(Buck’s notes: Even though Truman Bethurum’s story is in
the book, it is not included here)
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
♦
THE COMING OF THE SPACE SHIPS
DUTCH SELF-TAUGHT (with Johan van Snellenberg)
GERMAN SELF-TAUGHT (with Herbert Korthaus)
ITALIAN SELF-TAUGHT (with Maria Michele di San Giuliano)
THEY RODE
IN
SPACE SHIPS
by
GAVIN GIBBONS
M.A. (Oxon.)
NEW YORK
THE CITADEL PRESS
1957
It is easier to ridicule than to investigate, but it
is not as profitable. - Aylan.
To
My mother and my aunts Gwladys and Olwen, to my whom I
shall always be grateful for financing my time at Oxford and so giving me
access to that wonderful storehouse of knowledge.
First published in 1957 by Neville Spearman Limited
Copyright by Gavin Gibbons, 1957
First American Edition, 1957
Printed in Great Britain by
The Central Press, Aberdeen
iv
CONTENTS
Introduction
What
Can We Believe ? ......................................................................................... 3
Part I
DANIEL FRY
Chapter
The Hero of the Story ........................................................................................ 12
The Vimana at White Sands ................................................................................ 14
The Voice Without a Body .................................................................................. 18
To New York by Vimana ........................................................................................ 24
Alan Explains the Vimana .................................................................................. 33
Patience Rewarded .............................................................................................. 39
Gravity .......................................................................................................................... 43
Matter and Mass ..................................................................................................... 50
SPACE .............................................................................................................................. 53
The Quantity C .......................................................................................................... 56
Time .................................................................................................................................. 59
A General Summing-up ......................................................................................... 67
The Third Meeting ................................................................................................... 69
Vimana Over Los Angeles .................................................................................. 79
Aylan's Method of Communication .............................................................. 80
Part II
TRUMAN BETHURUM
About Truman Bethurum – 111
The Space Ship of Mormon Mesa – 114
The Lady Captain – 120
The Second Visit – 127
Captain Aura Rhanes’ Warning – 134
Disappointment and Surprise – 142
Martial and Other Difficulties – 154
Letters in Other Tongues – 162
Aura’s Promise – 177
How They Live on Clarion – 184
Hope Deferred – 194
Adamski and Others Convince Mrs. Bethurum – 201
The Prescott Meetings – 206
A Warning to the World – 211
Appendix
The International U.F.O. Observers Corps – 214
Index – 215
ILLUSTRATIONS
Facing Page
Daniel Fry 76
Truman Bethurum 77
The Scow from Clarion - 108
Truman Bethurum going aboard the Scow - 1o9
Page Cross-section of the Scow - 172
Cross-section of Flying Saucer in which Daniel Fry was
taken into Outer Space - 173
Vi
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to express my thanks to all those who helped
me in the production of this book. Most of all I must thank my publisher and
good friend, Neville Armstrong. whose idea it was. I must also thank my two
friends across the Atlantic. Daniel Fry and Truman Bethurum, whom I have yet to
meet, for their co-operation and helpful letters. Jimmy O'Dea, a former
colleague, and John Garrod, have again given much constructive criticism.
GAVIN GIBBONS.
Shrewsbury,
29 March, 1957
vii
Introduction
O YOU EVER look at the sky at
night? Do you ever wonder what lies up there, countless millions of miles away?
In this busy modern world, when so many people live in the artificial
surroundings of large towns, there is not the chance to look upwards as there
was in far-off days when towns were small and nearly everyone was a country
dweller.
Ever since those days men have stared upwards in wonder.
At first men thought that the Earth was flat and the heavens were a
semicircular dome of which they could see the underside. They thought the stars
were fixed on this dome and that the movement of the stars was due to its turning.
Then some idea of the immensity of the Universe began to dawn upon them and
they realised that the Earth was islanded in Space. But they still thought the
Earth was flat. What is more, man being conceited, thought the Earth was the
centre of the Universe. Man is a conservative animal, and for many hundreds of
years he fought against the idea that the Earth was round-although Greek
scholars at Alexandria had come to this conclusion before Christ was born,
though they dared not utter their views.
Nowadays we laugh at the ideas of the Ancients, realising
that our Earth is only one of the smaller planets of an unimportant star. But
are we really as clever and wise as we think we are? No man to-day would defend
the view that the Earth is the centre of the Universe, but we still claim
proudly that Man is the most highly developed and most perfect animal after
God. And we then go on to claim that God created the Universe entirely for the
inhabitants of a small planet of an unimportant star. Is not this the most
ix
colossal piece of human conceit in the history of the
world? We completely ignore the words of Our Lord when He tells us " In My
Father's House are many Mansions "1 and "Other sheep have
I that are not of this fold."2 Biblical scholars have explained
these away as referring to other Earthly people, but it seems crystal clear
that He is referring to peoples living on other worlds, one of the most
significant references in the whole Bible. If it be manifestly absurd to claim
that the Earth is the centre of the Universe, is it not equally absurd to claim
that Man is the most perfect being in that Universe and that the Universe has
been created entirely for his benefit?
Astronomers tell us that life is impossible on any other
planet in the Solar System. How do they know this? They do not know, they only
surmise it from the available evidence. Very proper and quite scientific, but
one cannot help feeling that astronomers don't want life to exist on
other planets in case it is more advanced than our civilisation. Again the same
conceit! But how much do we actually know of the other planets, Venus, Mars, Mercury?
A recent book on Venus by the celebrated astronomer Patrick Moore reveals how
few facts are certain about that planet-we cannot penetrate the thick cloud
covering her surface, so we do not even know the number of days she takes to go
round, nor can we tell what surface conditions are like. How then can
astronomers be so certain that there are no inhabitants of Venus? The carbon
dioxide they so happily claim would make life impossible may well exist only in
the higher layers of the atmosphere.
So if someone told you he had spoken to a man from Venus
would you believe him? Probably not, but if you yourself saw something strange
in the sky and you knew enough astronomy to know that it was not any known
heavenly object you might wonder if it were a Flying Saucer. Not so many years
ago you would have gone to an oculist, and when he told you that you had
nothing wrong with your eyes you
1 John, ch. 14, v. 2.
2 John, ch. 10 v. 16.
X
would have gone to a psychiatrist fearing you were
suffering from hallucinations.
But since the Second World War people have been seeing
strange things in the sky. It all started in 1947 when Kenneth Arnold, a young
American pilot, saw a series of unusual objects in the sky-round discs which he
described as " Flying Saucers." Although it was then that the subject
caught public imagination, neither the term nor the objects they described were
new. Thanks to the researches of Charles Fort, and more recently, Desmond
Leslie, we now know that Flying Saucers have been seen at least since Roman
times and probably earlier than that. But they were merely recorded as
inexplicable and entirely unconnected phenomena.
Naturally there has been considerable speculation as to
the origin of the Space Ships or U.F.O.s (Unidentified Flying Objects) as they
came to be called. Indeed many books have been written on the subject. The most
popular view-and, incidentally. the one held by the author-is that the Space
Ships are interplanetary, that they are controlled by intelligent beings, and
that they come from Mars, Venus, or the planets of another star. Other theories
are that they come from Russia, from future time, or are even animals whose
home is the emptiness of Outer Space. Still more fantastic and improbable
explanations have been given.
After the first widely-publicised sighting of 1947, more
and more Space Ships were seen. Then came the great moment -the first news of a
meeting between an Earthman and a man from another planet. Many will have read
in Flying Saucers Have Landed, the story of how George Adamski met a Venusian
on 20 November, 1952, in the deserts of California not far from the Mexican
frontier. This story caught the imagination of the public and a fierce
controversy arose as to whether the photographs were genuine and whether Adamski's
witnesses were telling the truth. However, Adamski's tale has by no means been
disproved and the present author believes it to be true.
The idea that there are beings on other planets is an
xi
exciting one. The thought that there are creatures on
other planets, many of them probably much more highly developed than we are, is
staggering. Even more astounding is the realisation that these beings have
learned to bridge the fantastic distances of Outer Space. It is so
breath-taking that we have to pause a moment for the meaning of it all to sink
in. The discovery that there are men on other planets and our first contact
with them are the most important events in the history of the world-except, of
course, for the life and death of Jesus Christ. Not only that, but it revolutionises
our thought. Our whole attitude to every sphere of life has to be modified.
Some people said, for example. that when Everest was climbed, exploration had
virtually come to an end-but with the realisation slowly dawning upon us that
our planet is by no means alone in having thinking beings on it, and with the
age of interplanetary travel drawing nearer, we see that far from coming to the
end of possible exploration, it has scarcely begun-we have covered our minute
Earth alone in the colossal Universe, with all the vastness and emptiness of
Space challenging us to fly further and further away from our world.
The idea that there may well be men on other worlds
prompts another very big modification in our thought. We see war in its true
perspective. The last two struggles appear as nothing more than Earth civil
wars. The futility of fighting is brought dramatically home to us as is the
urgent necessity for unity between nations of the Earth and a world government.
We see more than ever before how petty are those who create war for their own
personal aggrandisement and enrichment. Perhaps if there had been unity on
Earth during the present century and all nations had pooled their skill and
their resources, we might even now be able to travel to the Moon. Imagine the
united resources of Britain, the United States. the Kaiser's Germany, France, Russia,
Italy coupled with those of China. India, Japan, the Arab world. and South
America. A world pooling of knowledge would double or treble the pace of
scientific development, and rockets would long have been outmoded. By 1957
xii
we should have been able to use this mysterious magnetic
force and thus be able to leave our Earth without difficulty.
♦ ♦ ♦
No two human beings are alike, and just as people differ,
so do their opinions. It is natural therefore that controversy such as that
over the Adamski affair should arise, as views are bound to diverge in any
normal group of people with the same interest. As one might expect, there is a
lunatic fringe among Space Ship enthusiasts. Although these people are quite
harmless in themselves, they do a great deal of damage to the movement as,
nearly always vociferous, they repel ordinary people from the subject of Flying
Saucers owing to their extreme and unlikely views. Very often this phantasy
increases in direct proportion to their lack of education and general
knowledge.
The critical investigator should be able to judge for himself
whether or not a Space Ship sighting is genuine or whether an enthusiast is
truthful or a crank suffering from self-delusion. Let us therefore take two
people, compare their stories, and see which of them rings true. Both of them
are known to me personally.
We will start with Tony Roestenberg. This young Dutchman
who lives in England came home one October evening in 1954 to find his wife
Jessie, and his three children, Tony junior, Ronald, and Karin in a terrified
state. Mr. Roestenberg listened amazed as his wife told him how a vimana, or
scout craft hovered over their isolated farmhouse at Ranton near Stafford, and
how they could see two men inside-their foreheads were indeed much higher than
those of Earthly people and their hair was long, but they were definitely men.
They (lit] not move at all during the time the terrified family watched them.
Then the vimana rose up at an angle from its position, circled the house twice,
and streaked off, to be seen later over Wolverhampton and Texel, Holland. Next
Sunday Tony Roestenberg had a curious " hunch " that he would see
something unusual if he climbed up to the roof of
xiii
his house. His premonition proved correct, and he was
rewarded by the sight of a vunu, or cigar-shaped craft travelling across the
sky disappearing finally into a cloudbank. He was to see another Space Ship
later on, probably a vimana, but this has no direct bearing on the argument.*
Here we have a family of people with a truly amazing tale.
