keep up our science – learn more. We must watch these Martians.
“Just imagine this: Four or five of their fighting machines suddenly starting off – Heat-Ray right and left and not a Martian in ‘em. Not a Martian in ‘em, but men – men who have learned the way how. Fancy having one of them lovely things with its Heat-Ray wide and free!”
The Committee membership thanked the artillery officer for his thoughts and ended the meeting on that point. It was time to begin the real work of putting the Earth back on the path to civilization. They had a planet to save and thousands were still dying each and every day.
It had not been lost on the Committee members the great irony that mankind had been forced to lay down our differences and unite as a planet at the deadly point of an off-planet Heat-Ray. It was also not lost on the members the question of how long would we stay as one and be unified enough to defeat this deadly foe? For most, if they were asked, would have said not much longer than ten years at best. With this in mind we had to find ways to do much better than that if we were to have any chance of success. Both overt and covert methods would be needed to ‘persuade’ governments to cooperate even at the point of a well aimed gun barrel. This would be a war of the hearts and minds as much as the body of mankind. Division was not an option that we could indulge in at least for the time being. Power and control would need to be served at the feet of the ‘Twelve’.
Orders were now issued to all military and civilian authorities on Earth that could be reached by primitive wireless radio, telegraph, and leaflets dropped by dirigible or other messengers. The Executive Committee of Twelve issued the now famous, or infamous depending on one’s point of view, Magic Order MO-01. We were on our way, but where and by what method were still very much in doubt. We were deaf, dumb, blind, crippled and bleeding badly, but at least we were alive!
MAGIC – MOST SECRET CoT
Magic Order MO-01
Immediate: By International Treaty and by order of the governments represented, all military commanders will until further notice report directly to the Executive Committee of Twelve established in the City of London. All military field commanders are to assume immediate command and control over the areas they presently occupy and establish Martial Law until otherwise directed by the Committee of Twelve. Any force required by the senior officers in those areas to establish and maintain order to include summary execution is fully authorized.
MAGIC THREE-LONDON
MAGIC – MOST SECRET CoT
Before the meeting ended the new Committee headquarters group was able to put together an Executive Briefing Paper – our first. These documents were produced from time to time in order to inform the leadership about various areas of concern. Naturally this first Paper issued on 30 December 1901, EBP 1901-1 (Appendix B) was on the subject of “Planet Mars”. We needed to insure that everyone was updated on the world our new enemy had come from. For nearly the next four decades there would be a continuous series of these Papers published whenever the need arose. They usually consisted of a one or two page briefing; copies are now held in the classified Library of the Committee in Lower-New York City. A backup copy of each is held in Lower-Sydney’s Committee library. These copies never leave the libraries.
As I left the meeting hall on that final day of general organization a thought once again crossed my mind. Again I asked myself who were we that we could command the world? Why did we feel that we had any right to demand of the rest of humanity to blindly follow we few who had come together under a devastated city of Old London? I knew there were no real answers to my questions and no time. I think perhaps my friend Winston came about as close to answering it as anyone. He said it was, “Because my friend, someone had to do it and no one else was in a position to do the work any better than us.” As he was saying those words I thought “…the dangers of power without control, the development of the intelligence at the expense of human sympathy.”
There was work to be done and we had placed ourselves in a position to control what we could of the work ahead. I guess the real question was: would we succeed in time and at what cost to the heart of humanity? Indeed, what cost to the Martians?
Early Martian Contacts Discovered
“They have been here how long?”
Committee member
It did not take long for an internal group of Committee investigators to learn the shocking truth about our ‘real’ history. Researchers quickly discovered that the Martians had indeed come to Earth in the past and not just once. To say the least it was more than a shock to learn that we had been closely watched for centuries by a hostile off-planet species and had not (‘officially’) realized it. What the hell else did we miss? They had come seemingly hundreds of times, but many visits they had made were either done remotely by craft of great sophistication or by the Martians themselves fully suited in pressure suits as to not be effected by whatever they thought may have been in the Earth’s environment (Ref: Martian Electric Document 319X3). Ancient drawings on the walls of caves in France and Spain do indeed show these “pressure suited” individuals even though we had not known, when they were originally discovered, exactly what they represented! However, despite the drawings it was suspected some had come without pressure suits, but these Martians may have died too quickly to report back to Mars what was really happening to them. Perhaps they tried to warn, but Earth’s rotation did not present Mars in the sky when they radioed home.
We would later learn, as the Martians would eventually discover, that if their stays were not extended for too long the effects of Earth’s diseases on their bodies would be reversed or nullified by their internal systems and the Martian atmosphere carried on board their space ships (Ref: Martian Electric Document 319X4). They had nothing to fear as long as their stays were short. Why this was the case has never been fully explained, but cold air and the chemistry of their blood seem to have something to do with it. It is possible that at some low temperature the effects of Earth’s bacteria would have little or no effect at all on the Martians. Mars is a much colder planet than Earth. We were reminded of that fact by Alfred Russell Wallace when he wrote, “The rapid lowering of temperatures universally caused by diminution of atmospheric pressure, as manifested in the well-known phenomenon of temperate climates at great heights even on extensive plateau, culminating in arctic climates and perpetual snow at heights where the air is still far denser than it is on the surface of Mars.”
We could only guess why their historical experiences or tests of our atmospheric gases failed to alert them to any harm before the First Martian War, but scientists are still working on that problem. Perhaps they had arrived during one of many ice ages so the effects were greatly diminished at the time. It was also speculated that perhaps infectious diseases had once existed on Mars, but they had been defeated so long ago in their ancient history that the present day Martians simply have no working memory of such devastating bacteria at least as it pertained to their bodies. That had eventually become a fatal mistake when they finally came in force intending to stay, and one they could not be expected to make a second time. They would certainly be expected to learn from that or any other errors they had made during the First Martian War. It was a problem they would need to solve before they could continue their attacks and occupy our planet, which was at the time quite deadly to the Martians. If they could not solve that problem the Martians could never move their population to Earth. This then must have been one of their primary goals. At least we thought this was so. We had to find their errors as well and learn from them. To not learn could be fatal.
The final theory put forward by a few investigators was perhaps the ancient Martians originally had some natural protection, and that it was even possible that the deadly bacteria which would eventually kill them had perhaps been brought to Earth much earlier by the Martians but as their species continued to develop on Mars eventually becoming weaker and weaker they had lost this natural biological protection and became susceptible to Earth’s biological hazards. But then again, it was only a theory and we would need more data to be certain.
The Martians could very well have been on Earth even before modern man became the dominant species on our blue/green world. Certainly they knew of Earth’s Ice Ages long ago and a good deal of where mankind stood at the time. It would seem they were not yet ready to invade with force, or perhaps their technical abilities to transfer a large population from one planet to another did not yet exist.
As early as 18,000 years ago ancient man had made crude drawings of Martians on the walls of caves (at least they looked like Martians). Examples were found in such widely dispersed areas such as in aboriginal Australia, the caves above Capo di Ponte in northern Italy, rock paintings from the Nasca Plains of Peru and paintings on the cave walls in Uzbekistan. All were very familiar in design to each other. A group of Cro-Magnon cave paintings in and around central Europe show aerial craft with antenna and landing gear right next to graceful depictions of deer, mammoths and ancient bison. In one deeply set cave we also found a dramatic drawing of an individual standing next to what looks not unlike a primitive version of a Martian Flying Machine! From the shores of Mesopotamia caves and stone tablets from Egypt one may find carvings of “unidentified flying objects”. And what may one say of fire-breathing dragons over Chinese skies?