Of course, the scoffers and determined sceptics dismiss it at once as
imagination. "Notoriety seekers," say others. Yet others will charge
Tony Roestenberg with wanting to make money. But I can personally refute these
charges as I investigated these sightings myself and believe them to be
genuine.
When I visited the Roestenberg's house almost three weeks
after the sighting and banged the heavy knocker on the thick oak door, little
Karin gave a scream of terror. Is it natural for a child to be frightened when
anyone comes to the door? Many children are shy when the caller proves to be a
stranger, but this was much more than mere shyness-and little Karin had not
waited to see whether or not the person at the door was a stranger, but had
howled before the door had been opened. When Jessie Roestenberg appeared, she
seemed highly strained and nervous and her husband, coming in later, was also
very strained. It was evident that something most unusual had occurred-so when
they told me their story I very naturally believed them, and my belief was
strengthened by other striking proofs.
Apart from an article he had read in a magazine some time
before, Tony Roestenberg knew nothing of the subject, while the children had
merely read unlikely Space-Ship stories in comic magazines. Tony Roestenberg
could hardly be said to court notoriety-he got more and more weary of
references to his experiences by his friends and heartily sick of visits by
people of little intelligence who came to see him merely seeking sensation.
That he changed his job for the better shortly afterwards was a mere coincidence.
He certainly did not seek money-he and his family have gained nothing
* For the full details of the Roestenberg story and the
amazing conclusions I drew from it see my The Conning of the Space Ships
published by Neville Spearman.-Author.
xiv
from an experience now largely forgotten by the children.
Final proof of the veracity of the Roestenberg story comes
from a letter shown to me by Tony from his mother at Naarden in Holland. She
had written to send him a cutting from a Dutch paper describing a vimana's
flight over Texel the same night as the one seen by Jessie Roestenberg at Ranton.
I had come from my home at Shrewsbury-a pleasant West Midland town, but hardly
cosmopolitan-and great was his astonishment when he found I could speak Dutch
and so could understand the letter and cutting without difficulty. Few British
people speak Dutch, and he could hardly have expected the man sent from Shrewsbury
by the British Flying Saucer Bureau to follow up his story to speak his native
language. I later met his mother in Holland and recognised her writing when she
wrote to fix a day and time for my visit. No, I believe that if Tony
Roestenberg had forged the evidence he would have done so in English. That he
gained nothing from his experiences and those of his family shows that any
suggestion that he forged the evidence and invented the whole story to be
utterly fantastic. In any case we know that the vimana seen by his wife hurtled
through the skies over Wolverhampton, shortly afterwards to be noticed by a
schoolmaster and one of his pupils.*
How different do we feel when we take a look at the
activities of George King. He is a good man, and is sincere in his desire to
save the world. A Londoner, he is one of the commissionaires of a large company
in the West End during the day. But it is in the evening he gets into his
stride. He holds meetings in various public halls in London. His eyes covered
with a shade, he goes into a trance and gives what
* Sightings in the Stafford area are still taking place. On
5 December, 1956. Mrs. Roestenberg was called into the garden of their Stafford
home by Karin. A bright orange disc, probably a vimana or scout ship was
overhead! Seen by neighbours, it disappeared in the direction of Seighford. On
to January, 1957, an orange glowing cigar-shaped vunu was seen by many people
flying northwards over Stafford towards Stoke-on-Trent. Witnesses included Tony,
Jessie, and Karin Roestenberg and Mrs. Daniels, wife of Wilfrid Daniels, the
Stafford U.F.O. expert on 13 May, 1957, a silvery vunu was seen over the west
of Stafford by Mrs. Roestenberg, a near neighbour, Mrs. Violet Wilding, and
several other witnesses in the area.
xv
he claims to be messages from a being called Aetherius.
Eagerly the audience hangs on his words as he pours out a mixture of platitudes
and fantastic nonsense. This is supposed to come from a "planetary parliament
" which exists on the "etheric plane." Why " etheric
"? This word seems to have a magical effect on the credulous, and when it
is used, all sense of proportion disappears and they eagerly swallow everything
they are told whether or not it is blatantly contrary to the most obvious
scientific fact.
What is this spiritualism, these " auras " and
"etheric bodies " that he talks about? Certainly Man has here touched
on the fringe of something not yet recognised by Science, but it can be so
easily distorted and misrepresented by the ignorance and prejudice of those who
practise it. In any case, there are powers which are only dimly understood even
by the people that try to use them. Why is spiritualism frowned on so very
strongly by the Church? Partly due to it being dangerous in itself-surely this
is chiefly because it may well be four- or five-dimensional and therefore not
properly understandable to our three-dimensional minds? But the greatest danger
is that spiritualism so easily leads to involuntary fraud or to
misrepresentation by people who are themselves quite honest. Although a lot of
people, including several well-known public figures, believe in spiritualism,
there are many others who turn from it in disgust. As many of these latter
believe in Flying Saucers, George King is doing a disservice to the Space Ship
movement by associating spiritualism with Flying Saucers.
But do not let us leave George King yet. Let us see for
ourselves the full measure of his absurdity. We look at his monthly journal, Cosmic
Voice, and under its attractive cover we find such gems as "This is
Mars sector 6 reporting Subjects-Potentization of Magnetization period No.
2" and "This is a call from the rose-hued arbours of our own
procrastinations into the rocky fields of positive action." Not only does
George King say he represents Aetherius (whose name is merely mock-Latin for
the magic word " etheric " -despite its creator's explanation that it
means "The Voice
xvi
from Outer Space ") but he goes as far as claiming to
repeat messages from Jesus Christ Himself-a shocking piece of blasphemy. It is
perhaps appropriate that large sections of his journal are printed in purple!
Needless to say George King has made many interplanetary
journeys. He admits that the Moon is becoming boringly familiar. We hear about
artificial satellites galore, Mars, Venus-yet strangely enough we get no
geographical detail which astronomers could check by looking through their
telescopes. How does he go?-it's really too simple. George King stands on his
head and projects his mind-the rest is done by his " etheric " body
on a Flying Saucer-and the Space Ship he travels on is probably "etheric
" too!
Determined to put George King to the test, I accompanied
him on one of his vigils. He is in the habit of prophesying the appearance of
Saucers. On this particular occasion, 25 May, 1956, Space Ships were expected
over north-west London at 9 p.m. (10 p.m. Summer Time-for some reason only
known to himself, " Aetherius " can give the times of Saucer
appearances to suit any American local time but cannot apparently make the
allowance for British Summer Time). The most obvious spot for this vigil was
Hampstead Heath, so thither we went, George King, a small band of faithful
disciples, and myself. We were duly laden with cameras, compasses, telescopes,
and binoculars. Not long after we had reached open ground, as far away from
streetlamps as we could get, the lady of the party, Miss Grace Abercrombie,
exclaimed that she saw a flash. I was looking in the same direction as she was
but I cannot claim to have seen it although I have very good sight. Then George
King said he saw a streak of light across the sky-I did not see this either,
but was not looking in the same direction. George King's account of the visit
in Cosmic Voice goes on to describe how a bright blue light was seen
moving across the skies. Yes, it was certainly very convincing and I must admit
that for a moment I was deceived. The sky was being rapidly covered by fairly
fast-moving broken cloud. In such conditions when anyone looks directly
overhead, where there
xvii
is nothing such as a tree or roof to compare with, the
stars do seem to be moving. This is very similar to the feeling one gets when
in a railway carriage and the train in the opposite platform starts to move. So
often are we deceived into thinking that it is our train that is moving.
Although I was taken in at first I very quickly realised that the "Space Ship
" (Miss Abercrombie saw a fleet of Space Ships) was really a star in the
constellation Bootes.
I did not see Miss Abercrombie's Space craft streaking to
the north-west although I was looking in the same direction at the time. But I
did see George King's " mother ship of gigantic proportions " which
he describes as " a long wispy shape . . . long and thin, shaped like a
cigar . . . after a minute, it seemed to change shape before my very eyes,
taking on the form of a crescent banana-shape. then it faded from sight."
It was a common or garden cloud l When we read on how " it radiated a
slightly greenish glow before it disappeared into the vastness of immeasurable
Space " a glow which I cannot say I noticed, we realise to what an extent
the wishful thinking of these people is carried. Not one of them knew the names
of any stars or constellations, knowledge which I would have thought essential
to any would-be Saucer observer, and of far more practical value than the
mumbo-jumbo of spiritualism.
Let us leave George King by quoting an extract addressed
to him from an article on his meetings in Uranus: "You have
certainly succeeded in showing to what lengths of gullibility Saucer audiences
can over-reach themselves."
♦ ♦ ♦
The serious investigator has to bring his critical faculty
to bear on any Flying Saucer story. He must, indeed, behave as though he were
a sceptic, he must try and find all the weaknesses and contradictions in the
story. Only if it survives these tests can he accept it.
When I looked through some half-dozen accounts of people
who claim to have ridden in Space Ships, I quickly saw that
xviii
four of them were fantastic nonsense, rubbish on a par
with that poured forth by George King at his meetings. The illustrations were
as absurd as the text-in one of them there was a photo of quite a handsome
young American. Light getting on to the film had left a patch of white. The
American, the author claimed, was really a Venusian who had come out of a Flying
Saucer, and the white patch was the Space Ship in the process of
dematerialization!
Two of the stories were of a very different calibre. They
were most convincing, told by two obviously sincere men, Daniel Fry and Truman Bethurum.
It is the exciting adventures of these two men that I am going to relate in
this book. The sceptic will at once rub his hands together with glee and claim
that by debunking George King and the other four stories, I have cut the ground
from underneath my feet. But before being so triumphant, he should remember
Tony Roestenberg and George Adamski. just as these two men are telling the
truth, so I believe the veracity of Daniel Fry and Truman Bethurum. So as to
satisfy the most critical reader, I shall pause from time to time in the
telling of my tale so as to point out likely detail which proves its veracity.
♦ ♦ ♦
But before I begin these most amazing stories, I must give
some explanation of the specialised names for the various types of Space Ship
which I have already used in this introduction. Readers of my first book* will
be familiar with them already but for those who have not read it I will give my
explanation again.
Flying Saucers can be divided into four main groups. (1)
Large metallic discs. These are many hundreds and even thousands of feet in
diameter. They are manned by a very large crew and are presumably used for the
longest interstellar flights. To this type of craft I have given the name of VULYA.
* The Coming of the Space Ships, published by
Neville Spearman.
xix
(2) The cigar-shaped mother ship several hundred feet
long. These come to our Earth, but usually remain high in the stratosphere. It
is thought that perhaps they are unable to land on the surface of the Earth.
This type of craft I call a VUNU.
(3) The Scout Ship or Flying Saucer proper. These are
manned by two or three people and are used when landings are made on Earth. It
was craft of this type that were photographed by Stephen Darbishire on the
Coniston fells and George Adamski in California. For these craft I use the name
VIMANA, which is an old Sanskrit word meaning chariot of the sky-in the days of
Atlantis men knew the secret of interplanetary flight, and the tradition lived
on into early Indian writings.
(4) The unmanned scanner. These are of various shapes and
sizes ranging from a few inches to several feet. Discs and globes are the most
common shapes. It is believed that these craft are remote-controlled, and are
pick-ups or "eyes " for some super television sets in the vimanas and
vunus. Not only are they believed to record sight, sound, and smell, but also
the very thoughts in a man's mind. A grim prospect but for the realisation that
those who pilot the Space Ships are friendly and wish its nothing but good. VIDYA
is the name I have given to these smallest space craft.
But although the four basic types I have mentioned are by
far the most frequently seen, there are many other types of Space Ship. Such a
one is the scow ridden in by Truman Bethurum. Too big to be classed as a
vimana, it is the wrong shape for a vunu. So scow it remains in this book.
♦ ♦ ♦
Now that we have learned that we cannot accept every
sighting nor believe everyone that claims to have ridden in a Space Ship, let
us begin the fantastic but convincingly true tales of two fortunate Americans
who at different times have had the luck to ride in Space Ships.
Xx
PART I-DANIEL FRY
F A MAN whom you realised had no
knowledge of football came up to you and described a game in detail, your first
reaction would be to disbelieve him, wouldn't it? But if you knew he were an
expert mechanic and he told you of a surprising new gadget he had invented for
use on his car you would be much more likely to believe him and go with him to his
garage to see the new idea without any fear that he was playing a joke on you.
We are very lucky to have as the participant in the
strange events I am about to describe a man most fitted to understand what he
saw and to describe it accurately. Daniel Fry is a trained technician and an
expert in rocketry. If his academic education were no more than average, his
scientific training and subsequent experience makes up for this. In the late
thirties at the time of his first meeting with the Space men he was still a
comparatively young man, and so his mind was not set and closed to fresh ideas.
We have the ideal witness. The idea of Space Ships is new and difficult enough
to believe, and as for anyone riding in one-impossible! But Daniel Fry was not
only young enough to be able to accept new ideas, and yet experienced enough
not to be gullible, but as a trained technician he was the ideal person to
record what he saw, with his engineer's eyes ceaseless in their search for
dials, pipes, nuts, bolts, thicknesses, dimensions, and types of material.
Daniel William Fry was born on 19 July, 1908 at Verdon in Minnesota. This small village, although on the Mississippi, is not much more than
fifty miles to the westward of the westernmost tip of Lake Superior--one of
that group of huge
3
lakes that almost cut the eastern half of the American
continent in two. Here Fry grew up, but as he was left an orphan when nine
years old, he was brought up by his maternal grandmother. They moved to California
in 1920, and until 1925, when Fry was seventeen, he remained under her care. He
was an ordinary American boy, but with this difference-he had a craving for
knowledge, especially anything to do with science. He read widely on the
subject as well as keeping observant eyes open for anything of scientific or
mechanical interest in the world in which he moved.
Unfortunately he had not been left very much money by his
parents and at eighteen he found himself entirely dependent upon his own
resources. How often in the days before state-aided education did an ambitious
young man have to give up a promising academic career because funds would not
stretch to a University education? Much as he would like to have carried his
studies further, Daniel Fry had to abandon plans for a University training. The
year was 1926 and the increasing unemployment that preceded the crash on Wall
Street three years later made it quite impossible for Fry to support himself
and to continue at school. But he was not defeated. Giving up his regular
schooling, he began work and studied eagerly during the evenings and half the
night. There were no regular evening classes. Daniel Fry, all on his own worked
through the subjects that he would have taken had he been able to go to a
University. Night after night Fry worked in his public library at Pasadena, a
suburb of Los Angeles, and took other books home for further study.
Several years went by in this way and Daniel Fry found
that chemistry was his favourite subject. He was especially interested in
explosives. Eventually this led him to a job after his own heart-the position
of explosives technician and blaster. In this he worked for some time until he specialised
in rocketry.
In 1934 Fry married. His family life was peaceful and
uneventful, though interrupted by the frequent moves which
4
he had to make because of his job. He has one son and two
daughters.
In 1949 he joined Aerojet General Corporation which is the
world's largest manufacturer and developer of the rocket engine. Another of his
many moves brought him to White Sands, that famous desert area in New Mexico
where huge rockets are sent roaring into the sky on test, only to fall back to
earth a few minutes later, when they are located as crumpled masses of almost
red-hot metal, barely recognisable as the magnificent flying machine that left
the ground a few minutes before. Daniel Fry had specialised on making delicate
instruments which tested the rocket motors before they were inserted in the
steel monsters which they were noisily to hurtle into the stratosphere at the
mere turning of a switch.
After six years working for the rocket company, Fry made a
move in 1955. He left New Mexico and returned to California. He was appointed
Superintendent of Experimental Production with the Crescent Engineering and
Research Company at El Monte, another suburb of Los Angeles. He designs
micrometers for laboratory and control, similar instruments to those he was in
charge of at white Sands.
He is a man who has spent all his life immersed in
science. As a child he read avidly and his enthusiasm was so great that it was
not damped by poverty but it carried him through his evening studies-unhelped
by any teacher-until he was started on a fine career. His knowledge and his
observational powers were so good that at the early age of forty-seven he was
in a very responsible position. Not the type of man to indulge in wanderings of
the imagination. As a trained scientist he not only knew what to look for, but
why it was there and what its purpose was. What better man for the Space people
to take on a ride-and knowing his background dare we ignore his story and the
message contained therein?
5
2
VERYONE LIKES to celebrate a
holiday and none more than the Americans. For them the national day is 4 July,
the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence back in 1776. Just as on an
English Bank Holiday, shops and offices are shut and everyone relaxes who can. and
celebrates the holiday in his own chosen way.
Daniel Fry was a disappointed man on Independence Day
1950. He was then working for Aerojet Company and happened to be at White
Sands, a lonely place in the emptiness of the desert and hardly the ideal spot
to spend a national holiday-except for those who dislike crowds, of course. But
as Daniel Fry had been seeing quite a lot of the Proving Ground on his job, it
is hardly surprising that he should wish to go into the local centre Las
Cruces, some forty miles away, to see the fireworks-and to do some celebrating
on his own. Unfortunately he had made a mistake about the bus times and missed
the last one into the town. So he found himself in this lonely camp with hardly
a soul to speak to. Never at a loss as to how he could make the best of a
situation, Daniel Fry retired to his room and began to study a book on heat
transfer.
There is an old saying that it never rains but it pours.
It certainly was true in the case of Daniel Fry on this frustrating Fourth of
July, 1950. At half-past seven something went wrong with the air-conditioning
system and the fans ceased operating. Poor Fry! Denied his celebrations, he was
now even prevented from carrying on with his studies. But Fate had much in
store for him, and perhaps it was preordained that he should remain in White
Sands and not go to Las Cruces and that he should be forced to leave his room.
6
Daniel Fry decided that a walk was the only hope of
finding somewhere cooler. He strode off down the bumpy road which led to El
Paso in Texas, some sixty miles to the south and on the border with Mexico.
However, he did not continue along this road for many minutes, but turned off
westwards along a track that led to the flat land at the base of the Oregon Mountains.
He passed a rifle range and had walked some half a mile
further when a strange thing happened. It was a night of brilliant starlight.
There was a little light left in the west from the sunset and on the other side
of the sky was the diffused light that comes just before moonrise. Yet in the
rest of the sky countless millions of stars twinkled-some bright, some faint
but all brighter than on an ordinary night. It was one of those nights when to
look through the naked eye was like looking through the eyepieces of a pair of
binoculars. Suddenly one of the brilliant stars went out!
Daniel Fry stopped in his tracks and stared. Whatever
could it be? Stars are not in the habit of going out on a cloudless night. He wondered
if it could be an aircraft. No. An aircraft might have obscured the light
temporarily, but the star remained hidden. In any case he could hear no sound,
and no aircraft are noiseless. It was so quiet in the desert that an aircraft
could be heard when it was too far off to be seen. Was it a balloon? Hardly.
Weather balloons are not sent up at night and never when their operators are on
holiday. They do not remain still but rise rapidly, so any star they passed in
front of would quickly appear again. While these thoughts flashed quickly
through Fry's mind, another star went out! It was just to the right of the star
that had disappeared at first. Then two more stars just below vanished.
Whatever was the object that was cutting off the starlight seemed to be getting
bigger every moment, and not only that, it seemed to be coming straight at
Daniel Fry!
Suddenly he saw the object and realised why it had been
invisible before. It was dark blue-black in colour, almost the colour of the
night sky. This. naturally, made it very difficult to see, and only the outline
could be discerned. At
7
the same time Daniel Fry was aware of a strange feeling in
his spine. He describes it as " a strong prickling sensation." Here
is pretty conclusive evidence that his story is true. How often the witness of
a Flying Saucer has had strange feelings before he has seen one? George Adamski
had strange premonitions, and Stephen Darbishire, the lad who
"snapped" the vimana on Coniston Old Man, had a queer feeling the
whole morning and an urge to climb the fell. Many are the witnesses who have
told me of their strange feelings before a sighting, not the least of them
Jessie Roestenberg, who had an odd tingling feeling in her nose as if she had a
cold coming on, and who later broke out into a rash. Her husband had a
premonition before seeing his vunu. So when we hear that Daniel Fry had a
prickling feeling in his spine as he saw an object the like of which he had
never seen before are we being very rash in drawing the conclusion that Daniel
Fry was face to face with a Flying Saucer?
The object was moving towards Fry who, naturally, had the
instinct to run away. However, his technical training and long experience in
blasting and rocket work came to his aid. He had learned that it was foolish to
run from an approaching missile until its trajectory is known and it is evident
where it will strike the ground. Anyone speeding on foot can run into as well
as away from a missile's trajectory, and in any case it is not easy to judge
the trajectory while running. So Daniel Fry stood still, rooted to the spot as
he stared at the object now so near to him.
It was egg-shaped and seemed about thirty feet across at
the widest part. He judged it to be travelling at about fifteen or twenty miles
an hour, but it was losing speed rapidly and he reckoned that it would be
motionless by the time it touched the ground. He saw too, that the spot where
it would reach earth was some fifty feet from where he stood -unless it changed
course-and he was very glad he had not attempted to run away. Wonderingly he
stared at it as it glided as lightly and as silently as a piece of thistledown
to settle on the ground some seventy feet away-somewhat further off than Fry's
first estimate. It made a slight crunching
8
sound as it crushed the undergrowth beneath it--otherwise
it was silent. Daniel Fry stood stock still and gaped at the craft-just as a
child at his first circus performance stares at those in the ring.
A confused jumble of thoughts rushed through Fry's mind.
What could this be? Of all the different spheres of life, Fry worked in an
occupation where he came in contact with the latest types of aircraft and
rockets. He, more than anyone else, would be in a position to recognise the
most recent model. even if a closely guarded secret. His first reaction was "
If the Russians have ships like this, God help America." But speedily came
the comforting thought that this mysterious craft could not be from Russia or
from anywhere else on Earth for that matter. Whoever had built this craft had
solved a lot of problems whose existence our best physicists are only just
beginning to realise.