In several caves our researchers found the remains of hundreds of humans who had been used for food – many still had knife marks of some type on their bones! It was as if the Martians had come to Earth to “harvest the humans.” This was indeed disturbing. However, it had not been as easy as all that as on more than one occasion evidence showed those ancient people had not gone so quietly into that long dark night choosing to fight for their lives. The most dramatic of the finds being a site dated from around 16,000 years ago which showed a set piece of close combat between Cro-Magnon hunters and the Martians as they fought to the death?
We were to be amazed at even earlier examples of possible visitation by beings not of this Earth to pre-humans. Carved on a granite outcrop on a mountain slope situated on a small island in Hunan province, China was discovered petro glyphs of round and saucer shaped objects drawn next to what looked like puffy clouds. Several more depictions were found carved into rocks at the base of the mountain. Researchers discovered melted rocks near this ancient work as well as melted metals that could not have been made by these ancient people. This site was preliminarily dated to a remarkable 47,000 years ago which would place this ancient set of carvings in an age when recently discovered Neanderthals inhabited the area. This indicated at no time in the whole history of modern man, and much before, were we ever alone on this planet!
As related earlier, we found evidence the Martians indeed had special interest in Egypt for thousands of years and may have even been at least partly responsible for the pyramids. Images of Martian flying craft may even be found on some of their coins!
It has always been strange to learn not a single word in hieroglyphics has ever been found in Giza or anywhere else in Egypt as to just how the pyramids had been constructed. There are simply no records to be found. It was as if someone was directing the massive projects and they had taken the plans with them when they left for destinations unknown!
They may very well have been responsible for many so-called natural events, perhaps the earliest being the Minoan Eruption of 1628 B.C.E. This massive eruptive event seems to have been set off by Martian devices. In later years we would be able to not only confirm this original thesis, but we would also experience several events first hand.
Plagues also seemed to have been of special interest to the Martians. We found the Plague of Athens in 430 B.C.E. and the Black Plague which swept its deadly path through Europe in 1348/50 A.D. were most likely caused by Martian introduction of deadly bacterium. At least 100 million would be lost due to the plague as reports tell of “flying craft leaving green vapor trails upon the skies.” The Martians had practiced biological warfare millennia before mankind even knew the term existed (<small>Ref: Martian Electric Document 46D5</small>). Yet they appear to have discounted any possible effect on themselves.
Finally, our investigations revealed many abduction events throughout Earth’s history as the Martians ‘acquired’ human subjects for their many purposes on their home planet. Perhaps the best known of the Martian abduction cases involved the lost colony of Roanoke in 1587/90. Artifacts found on the original site would eventually prove the mysterious event was fully Martian inspired.
Is it any wonder the consuls of the Roman Empire required by law that a record be made of any and all unexplained phenomena seen in the skies including aerial craft. With only the words and knowledge of the day there were many reports of “silvery flying shields.” And is there anyone on Earth who has not read of the “flying carpets” of the Middle East? As I read these reports I remember thinking I needed to pay a hell of a lot more attention to historic fairly tales. The stories of Atlantis, Mu and other fables were starting to look more like ancient history than pleasant fiction from times past. Interfering with mankind’s historical development had apparently been occurring for a very long time. And there were ‘others.’ How much more history of our own species had we somehow missed or simply allowed to be covered up?
OF THE MARTIAN ENEMY
Naturally we needed to learn as much as we could about this off-planet enemy as fast as we could, but after the First Martian War there were very few live Martians to ‘talk’ to, and those who were captured alive did not live very long. We all remember the story from North Africa of the three Martians who were taken alive as they crawled out of their machine half-dead only to be hacked to death by local tribesmen, as well as all the other stories of Martians being taken out and slaughtered as fast as they could be found. Cannibalism (if that word can be used when speaking about Martians) would later be shown to have occurred in some remote areas. And, despite later press reports to the contrary, I can state categorically that the Martians do indeed feel pain. We “humans” were in no mood to play nice with a brutal enemy, which considered mankind little more than a source of food. Revenge was a word often heard in these cases as the last of the Martians were hunted down in colder areas weeks after most hostilities ended. So in the end all we really had early on were their machines, electric documents found within, and a few dead Martians (As and Bs), many ravaged by the starving half-mad dogs, and ravenous birds which moved around after the battles, or cut to pieces by the locals.