The Space Ship's silence mystified Fry more than anything
else. There had been no thrumming propellers, no flash and roar as burning
gases were hurled from nozzles to produce thrust. The Space Ship had simply
coasted in from the vastness of Space and settled gently on Earth. Perhaps that
was the explanation-perhaps its engines had been cut off when still many miles
above Earth. Fry had only seen it gliding down, but it had slowed down before
coming to rest, and didn't seem to be falling. Only a helicopter or a
lighter-than air craft could do this. It was certainly no helicopter, as he
could see no propeller blades or rotors, neither could it be lighter than air
as its weight had crushed the scrub beneath it when it landed. It was certainly
able to defy Sir Isaac Newton's law of gravity. Here again we have convincing
proof of the veracity of Daniel Fry's story. Nearly all reports of Flying
Saucers tell of their ability to neutralise and even reverse the gravitational
force in order to move.
Daniel Fry's meditations were interrupted with a start
when he woke up to the fact that he was unconsciously walking towards the
craft. He does not claim to be a hero, and every instinct and thought in him
urged him to put as much distance as possible between himself and the unknown
and
9
therefore unpredictable object. However, Daniel Fry was
blessed with a quality that is essential to the true scientist curiosity, and
when the object which arouses it is of a scientific nature-especially if it be
of an important advance in knowledge, this curiosity became a mania which swept
all other emotion from its path.
So Fry walked up to within a few feet of the craft and
began to walk slowly round it, eagerly drinking in the detail, and his expert
mind puzzled as to the many unusual features of the Space Ship. As it had
appeared from the air, it was oval shaped, flattened at the top and bottom,
making the maximum height some sixteen feet, while the greatest width was about
thirty feet, the widest point being about seven feet above the ground. If
looked at from below, at an angle of less than forty-five degrees from the
vertical, it might seem to be saucer shaped ; however in actual fact it was
more like an inverted soup bowl over a sauce dish. No longer did the craft
appear dark blue as it had done at first. Fry realised that it was then merely
reflecting the colour of the sky. It was in fact a silver colour-the reflection
of a polished metal surface. In addition to this there was a very slight violet
iridescence. Although Fry walked all round the Space Ship, he could see no sign
of any opening or seam. He thought that anyone inside would get out either
through the top or the bottom.
This craft comes into the category of a scout ship or
vimana, so we will give it this name from now on. But we shall see as we go
along that in some respects the craft was very different from the ordinary
manned vimana with a crew of three or four.
Daniel Fry paused to take stock of the situation. What to
do next? Should he return to his camp and report the vimana? At first this
seemed the obvious thing to do, until the realisation dawned on Fry that it
would take at least three-quarters of an hour to get back to the camp, find
someone in authority, and return with other observers. By that time the Space
Ship might easily have taken off, leaving only the crumpled patch of brushwood
to show that Fry had been
10
telling the truth. Who would believe such an unlikely tale
on such slender evidence? And if he did, would he dare admit it? He knew only
too well of the merciless ridicule poured by the scoffers and determined sceptics
on those who had been incautious enough even to admit they had seen mysterious
objects in the sky. How much worse would be the hooting laughter and jeering
comments at anyone who had actually claimed to see one land and been close
enough to touch it-yet had no evidence other than a flattened patch of brush!
Daniel Fry suddenly realised that although he had been close enough to the
craft to touch it, he had not actually done so as yet. He wondered if touching
it would help him to get some idea of what the vimana was made of. The feel of
the material might offer some clue as to its nature. In any case he could see
how hot it was. So Fry stepped forward and gingerly placed a finger tip on the
polished metal. No, he didn't feel any sensation of burning, the metal was not
even hot. It was merely a few degrees warmer than the air. But the most
remarkable thing was its smoothness, a smoothness difficult to describe. Anyone
running their finger over a large pearl which had been covered with a thin soap
film might feel the same sensation as Daniel Fry felt when he touched the metal
surface of the vimana. Fry stroked the metal with the palm of his hand. He felt
a slight but definite tingling in his finger tips and the wrist end of his
palm.
"Better not touch the hull, pal, it's still
hot." A crisp voice came out of the air beside Daniel Fry and suddenly
shattered the silence of the balmy summer night.
11
3
ANIEL FRY STARTED as though he had
been shot, and catching his foot against a root went flying full length in the
sand. This incident does not sound as if it were made up. Hoaxers are too
conceited ever to admit having been taken aback.
What sounded like a chuckle was definitely audible as Fry
lay on the ground, then the voice came again, its tone much more friendly. “Take
it easy, pal, you are among friends." However Daniel Fry felt far from
taking things easy. The sudden humiliation of tripping up and resultant pain as
he struck the ground, the familiar English language and the tone, not in the
least hostile, in which the words were spoken, had driven all fear away. Instead
Fry felt irritated.
"You could have turned the volume down," he
grumbled. " You didn't have to blast out at me like that. You scared me
out of a week's growth."
"Blast out?" the voice hesitated, evidently
unfamiliar with American slang. "Oh yes, you mean the amplitude of the
warning was too great. Sorry, buddy, but you were about to kill yourself, and
there wasn't time to diddle with the controls."
"You mean that the hull is highly radioactive,"
Fry asked, drawing back instinctively. "If so, I am still much too
close."
"It isn't radioactive," came the reply. "I
used the term 'hot' because it was the best I could think of in your language
to explain the condition. The hull has a field about it which repels all other
matter. The field is very powerful at molecular distances but diminishes by the
seventh power of the distance so that the force becomes negligible a few
12
microns away from the hull. Perhaps you noticed that the
surface seemed very smooth and slippery. That is because your flesh did not actually
touch the metal, but was held a short distance from the surface by the
repulsion of the field. We use the field to protect the hull from being
scratched or damaged in landing. It also lowers air friction tremendously when
it is necessary to travel at high speed through an atmosphere."
"But how would this kill me?" Fry asked,
wonderingly. "I did not touch the hull and felt only a slight tingle in my
hand, and what did you mean by that crack about my language? If you aren't an
American, I've never heard one."
"As to your first question " the voice went on
imperturbably, its calmness in strong contrast to the excited Fry, "it
wouldn't have killed you at once. In fact it might have taken several months,
but it would have been just as certain as if it had been instantaneous. The
best way that I can explain it to you is to say that exposure of the human skin
to the force field causes the skin to produce what you call ' antibodies' in
the blood stream. For some reason which we don't yet fully understand, these
antibodies are absorbed by the liver, whose function they attack causing the
liver to become greatly enlarged and congested. In cases where the skin is
exposed to the field for a minute or more, death is practically certain. In
your case I don't think you have been exposed long enough to be in any great
danger; although you will undoubtedly feel some effects sooner or later,
provided, of course, that your biological functions are identical with ours,
and we have every reason to believe they are.
"As to your second question I am not an American,
although my present assignment requires me to become one. The fact that you
believed me to be one of your countrymen is a testimonial to the success of the
effort I have expended during the last two of your years to learn and practise
the use of your language and idiom. As a matter of fact, I have never yet set
foot on your planet. It will require at least four more of your years for me to
become adapted to your atmosphere
13
and gravity and to become immunised to your biotics."
The voice stopped. In the ensuing silence Daniel Fry stood
still for what seemed to him a very long time, but which in actual fact was
probably only a few seconds, trying to take in the full meaning and implication
of what he had heard. Eventually he said slowly, "If I had not with my own
eyes seen this craft come in and land, I would have said that you were some nut
who had been reading too many 'Science Fiction' stories. As it is, I am
prepared to admit the possibility of almost anything. Besides, since my being
here and seeing you land was entirely accidental, it is obvious that my belief
or disbelief could not be of the slightest importance to you."
Well, Mr. Determined Sceptic, do not those last remarks of
Daniel Fry ring true?
"On the contrary," came the voice again, when
Fry had finished speaking. "It is important to us that you be given every
opportunity to acquaint yourself with the facts and to form your own opinion
accordingly. One of the principal purposes of this expedition is to determine
the basic adaptability of the Earth race, particularly the degree of their
ability to adapt their minds quickly and calmly to conceptions which are
completely foreign to their customary modes of thought. Previous expeditions by
our ancestors met with almost total failure in this respect. This time there is
hope that we may be able to find minds sufficiently receptive so that we may be
of some assistance in the progress of your race. In your case, at least up to
the present moment, your conduct has surpassed our best expectations."
"I can see," retorted Fry, "that your race,
whatever it is, and ours have at least one thing in common-that sarcasm is the
principal form of humour. However, you can't annoy me that way. I have been
kidded by experts.
"I realise that everything I have done since you came
into sight has been wrong. In the first place, if I had any sense, I would have
got out of here fast when I first saw you coming, instead of waiting, perhaps,
to be crushed under the ship.
14
When you landed, instead of leaving, or at least remaining
at a comparatively safe distance, I had to come snooping around your craft.
Then, when your warning voice came through your speaker or whatever it
is-instead of accepting the warning calmly and quickly, I jumped like a scared
rabbit and landed in the sand in about as undignified a position as it is
possible to imagine. Last, but not least, you apparently suppose that I believe
the statements which you have made. As I said before, I am prepared to consider
the possibility that they are a lot of 'hooey'."
"Precisely." replied the voice. "Let me
explain my position. No sarcasm was intended. I meant exactly what I said. In
the first place you said that curiosity impelled you to investigate the craft,
subjecting yourself to unknown hazards rather than to seek safety in flight.
This typifies the struggle between the desire for knowledge and the desire for
the safety of the status quo. I believe that there is an old saying
among your people that self preservation is the first law of nature. It is
encouraging to note that the desire for knowledge can occasionally overcome the
animal instinct. When I called a warning to you, your reaction was not one of
fear as you seemed to think. A reaction of pure fear would have frozen you into
immobility at least for a moment. Instead, you acted instantly and in the
proper manner. The fact that you stumbled merely indicates that your
concentration on tile details of the ship' was so great that you failed to
maintain a clear avenue of retreat.
"As for believing is what I say, merely because I say
it, that is the last thing which we desire. What we need are minds sufficiently
open to receive evidence (even though that evidence be contrary to all
preconceived opinion) and minds sufficiently agile to assimilate that evidence
and arrive at logical conclusions. The fact that, in spite of being in
circumstances completely unique in your experience, you are listening calmly to
my voice and making logical replies, is the best evidence that' your mind is
the type we hoped to discover."
And it is also the best evidence that Daniel Fry did not
15
invent the story. Apart from the undergraduate, which Fry was
not, the hoaxer is usually a man whose intelligence is not very high. Because
of this he has not the knowledge enjoyed by the man better equipped with
brains. Ignorant men panic in the face of the unknown. Not so Daniel Fry. We
can see once again how this tale rings true-men of another planet would
naturally wish first to get in touch with a technician or scientist-people
whose intelligence would enable conversation with those in the Space craft to
be carried on at a much higher level than with ordinary folk and whose
curiosity would be greater than their fear.
"Thanks for the compliments." replied Fry, less
hostile now. " I wish I could believe that I deserved them, but your
statement implied that you propose to use me in some project which involves the
scientific advancement of the people of Earth. Why pick me? Just because by the
merest accident I happened to be here when you landed. I could easily put you
in touch with any one of dozens of men right here at the base, who are far more
advanced than I in science."
"When you say that you happen to be here by the
merest accident, you greatly underestimate us," was the unseen voice's
reply. "The brains of many Earth men transmit readily, but you are one of
the very few whose brain also receives well. If you inquire: when you return to
your quarters, you will discover that the air conditioning system did not break
down tonight ; although it has frequently clone so in the past. But to get back
to the subject of discussion, we have investigated the minds of many of your
top scientists. In every case we found that their minds had hardened into the
mould of their present conceptions. They have advanced too far. Consequently
they would have too far to retreat. I can make my meaning plainer by an
analogy. A man seeking scientific knowledge is like an ant climbing a tree. He
knows when he is moving upward, but his vision is too short to encompass the
entire trunk. The result is that he is likely to get out on a lower limb
without realising that he has left the main trunk. All goes well for a time. He
can
16
still climb upward and even pluck a few of the fruits of
his progress, but soon he begins to become confused as the solid branch
suddenly begins to break up into myriads of twigs and leaves all pointing in
different directions.
"So the seeker of knowledge finds that the great
'Basic Laws' which have always been so unshakeable. now begin to divide and to
point in opposite directions. The scientist comes to the conclusion that he is
nearing the limit of the knowledge which can be conceived by the mind and that
all physical laws ultimately become purely statistical. When he has reached
this point he can make further progress only by following a line of abstract
mathematical reasoning. This is like travelling on a train in one of your
underground railways. You will probably eventually arrive at your destination. but
since you cannot see where you are going along the way, you have no way of
being sure that there was not a much shorter and easier way to get to the same
place. Your science is now in this position. For example, your scientist is now
obliged to state that the electron is at the same time both a particle and a
wave motion. They attempt to rationalise this by saying that the electron is a
particle in a wave of probability. This is a condition which cannot be visualised
by the mind and the only means of progress are through the subways of abstract
mathematics.
"The fundamental truths are always simple and
understandable when viewed from the proper perspective. So the branch becomes
simple and understandable as a 'branch' when viewed from above on the main
trunk. In short, what your science must do if it is to continue to progress is
go back down the limb on which you are trapped to the point where it joins the
main trunk and then start up again. This we can and will help your people to
do, but only if they wish it and are able to follow the path which we will
point out. This, however, is for the future. Before we can be of any assistance
to the people of the Earth, two things must be accomplished. First: Our bodies
must become biologically adapted to your environment, so that when we come
among
17
you we will be identical with your people. This as I said
before will require at least four more years. The second condition is more
difficult. The political tensions which now exist between your nations must be
cased. If either of the two dominant nations of Earth were to achieve
conclusive scientific superiority over the other, under present conditions a
war of extermination would be certain to follow. We are not here to assist any
nation in making war but to stimulate a degree of progress which will eliminate
the reasons for wars on Earth. even as we, some thousands of years ago,
eliminated the reasons for conflict among our own people. But I see you are
becoming weary of standing out there in the sand and listening to these dissertations
on science and sociology.
“This reminds me of my duties as a host. Would you like to
enter the ship and perhaps make a short flight? It is only a cargo carrier with
remote control, but it does have a small passenger compartment with several seats
which are plain but quite comfortable."
"I would be very glad to be allowed to see the inside
of the ship," Fry replied with enthusiasm. " I would give anything to
be allowed to ride in it, but how can I get in? I have been completely around
the ship and saw no sign of an opening. Also you said you are not yet
accustomed to our atmosphere. If I come in I will have to bring my atmosphere
with me. How will that affect you?"
"As I said before," replied the voice. "the
craft is a remote controlled cargo carrier. Some of you Earth people would call
it a vimana. I am not in this craft. I am in the central, or what you would
call the mother ship or vunu which is at present some nine hundred miles above
the surface of your planet. This cargo craft is being used to bring us samples
of your atmosphere so that we can accustom ourselves to it. The atmosphere so
that we can accustom ourselves to it. The cargo hold is evacuated so that when
I open the intake port the hole becomes filled with atmosphere at whatever
18
temperature and pressure exists there. Also any bacteria
which are in the air are brought along for study and for the production of
anti-toxins. The intake port is on the top of the craft. I will open it
now."
Daniel Fry heard a sound, partly a hiss and partly a
murmur, which came from the top of the vimana. It lasted for about fifteen
seconds. He was surprised at the small volume of the sound. Any port large
enough to have filled a craft that size with air in fifteen seconds should have
produced quite a roar. Then he realised that the hull was almost, if not
entirely, sound-proof, and since most of the sound of the entering air would
have been produced inside the hull very little would be audible outside.
Again Fry heard a sound from the surface of the vimana,
this time. a small but sharp click such as might have come from the operation
of a single-arm relay or a small solenoid and a portion of the hull lust to his
left moved back upon itself for a distance of several inches and then moved
sideways, disappearing into the wall of the hull, leaving an oval shaped
opening about. five feet in height and three feet wide. Fry moved over to the
port or hatch, whichever it might be called and ducking his head slightly,
advanced into the opening. Because of the curvature of the hull his head was
inside the craft while his feet were still on the ground.
The compartment into which Fry was looking occupied only a
small portion of the ship's volume. It was a room about nine feet long and
seven feet wide, with the floor about sixteen inches above the ground and the
ceiling slightly over six feet above the floor. The walls were slightly curved
and the intersections of the walls were bevelled so that there were no sharp
angles or corners, of course, the wall nearest to him, through which the
opening led, was the hull itself and had the same curvature inside and out.
This wall was about four inches thick and it was into this wall that the door
or hatch had been drawn. The room contained four seats which looked much like
our modern " body
19
contour chairs" except that they were somewhat
smaller than the ones to which we are accustomed. The seats were facing the
opening in which Fry was standing and were arranged in two rows of two each in
the centre of the room, leaving an aisle between the seats and either wall.
In the centre of the rear wall, where it joined the
ceiling, there was a box or cabinet with a tube and lens which resembled a
small moving picture projector, except that there were no visible film spools
or any other moving parts. Light was coming from this lens. It was not a beam
of light such as would come from a moving picture projector but a diffused glow
which, while it did not seem especially bright still furnished enough light to
see comfortably.
The seats and the light seemed to be the only furnishings
in the otherwise bare metal room. "Not a very inviting cabin," Fry
thought. "Looks more like a cell."
"As I said before, it's plain, but you'll find the
seat comfortable," said the voice again. Fry started at the reading of his
thoughts. "Step in and take a seat if you wish to ride. We haven't too
much time."
Almost automatically Fry stepped up on to the floor of the
cabin and started for one of the seats. Before he reached it, he heard a click
as the door began to slide out of its recess in the wall behind him.
Instinctively, he half turned as though to leap out to the comparative safety
of the open desert behind him, but the door was already closed. If this were a
trap, he was in it now and there was no use struggling against the inevitable.
"Where would you like to go?" came the voice
again and this time it did not seem to be coming from beside Fry but rather
from inside him as though he were hearing words which he himself were speaking.
"I don't know how far you can take me in the time you
have," he replied. "And since this compartment has no windows, it
won't matter which way we go, as I won't be able to see anything."
"You will be able to see," was the reply. "At
least as much as you could see from any vehicle in the air at night. If you
20
would like a suggestion, we can take you to New York City
and return you here in about thirty minutes. The light pattern of large cities
at night from about twenty miles up has always been to us one of the most
impressive sights to be seen on your planet."
21
4
To New York by Vimana
ANIEL FRY WAS amazed. Such speeds
seemed fantastic.* "To New York - and back - in thirty minutes!" he
said slowly. "That's eight thousand miles per hour! How can you produce
energies of that order on a craft like this, and how can I stand the
acceleration? You don't even have seat belts on these seats!"
"You won't feel any ill effects from the
acceleration," was the reply. "In fact, you won't feel the
acceleration at all. Just take a seat, and I will start the craft. I will
explain some of the things which puzzle you during the ride."
Fry sat down in the left front seat which was the one
nearest the door and found that it was indeed very comfortable. The material of
which it was made felt like foam rubber with a plastic covering. However, there
were no seams or joints such as an outer covering would require, so the
material, whatever it was, had probably been moulded into its frame in a single
operation.
Then the voice broke into Fry's thoughts again. "I
will now turn off the compartment light and turn on the viewing beam."
For a moment the room became utterly dark. Then the
projector again became active. This time it was not a diffused glow, but a
beam-just as in a movie or slide projector. The beam, or that part of it which
was visible at all, was a deep violet, at the very top of the visible spectrum.
The beam spread over the door, through which Fry had come, and the door
disappeared. It did not slide back into the wall as it had before. It simply ceased
to exist, at least
* Distance would be roughly 2,000 miles - Author.
22
visually. It was as though he were looking through the
finest type of plate glass window.
"There isn't time to give you a complete
understanding of all the things which you would like to know about this craft
and about us, but perhaps I can explain a few of the basic principles about
which you seem to be curious." the voice said-or rather Fry's voice
said-for he was just beginning to realise that the words which lie had been hearing
were not corning to his ears as sound waves at all but rather were originating
directly in his brain.
"The door as you see, has become transparent. This
startles you. because you are accustomed to thinking of metals as being
completely opaque. However, ordinary glass is just as dense as many metals and
harder than most and yet transmits light quite readily. The beam of energy,
which is now acting on the metal of the door, is what you would call a
frequency multiplier. The beam penetrates the metal and acts upon any light
that reaches it in such a way that the frequency of the light is multiplied to
that of the range between what you know as the 'X-ray' and the 'Cosmic Ray'
spectrums. At these frequencies the waves pass through the metal quite readily.
Then, when these waves leave the metal on the inside of the door, they again
interact with the viewing beam, producing what you would call 'beat '
frequencies which are identical with the original frequencies of the light, so
that while you are apparently seeing through the metal you are actually seeing
a reproduction. If you are ready I will now start the craft."
Instinctively, Fry braced himself in the seat and gripped
the sides with his hands. A moment later, the ground suddenly fell away from
the ship with incredible rapidity. When I write that the ground " fell
away " I say so because Fry did not feel the slightest sense of motion
himself. and the ship was as steady as a rock. In spite of the fact that they
must have been accelerating at the rate of at least ten g's, he could have
sworn that they were standing still.
The lights of the army base at the Proving Grounds, which
had been hidden by a small hill, sprang into sight instantly
23
and began drawing together like a flock of baby chicks
when called by the mother hen. A few seconds later the lights of the town of
Las Cruces came into view in the lower left hand corner of the window, and Fry
knew that the vimana had risen at least a thousand feet in those two or three
seconds. The ship was rotating slightly to his left as it rose, and he was also
able to see the highway from Las Cruces to El Paso, a very narrow but brilliant
ribbon illuminated by the headlights of the thousands of cars that were upon
it. The lights of El Paso and Ciudad Juarez were just a solid glow on the
horizon, but as the craft continued to rise, they seemed to draw nearer and to
break up into patches of varied brilliancy. Fry could see the patch which
represented the Presidio area, the hundreds of thousands of lights of Fort Bliss,
and the intensely bright spot which was downtown El Paso. He even imagined that
he could distinguish the thin dark line which was the Rio Grande separating El
Paso from its Mexican twin, Ciudad Juarez. A few more seconds and the ship
had rotated until the lights of these cities passed out of view on the right
hand edge of the viewing screen.
The viewing screen was now pointed south-east and had
stopped revolving. The surface of the earth now appeared to be glowing with a
slightly greenish phosphorescence. At the same time, the sky outside of the
ship had become much darker, and the stars seemed to have doubled in
brilliance.