One early researcher was able to confirm a very interesting event. “A young Martian, there can now be no dispute, was really born upon Earth during the war, and it was found attached to its parent, partially budded off, just as young lily bulbs bud off, or like the young animals in the fresh-water polyp.” The ‘budding’ did not live long.
Only much later would we manage with great difficulty to capture a live one who “stayed around for a while.” In later years, after things had calmed down a bit, we were able to acquire several As and Bs in more or less good condition. These specimens were stored in underground labs in containers filled with alcohol. The labs would also play host to several enemy hybrids both alive at least for a while and later preserved in alcohol.
As for the Earth borne disease that brought down the Martians we were starting to possibly understand why they affected the Martians so badly. We reported, “Micro-organisms, which cause so much disease and pain on Earth, had either never appeared upon Mars or Martians sanitary science eliminated them ages ago. A hundred diseases, all the fevers and contagions of human life, consumption, cancers, tumors and such morbidities, never enter the scheme of their life.”
We also needed to decipher their language to find out how to communicate with them and use their devices. It would not be easy – after all, how does one go about communicating with a species thousands of years ahead of mere humans in technology? And even if we did, would they respect humans enough to want to respond? Would they care or simply be amused at the attempt by these primitive humans they despised and merely absorbed as food? No one had an answer to that question. Personally, I did not think they ever would.
What few people knew at the time (mostly those working for the Committee, but word did soon filter out) was that a number of hybrids, which had been taken from Mars to fight on Earth, had survived and some of them were soon hard at work with members of the Committee. What they brought to the table as far as information about the Martians was concerned would prove invaluable to planet Earth. The public was also unaware at the time of the fact that more than a few hybrids were now hard at work forming criminal gangs to attack targets on Earth. Eventually they would call themselves the Martian Brotherhood, and we would certainly be hearing from them in the near future as they made their treasonous plans against Earth. For the moment however, they were in just as pitiful condition as the rest of us, maybe more so. They were on a hostile planet alien to them in every way, and the ones who would form the Brotherhood hated all things human.
I could not help remembering the pleasant prewar view of Martians put forward by Professor Lowell. “Quite possibly such Martian folk are possessed of inventions of which we have not dreamed, and with them electrophones and kinetoscopes are things of a bygone past, preserved with veneration in museums as relics of the clumsy contrivances of the simple childhood of the race.” Deadly Heat-Rays were not part of his thoughts at the time.
OF HUMANITY
As humans we were now quite aware that we had no favored position in the heavens; no likeness in the image of a god were we, even though there were still small groups of fanatics that still believed otherwise. We were now reduced to being only an intelligent species on this planet and I for one was pleased with the result. Now humanity could focus on more important issues. We now knew of at least three other intelligent species among the stars. There could be no doubt that in all likelihood there were many ‘others’. The odds that four such ‘intelligent’ species could develop so closely in space and time, and be the only ones in the entire Universe did not stand any logical interrogation. What a truly fantastic thought that was and how wonderful and how terrible the possibilities it now presented. Were there possibly ‘others’ like the Martians?
Before with our myopic view we could regard ourselves as the apex of “creation,” now it was clear that mankind held no such superior position. As expected, this shock to the psyche had a profound effect on those with the firmest religious beliefs. More than a few simply decided to ignore the truth before their eyes (not an unprecedented event) as some took their own lives and tragically members of their own families. Reality was not something they wanted to be a part of. Their simple and distorted view of life had exploded in front of their eyes and it had been far too much to bear.
Thomas Huxley had written, “I know of no study which is as utterly saddening as that of the evolution of humanities. Man emerges with the marks of his lowly origin strong upon him. He is a brute, only more intelligent than the other brutes, a blind prey to impulses, a victim to endless illusions, which make his mental existence a burden, and fill his life with barren toil and battle.”