"We must have entered the stratosphere," Fry
thought to himself. "If so, we must have risen more than ten miles in what
can't have been more than fifteen or twenty seconds, yet I have not felt the
slightest sensation of acceleration."
"You are now about thirteen miles above the
surface." Once more Fry started when the voice answered his unspoken
thought. "And you are rising at approximately one-half mile per second. We
have brought you up rather slowly so that you could have a better opportunity
to view your local cities from the air. We will take you up to thirty-five
miles for the horizontal flight. At that level the residual atmosphere is
attenuated to a degree which offers no appreciable resistance to the motion of
the craft."
24
"By the way," Fry asked. "what happened to
the Moon? It was just coming up when I entered your ship and it must be
somewhere in the sky, but everything looks so dark outside."
"It looks dark," was the reply, "simply
because there is not sufficient atmosphere at this level to diffuse the light.
You would not see any evidence of the moonlight unless it were shining directly
on the viewing screen. I have purposely kept the craft from rotating far enough
for this to happen, as the light is quite intense above the atmosphere, and it
would be difficult, if not impossible to see anything else while it was
visible. You are now high enough that I can begin to add a substantial
horizontal component to your vertical motion.
"Since there will be little of interest to see during
the next few minutes, I will take this time to explain a few of the things that
puzzle you. In the first place, you mentioned something about 'seat belts ' and
questioned whether you could endure the acceleration, This is a question which
seems to have come up quite frequently in the minds of the men of science on
your planet.
"Whenever our vehicles have been observed by any of
your people, and when the velocities and accelerations of these craft are
described, disbelief is always apparent. We have heard some of your most
learned men make the statement that: ‘No human being or other higher form of
life, as we know it, could survive acceleration of this order.' This has always
been a matter of disappointment to us in our evaluation of the intelligence of
the people of Earth. It seems to us that even a moderately intelligent layman
with the average knowledge which your people possess should be able to refute
this statement at once. The answer is, of course, simply that the force which
accelerates the vehicle, acts not only upon every atom of the vehicle itself
but also acts equally upon every atom of mass which is within it, including the
pilot or passengers.
"In your aeroplane the situation is entirely
different. You have propellors or jets, which produce a thrust upon
25
one part of the ship. This local thrust accelerates the
ship, but not the pilot. The pilot is accelerated only by thrust against those
parts of his body which are in contact with the seat. Because of the inertia of
the remainder of the body, compression is produced which causes the feeling of
acceleration, or in extreme cases, blackout or actual crushing of the body. Our
only limit of acceleration is the limit of available force."
"But in this case," Fry reflected. "why am
I not floating around in the air as things are supposed to do within a missile
which is in free fall?"
"The answer to this also should be fairly
obvious," came the voice's reply. "Before the ship was put into
motion, you were resting upon the seat, and there was a force of one gravity
acting between your body and the seat. Since the force which accelerates both
the ship and your body acts in exact proportion to the mass, and since the
Earth's gravity continues to act upon both. the original force between your
body and the seat will remain constant, except that it will decrease as the
force of gravity of the planet decreases with distance.
"When travelling between planetary bodies, far from
any source of natural gravity, we find it necessary, for practical reasons, to
reproduce this force artificially. The gravity to which we are accustomed is
but little more than one-half of that which exists upon the Earth. This is the
principal reason that it will take so much time for us to become ordinary
members of your race. If we were to land now upon the surface of your planet
and leave the protection of our ships. the high gravitational force would put a
severe strain upon our internal organs, which in a few days would produce
serious illness, and eventually death.
"This is not merely calculation. We know it to be
true because it has been tried several times in the past. By remaining in our
ships where we can control the force to which we are subjected, and by
increasing that- force by small but regular increments, we can build up the
supporting tissues
26
and strengthen our muscular systems until, eventually,
your gravity will become as natural to us as our own is now.
"When this time comes, it is our hope that you and a
few other members of your race, who have retained sufficiently open minds, will
be able to assist us in bridging the considerable gulf which exists between our
culture and yours. However, as I have said before, we will never attempt to
force either our knowledge or our culture upon you and will never come to your
people unless there is substantial evidence that they desire it.
"It is true that the purpose of this expedition is
not entirely philanthropic. There are some materials upon your planet which we
could use to the advantage of both our peoples, material which you have in
great abundance but which are rather scarce elsewhere in this solar system.
While we desire the use of these materials, our service to your people will not
be made contingent upon such use. Any knowledge or assistance which we can give
will be freely offered."
"Could you explain to me the principles of operation
of this craft?" Fry asked. "How do you produce the tremendous amounts
of energy necessary to accelerate a ship like this to such high velocities, and
how do you apply that energy without producing any outward evidence of its
application?"
"In order to do this," was the reply, "I
would have to give you an entirely new groundwork in Basic Physics. As I said
before, your science is attempting to make one lower limb take the place of the
entire tree of knowledge, with the result that your science has become greatly
overcomplicated. Then, when this science is applied to practical ends, the
resulting apparatus becomes prohibitively complex. For example, certain
engineers and scientists of your country are now engaged in planning a
submarine to be driven by what you call atomic or nuclear energy.* They plan to
do this by constructing a 'pile' in which the lighter isotope of
* This craft, the Nautilus, was completed on 17 January, 1955. Two years later it was reported that she had travelled 20,000 miles to
the Atlantic without refuelling.
27
uranium fissions producing heat energy and free neutrons
which are absorbed by the heavier isotope of uranium converting it into the
next heavier element in the transuranic series which also, in turn, is
fissionable. This method, while rather complicated, is still the most potent
source of energy differential which your people have yet produced, but in order
to convert this heat energy into propulsion of the ship, they plan to circulate
a working fluid through the 'pile' to absorb the heat; circulate the 'working
fluid' through a heat exchanger to convert another fluid to vapour under
pressure, pass the vapour through a turbine to produce torque and, finally, use
the turbine to drive a generator to produce an electrical current. If they
achieve an overall efficiency of thirty per cent it will be a great feat of
engineering.
"If they were capable of thinking in simpler terms,
they could. with the knowledge which they now possess, construct a simple
thermopile about the fission pile and convert the resulting temperature
gradient directly into electric energy with an efficiency of at least
ninety-four to ninety-eight per cent, with no moving parts, at a smaller cost,
and considerably less mass per unit of energy output. Compared with our
methods, even this system would seem wastefully complex.
"Your greatest need is to discover the utter
simplicity of the basic laws or facts of nature. Then you will easily be able
to produce effects which now seem to you to be impossible.
"When your engineers design a vehicle for
transportation of freight or passengers, they feel it necessary to provide a
means of producing an energy differential within the vehicle itself as a motive
power. Yet your ancestors, for thousands of years travelled to all parts of
your planet in ships which had no internal energy source but which were
operated entirely by the kinetic energy of the atmosphere. While this was not
always a reliable source, it was sufficiently successful that it should have
made your people realise that there are many types of energy differential
constantly available and it
28
is only necessary to design a means whereby the flow of
energy can be made to produce the desired result.
"One of the principal obstacles to the rapid progress
of your science is that your scientists have not yet fully grasped the simple
unity of matter and energy. One of your greatest thinkers, a professor, Albert
Einstein, published, many years ago, the mathematical formula which described
quantitatively the equivalence of matter and energy. This formula, while
perfectly correct mathematically, leads to the incorrect conclusion that matter
is convertible into energy and vice versa. The truth is that matter and energy
are merely different aspects of the same entity.
"Consider a geometric plane surface having two
dimensions. If this plane is perpendicular to your line of sight you perceive
it as a plane surface. This represents the matter aspect of the entity. If now
you rotate the plane through an angle of ninety degrees, the surface will
disappear from your sight. leaving only one dimension. This is the energy aspect
of the entity. You have not changed the plane in any way. You have merely
changed your point of view, or technically you have changed your point of
reference.
"The amount of energy which is apparently contained
by a given body of matter depends entirely upon how far it has rotated upon the
mass-energy axis with respect to the given observer. Another observer,
observing the same body from a different reference point, would find an
entirely different amount of energy contained.
"Assume that we have an observer upon each of two
planets which are travelling through Space at, say, half the speed of light,
but which are travelling at exactly the same speed and upon parallel courses.
If no other bodies of matter existed in the Universe, the observers would inevitably
come to the conclusion that their respective planets had no kinetic energy,
since the only reference points available are at the same energy level. If we
now postulate a third planet, and assume that it is at rest in Space, both
observers will note that. while their respective planets have no kinetic energy
relative to each other, they both have a very high energy
29
with respect to the third body. There would still be no
means of determining which of the bodies were actually moving. It could only be
determined that there was a relative motion or an energy differential between
them.
"Another clue which your Dr. Einstein brought to
light through abstract mathematical reasoning was that, as a body of matter
increases in velocity, its dimension decreases in the direction of motion. When
the body reaches the velocity of light, it ceases to have any dimension in the
direction of motion. This, of course, is because it has rotated upon the mass
energy axis, relative to that observer, until it has ceased to be matter and
has become pure energy. Thus you will see that it requires 9 x 1020
ergs of energy to accelerate one gram of mass to the speed of light. Since at
this velocity it ceases to be matter, it is obvious that no amount of energy
could further increase its velocity with respect to the given reference point.
"However, there will be time enough for further
discussions of physics later. Since this is principally a sight-seeing tour, I
should be pointing out the sights to you.
"The large city to the north of you is Saint Louis,
and the glow on the horizon dead ahead is Cincinnati. You will be over it in
less than two minutes, and soon after you will be able to see the lights of Pittsburg.
"You see that we have learned a great deal of your
geography as well as your language. Your history is not so well known to us,
since your race does not think much in terms of the past. Of course the history
of the original civilisations are much better known to us than to your
race."
This last statement did not register on Fry's
consciousness at the time, as he was engrossed in watching the lights of Cincinnati
swimming silently toward him on the Earth's surface thirty-five miles below.
Due to their eastward travel, he knew that the Moon must
be almost directly overhead, but the surface of the Earth gave little evidence
of its reflected light. The greenish phosphorescence which he had seen when
rising in New Mexico, had almost disappeared. He had never heard any
30
estimate of the Earth's albedo,* but, judging from its
almost total darkness at this level, he thought that the reflectivity of the
land areas at least, must be very low. Of course it was only moonlight he was
judging by, and he was not nearly far enough from the Earth's surface to form
any true estimate of the albedo.
The lights of Cincinnati were almost underneath Fry now.
There were too many lights, and they were too close together to distinguish
many of them individually. The general effect was that of looking down upon a
bonfire, which had burned down to a bed of bright coals, with a few much
brighter points which flashed and sparkled like rhinestones in a spotlight.
Of course Cincinnati was not the only city visible from
this point. At an altitude of thirty-five miles the line of sight becomes very
long, and even in the restricted area of the viewing screen, he could see, at
any one time, literally hundreds of various size "embers," sparkles
and pin-points of light, all representing human habitations, enterprises, or
guiding beacons.
"You will be over New York City in a few
minutes," Fry heard the voice inside hire say. "And I am going to
begin to bring you down to the twenty mile level. Since the craft in which you
are riding was not designed to carry passengers (the passenger compartment
being only an emergency provision) it was not considered necessary to provide
complete negative gravity compensation such as we have in all of our larger
ships. Consequently, as you start downward, you will be accelerating in the
direction of your own gravity, so that your body weight will become somewhat
less. If this becomes distressing to you I will lower the rate of
acceleration."
Fry felt a mild lifting of stomach, such as one feels when
starting down in rather a slow elevator, except that in this case the sensation
persisted for about thirty seconds. Then his weight became normal again."
You are now moving downward at a constant rate which
* i.e. the amount of light reflected by the surface of a
heavenly body.
31
will bring you to the proper level in another minute. The levelling
off process, of course, involves positive gravity acceleration, so you will not
feel it. You did not seem to be greatly disturbed by the gravity change, but
since your race has not yet developed gravity compensation devices for your
transportation vehicles, I suppose that you may be more inured to such changes
than we."
"If you think that I should be distressed by a change
as mild as that," Fry replied laughing, " you should try riding one
of our roller coasters or doing an 'outside loop ' in one of our ' squirt jobs
'"
"Just a moment," the voice sounded puzzled. "I
am afraid that you have me at a disadvantage. I had flattered myself that my
understanding of your language was practically perfect. Yet you have just used
two terms whose meaning is unknown to me. Would you please explain them or give
me synonyms?"
"You mean ‘roller coaster' and 'squirt job '?"
Fry asked. "The roller coaster is a mechanical device found in many of our
amusement parks. It consists of a low open car with seats for passengers and
equipped with hand rails for the rider to grip. It has steel wheels which roll
upon a pair of steel tracks laid upon an elevated framework. When the
passengers have taken their seats, the car is connected to a moving chain
between the tracks, which tows the car to the highest point in the structure.
There the car is released from the chain and gravity is allowed to take over.
The tracks dip downward at a very sharp angle, until they reach the ground
level and then again rise sharply almost to the level of the starting point.
These sudden climbs and drops are repeated a number of times, and there are
several steeply banked short radius turns so that the track is circular, and at
the conclusion of the ride the passengers have been returned to their point of
departure, and the car is ready for another load of thrill seekers.
"The feeling of exhilaration produced by the ride is
caused by the fact that the reflex portion of the brain, upon sensing the rapid
change of gravity, causes adrenalin to be
32
released into the blood stream. This, of course, occurs
whenever the body is confronted by sudden peril, but in this case, the rider
knows that there is no real danger. So he is able to enjoy the stimulation
produced by the adrenalin without being subject to any actual hazard.
"A 'squirt job ' is a term in American 'slanguage '
which refers to one of our jet propelled aircraft. I presume that you are fully
familiar with these since you should have had ample opportunity to study them.
An 'outside loop' is a manoeuvre in which the aircraft describes a circle in a
vertical plane with the upper side of the craft remaining at the outer
periphery of the circle."
"Thank you," replied Fry's host. "I know
now that we made no mistake when we chose you as a means of direct contact.
"You are now on the twenty mile level, and your city
of New York lies before you. The craft is approaching it from the north-west
side and will continue on this course until it reaches the ocean at the
north-east extremity of the city. It will then circle the city until it is travelling
westward. At the same time the craft will rotate so that the viewing screen
will always be toward the centre of the city. Your velocity has been reduced to
about six hundred miles per hour so that you will have more time to enjoy the
view."
Fry looked out of the vimana, or rather looked on the door
screen at the wonderful sight spread out before him. He wished he were a writer
so he could find suitable words to describe the wonderful sight below him. He
peered down at the greatest city in the Western Hemisphere and was thrilled.
At the twenty mile level the lights were much brighter and
had greater individuality than they had seemed to have from the higher level.
This was no glowing bed of coals with a few brighter sparks but a vast array of
millions of blue white diamonds, scintillating and coruscating against a black
velvet background. The differing temperatures of the various air strata beneath
the vimana, combined with its rapid motion, caused the lights to twinkle violently,
so that
33
the entire city was a sea of pulsing, shimmering
luminescence. "If I were an artist," thought Fry, " this would
probably be the greatest moment of my life, but my hunger for knowledge must
greatly exceed my appreciation of purely aesthetic values. Beautiful as this
scene is and interesting as the ride has been, I would gladly have traded it
all for a five minute tour of the vunu or mother ship."
"We regret that there was not enough time to arrange
such a tour," was the reply. "But you will remember that we are not
yet adapted to your atmosphere and as you yourself said if you were to come
into our vunu you would have to bring your atmosphere with you. 1It is true
that, given enough time, we could have prepared a suit such as your people wear
when they go beneath the surface of the sea. This would have enabled you to
come into our vunu without changing either your atmosphere or ours. But this
would have required considerable time. While we are not nearly so enslaved by
time as your race appears to he, nevertheless, we are aboard a craft which
derives its operating energy principally from natural differential sources and
we, even as the sailors of your race, often find it necessary to ‘sail with the
tide.'
"We must leave this area shortly. but we will return
to your planet within a few months. We have stored enough of your atmosphere to
mix with ours for the time we will be gone. When we return we will contact you
again."
34
5
ANIEL FRY WAS disappointed, but at
least he had the hope of seeing the vimana again-but it must not come to White
Sands.
"I will not be at the Proving Grounds then," he
said. "My work here will be finished and I will have to return to California.
Incidentally I don't even know your name. Do you people have Christian
names?"
"We have names," was the reply, "Though
there is seldom any occasion to use them among our own people. If I become a
member of your race, I shall use the name of Alan, which is a common name in
your country and is nearly the same as my Christian name, which is Aylan. As to
your being in California when we return this should make little difference in
our ability to contact you. As I said, your mind receives well. In fact, if you
had a little more practice in resolving mental images, it might have been
possible for us to have shown you the details of our own craft without the
necessity of your being in it."
"I should like very much to attempt this,"
declared Fry. "The best way to improve is to practise, and if the details
of your vunus are too difficult as a starter, how about trying me out on the
details of the vimana I am in? If I close my eyes and concentrate, won't it be
possible for you to give me at least a cross-sectional view of this ship?"
"Hardly." Aylan replied a little dryly,
"You are making the error which your people almost always make, when
attempting what you define as extra-sensory perception. In the first place, it
isn't 'extra-sensory' at all. It is just as much a part of the body's normal
perception equipment as any of the other senses, except that it has been used
so little
35
by your people that it is still in a rudimentary state of
development. Some of your animals and many of your insects have developed this
sense to a higher degree than your people.
"You have been accustomed from birth to receiving and
resolving visual impressions with your eyes open. You will remember that when
you first learned to use a microscope, you were taught that even though there
was only one eyepiece, it was best to keep both eyes open. Therefore, do not
close your eyes. I will turn off the viewing beam so that there will be no
distracting influence.
"Secondly, do not concentrate. Concentration is the
attitude of transmission and is almost a complete bar to reception. To receive
properly you must achieve a state of complete relaxation. This you have the
ability to do, an ability which is remarkable in one of your race.
"In fact it was through this ability, that I first
made contact with your mind. It was three nights ago. You had returned to your
bed but found it difficult to sleep because the pressure of the events of the
day had been unusually great. You made use of a mental device which was very
interesting to me because of its simplicity and effectiveness. Do you remember
what it was?"
"Oh yes," replied Fry quickly. "I use it
often when sleep doesn't come readily. I simply visualise a room which is
completely dark except for ten luminous numerals on the far wall of the room. I
focus my attention upon these numerals until all other thoughts have been
excluded from my consciousness. I then begin, one by one to erase the numerals
keeping my mind focused upon the remaining ones, but lowering the degree of
concentration with each erasure. I usually fall asleep while there are still
several numbers to go, but in no case have I ever remained conscious more than
a few seconds after the last one is gone."
"Exactly," Aylan replied. "And not only
does this process relax the conscious mind but it also returns all extraneous
thoughts to their proper place in the filing cabinet of the unconscious portion
of the mind. Under these conditions
36
the unconscious mind transmits and receives much more
readily than the conscious mind ever does.
"I should, perhaps, be ashamed to admit it, but in
your case the temptation was too great to resist, and I am afraid that I
ransacked your mind as perhaps no mind has ever been ransacked before. I think
I can fairly say that I know much more about you than you know about yourself.
What I found in your mind was not all that could be desired. Of course, life
has been rather harsh with you at times, and I found many scars and a few
wounds which are still only half healed. I also found that these same
buffetings of fate had given you an unusual depth and breadth of perception and
understanding. I decided then that you would be an ideal contact.
"But again we have strayed from the project at hand.
I was going to suggest that you use your own method of relaxing your mind. Keep
your eyes upon the area of the viewing screen which is now dark, and when your
mind is relaxed, I will attempt to give you a mental picture of the interior of
the craft in which you are riding."
It was not necessary for Daniel Fry to visualise a
darkened room for with the viewing beam turned off, the compartment in which he
was riding was totally dark. He had no difficulty in visualising the luminous
numerals on the area of the viewing screen, but when he attempted to exclude
the dozens of questions which were beating an insistent tattoo upon the fringe
of his consciousness, he found it practically impossible. Eventually he gave up
trying to exclude them entirely, and sweeping them as far back as possible, he
began to erase the numerals. So great is the force of habit that, as he
mentally erased the numerals, his mind cleared so that by the time he reached
the last one he was almost asleep.
With the removal of the last numeral, Fry became aware of
a picture upon the viewing screen which he had not noticed before. It did not
appear suddenly. It seemed as though it had always been there but that he was
seeing it for the first time. In the left hand portion of the picture he recognised
the compartment in which he was riding and he knew that the picture must
represent the interior of the
37
entire craft. He heard a voice coming to him but this time
as from a distance. Somehow he knew that it was Aylan's voice even though the
timbre had changed entirely. The voice he had been hearing had been crisp and
almost sharp. This one was soft and flowing, with an almost musical quality.
"You are seeing the parts of the ship and its
mechanism which your mind is capable of grasping. The large drum like structure
just above the central bulkhead is the differential accumulator. It is
essentially a storage battery which is capable of being charged from any of a
number of natural energy differentials which may be available. By the word
'charged,' I merely mean that a potential difference is created between two
poles of the accumulator. The material of the poles has available free
electrons in quantities beyond anything of which you could conceive. The
control mechanism allows these electrons to flow through the two force rings
which you see at the top and bottom of the craft. You are familiar enough with
electrodynamics to know that a moving electron creates a magnetic field. The
tremendous surge of electrons through the force rings produces a very strong
magnetic field. Since the direction and amplitude of flow can be controlled
through either ring, and in several paths through a 'single' ring. we can
produce a field which is in opposition or in conjunction with any magnetic
field through which we wish to travel. This also gives us control of the
attitude of the craft with respect to the given field.
"All bodies of matter which are in motion have
magnetic fields about them for the reason just given that all matter contains
electrons and all electrons in motion produce magnetic fields. The magnetic
field of your Earth is very weak in proportion to its gravitational field and
it may be difficult for you to understand how acceleration against a strong
field can be produced by opposition to a weak one. Just remember what happens
when you bring together the 'like' or opposing poles of two 'permanent '
magnets, how the lines of force are pushed outward almost perpendicular to
their normal position. So the field of the craft fans outward
38
until it intersects sufficient lines of the Earth's field
to produce the required repulsion.