Not unexpectedly, for the deeply religious these were times of great soul searching and great effort to place the new ‘truth’ within the realm of their old doctrines and myths. And yet truth was never the issue for these people. After millennia of myth making how were they to repress and control their followers now? How could they take advantage of this new dynamic? New myths would soon need to be created to control the masses. New other-world religions, new collective realities were soon found in many places. Yet, like those who actually believe the Earth is flat, a small percentage of people on Earth refused to believe any reports of Martians coming to Earth. Martians were simply not part of their world and they would have none of it. Sadly, a small percentage actually went insane due to the Martian attacks and most of them never regained their right minds. Earth could not wait for them to recover. There was no time for weakness now.
On a personal note, it was with great curiosity and amusement I read crude flyers, which reported that Martians had never landed on Earth and that it had only been propaganda by some powerful (unnamed) people or nations, which had fought amongst themselves for control of planet Earth. Looking back on mankind’s long history of wars this proposal had much in its favor. Naturally they had ‘proof’ it had all been fake, (At least in their view the Martians had been fake; certainly the destruction had been real enough.) – few paid any attention to them. After all, how could they properly explain the Martian Flying Machines? Man (save one) could not fly in 1901. And what are we to make of the Walkers and deadly Heat-Rays? On occasion one would see small groups of these people with signs handing out copies of their ‘proof.’ It was great theater to see them standing on small wooden crates pontificating about the ‘fake’ Martians. “We represent 99% of humanity who know that no Martian has ever set foot upon this world. You 1% are the real problem with your committees, monetary and military control.”
Other flyers perhaps a bit more creative than most related that the attacks had been quite real, but had come from an ancient race of beings which had lived within the Earth (the Mole people) and had come to the surface to regain what they had lost thousands of years ago. This clandestine race of beings had once been human, or so the story went, but had been changed by the very life they had led underground. This view would cause us some trouble in the years to come when it was decided to develop large facilities underground. It was simply not a natural thing for people to live under ground for extended periods of time. It would be our job to convince as many people as possible that this was not necessarily the case.
The most famous flyers which found the greatest distribution were titled “The Doctrine of Earth Truth!” and “The Martian Myth”. “Brothers: Do not allow yourselves to fall into the Martian trap! This vast destruction of our planet and mass murders have not come to us from some distant enemy but from the governments now at work to control you and your nations. There are no Martians…” Handing out their flyers amongst the burnt and blackened rubble naturally did not help their cause. It became a bit of a joke within the Committee to find some of these flyers, put them in picture frames and hang them from office walls. Indeed, there were two of my personal favorites on my office wall. I kept them there to remind me no matter how much truth and reality one may find around one’s self there would always be disturbed individuals who for whatever reason would not allow themselves or their followers to see what is right in front of their eyes. Governments and religions have relied upon that human condition for most of mankind’s existence and it was something that would also serve the Committee well in the years to come. All jokes aside – we would later keep very close track of such activities as these flyers represented, as we gained strength and proper control. Not surprisingly not all people viewed the Martian problem perhaps as clearly as those of us who set about to do battle with them as a way of life. Only history will be allowed to judge whether we were saints or sinners!
THE MARTIAN MYTH
Earth Brothers
Do not allow yourselves to fall into the phony Martian trap! This vast destruction of our planet and mass murder of humanity have not come to us from some distant enemy but from the secret governments now at work to control you and your interests.
THERE ARE NO MARTIANS!
No so-called enemy has flown to Earth to attack our peaceful Planet. Where are these Martians? Where are their weapons now? We are told they are held for our protection! We are told to bow down to a one world government commanded by men who hide their identities to protect us from enemies which do not exist!
RESIST THIS SLAVERY OF MANKIND
Demand the truth from those who have taken power over our world. Demand to see these so-called Martians. Demand FREEDOM!
Printed By THE COMMITTEE FOR MARS TRUTH
[END PART 7]
Copyright © R. Michael Gordon, 2020