"You may have wondered how long you could breathe the
air in the small passenger compartment before it became stuffy and vitiated.
You can see here that there are small vents beneath each of the two rear seats
with a mechanism to circulate the air from the cargo hold through the passenger
compartment. There is no means, in this vimana of renewing the air, but the
large volume of air in the hold would in an emergency supply even four
passengers with adequate oxygen for many hours.
"The case which you see just above the differential
accumulator contains the control equipment. There is no particular point in
going into this since you are already familiar with many types of remote
control equipment and servo mechanisms. While ours are infinitely simpler and
more dependable than yours, here again it would require several hours of
reorientation in physics to give you an understanding of their operation.
"Our time is running out. We have returned you at a
velocity somewhat greater than that of the outward trip and you are now almost
directly above your point of departure. Since your people, unlike ours, appear
to derive a certain degree of pleasure or as you call it 'thrill' from
experiencing wide variations of gravity, we can, if you wish, produce during
the descent, a condition approaching Zero Gravity or what ,ou would term a
'free fall.' To reach this condition fully would be distressing to anyone, as
well as somewhat dangerous, but we can approach it closely enough so that while
you will still retain some stability you will experience the sensation of
weightlessness."
The sudden realisation that the trip was nearly over
snapped Fry out of the state of semi-trance in which he had been since he had
first entered the craft.
"O.K.," cried Fry. "Try it. I want to
experience the feeling."
Instantly the compartment light came on. After the total
darkness in which Fry had been, the light was blinding.
39
While he was attempting to adjust his eyes to the light,
his stomach suddenly leaped upward into his chest. For a moment he could
plainly feel his heart beating against the lower end of his throat, while his
lungs and other upper organs seemed determined to extrude through his ears. He
had been through steep dives and sharp pull-outs in aeroplanes, and had ridden
many amusement devices calculated to produce the feeling of weightlessness, but
had never felt anything like this before. There was no sensation of falling.
Fry simply felt as though his organs having been released from a heavy strain,
were springing upward like elastic bands when released from tension.
Fortunately this sensation was of short duration. In a few seconds he felt
almost normal again.
"I don't feel very weightless now," Fry thought
and pushed down sharply with his hands on either side of the seat. He rose in a
slow and more or less graceful sweep, almost to the ceiling of the compartment.
His rise would have been more graceful except that he had apparently applied
the force somewhat to the rear of his centre of gravity so that his body tipped
forward as he rose and also rotated to his left. By the time he had started to
fall back he was almost head downward and was forced to reach out and grasp the
back of the seat to right himself. The result was that he came to rest with his
knees in the chair and his eyes only a few inches from the back cushion.
It was then that Fry saw something which he had overlooked
when he had first entered the ship. It was only a simple design imprinted in
the material of the seat, but he recognised the symbol and the recognition must
have produced a powerful mental shock wave which Aylan misinterpreted for fear
or pain, for the gravity was immediately normalised, causing him to experience
another rough moment as his organs all attempted to occupy the space normally
assigned to his intestines.
"What is it?" Fry heard Aylan's voice, and for
the first time there seemed to be a definite trace of concern. Then
40
"Oh. I see you have noticed the symbol and recognised
its significance."
"Yes," Fry answered. "Anyone who has ever
read to any extent would recognise the symbol of the tree and the serpent. It
is found in the original inscriptions and legends of every race on Earth. It
has always seemed to me to be a peculiarly Earthly symbol and it was startling
to see it appear from the depths of Space or from whatever planet you call
home."
"These are things which I had hoped to put off until
our next contact," Aylan said. " There is so much to tell and so
little time. Our ancestors came originally from this Earth. They had built a
great empire and a mighty science upon the Continent which your legends call `Mu'
or 'Lemuria.' At the same time, there was also a great empire upon the
Continent of Atlantis.*
"There was rivalry in science. Friendly at first, but
becoming bitter with the years, as each nation flaunted its achievements in the
face of the other. In a few centuries their science had passed the point of
development which exists here now. Not content with releasing a few crumbs of
the binding energy of the atom, as your physicists are doing now, they had
learned to rotate entire masses upon the energy axis. Under the circumstances
it was inevitable that the two nations should eventually destroy each other,
just as the two major nations of the Earth of to-day are preparing to do.
"But this discussion must wait until we return. Our
time is more than up. Already it is requiring too much energy to keep our ship
in its present position and we cannot abandon the cargo vimana. It is on the
ground and I will open the door. So long for now, Dan. Take care of yourself
until we return."
♦ ♦ ♦
Like a person walking in his sleep. Daniel Fry stepped
down from the floor of the vimana and stumbled a dozen
* See my The Coming of the Space Ships- Author.
41
paces through the sand, before turning to look back. The
door had closed behind him and as he turned, a horizontal band of orange coloured
light appeared about the central part of the Space Ship and it leaped upward as
though it had been released from a catapult. The air rushing in to replace that
which had been displaced upward, impelled Fry a full step forward and almost
caused him to lose his balance. He managed to keep his eyes on the Space craft
while the hand of light went through the colours of the spectrum, from orange
to violet. By this time it was several thousand feet in the air and as the
light passed through the violet band the vimana disappeared entirely from his
sight.
A strong sense of depression settled over Daniel Fry. He
felt as though his work and his life had lost all of its significance. A few
hours before, he had been a rather self-satisfied technician setting up
instrumentation for the testing of one of the largest rocket motors ever built.
While he realised that his part in the programme was a small one, nevertheless
he had felt as though he were at least travelling in the forefront of progress.
Now he knew that the motor, even before it was tested. was pitifully obsolete.
Fry had to face the fact that he was a small and insignificant cog in a clumsy
and backward science, which was moving only toward its own destruction. For a
long true he stood in the sand, looking from the crumpled patch of brush up to
the stars.
♦ ♦ ♦
Aylan had said that they would return in a few months, and
that when they did, they would get in touch with Fry again. Did they really
mean it or was it just a polite parting gesture? Fry reflected that there must
be thousands of people in the United States who could be of more assistance to
them than he could be. He had only one course of action open, to wait and hope
....
42
6
ANIEL FRY NEVER lost hope of
hearing from Aylan again. He went about his duties with Aerojet confident that
he would hear from them once more, though he never ceased to wonder why they
chose him as the man through whom they passed their messages to Earth people.
His patience was at last rewarded-four long years after his first contact.
Fry owns a small house in the Woods, right up in the Cascade
mountains in Oregon, the State to the north of California. Thither he had
repaired to spend Easter 1954. He was excited. Something told him that at long
last he was going to meet Aylan. Why he felt like this he did not know but the
premonition was there, all the same. Indeed, to find the solitude he needed to
make contact he had left bustling Los Angeles and repaired to this quiet spot
in Oregon, some eleven miles north-west of Grant's Pass, Josephine County, in
glorious wild and rugged mountain country-a splendid change from the noise,
heat, and dust of Los Angeles.
It was several days before anything happened. Then, on 21 April, 1 954, when in a quiet woodland glade near his house Daniel Fry clearly heard Aylan's
voice.
"You have been very patient, Dan."
"Is that you, Aylan? I had a premonition that I
should hear your voice again."
"Yes, I am Aylan," replied the voice. "I
have come to reward you for your patience."
"Where are you?"
"I am on the vunu."
"So you were before, but I cannot see the vimana.
Where is it?"
43
"All our vimanas are on the vunu."
"What?" Fry's voice sounded disappointed.
"I was looking forward to another ride."
Aylan chuckled.
"No, Dan, not this time. We know you have been
patient, but your reward is not going to be what you anticipated."
"What is it going to be, Aylan?" Fry asked, disappointment still
evident by the tone of his voice.
"What do you think? " teased Aylan.
"I don't know," said Fry, puzzled. "A
display of vunus and vimanas in formation escorted by a crowd of vidyas
perhaps."
"No, think how that would draw the attention of your
air force. Try again, Dan."
"I really cannot think . . . " Fry paused.
"But tell me where the vunu is."
"Several hundred miles above Oregon."
Instinctively Fry looked upwards.
"No, it's useless to try and see us, as we are far
too high. We are beyond the range of your aircraft here, and as you can
imagine, the chance of a powerful telescope finding us is remote. Rather
naturally we do not hover in the vicinity of observatories like Palomar when we
do not wish to be seen."
"But what are you going to do?" asked Fry.
"I'm coming to that." replied Aylan. "I'm
not going to do anything, but I'm going to tell you some scientific facts that
will be new to you Earth men-a different way of looking at several important
scientific fundamentals, which will revolutionise scientific thought on your
world."
"But why tell me?" protested Fry.
"Because you are just the man we want," answered
Aylan. "You are a scientist and will understand the terminology necessary
in such an explanation. However, to make it clear, I shall only refer to
discoveries made by Earth scientists, and will not assume knowledge of anything
that is not known to your scientists already."
44
"What have you got to tell me?" asked Fry, now
full of anticipation.
"It might be wise," began Aylan, " first to
devote a little time to the consideration of what we will call the ' nonlinearity
of physical law.'
"A few years ago, your physical laws were considered
to be linear. That is: you had, by trial and error, by observation and test,
developed a set of laws which apparently held true for all of the small segment
of nature which you were able to observe at the time. You assumed, therefore,
that these laws would hold true in any segment of nature, no matter how far
removed from your point of observation. When however, the study of physics
moved into the microcosm, that is, when you began to examine the interior of
the atom, you found there a set of laws which did not agree with those to which
you had been accustomed. They, too, appeared to be linear, but operated at an
angle to your established laws.
"The same disturbing situation was discovered in the
macrocosm. When your astronomers developed the giant telescope capable of
peering many millions of light years into Space, they found there, still
another set of laws operating apparently at an angle to both of the others. For
a time, you attempted to accustom yourselves to the existence of three sets of
physical laws, each set linear within its own range of observation, but each
set operating angularly with respect to others. Then, with the development of
the principles of relativity, you began to realise, or at least you should have
realised, that these different sets of linear laws were not actually linear,
nor were they different sets of laws, but that they were simply three segments
of the one great curve of natural law.
"As long as you were dealing with quantities which
could be observed with the unaided eye or with simple instruments, you were
unable to detect the curvature, because the segment you were observing
constituted such a tiny portion of the curve that its deviation from linearity
was too slight to be detected. For most practical purposes connected with the
ordinary mechanics of your daily lives, these laws are
45
still considered to be linear. Calculations are simpler
when they are so considered, and the resulting error is negligible. For the
same reason, a surveyor who is surveying a small lot of land does not find it
necessary to take into consideration the curvature of your Earth, because the
error resulting from this neglect is not detectable even by the most sensitive
of his instruments. If, however, the surveyor is to make accurate measurements
of large areas such as a state or a continent, it does become imperative to
consider the curvature of the Earth's surface, and to do this, of course, it is
necessary to have a reasonably accurate knowledge of the radius of that
curvature.
"The necessity of an accurate determination of the
radius of curvature of the natural laws was first realised perhaps by Dr.
Einstein, who devoted a large part of his life's work to this problem. The
results which he obtained have filled a number of text-books, and have been of
inestimable value in the progress of the physical science. They proved to be
the key which opened the door to the utilisation of nuclear energy, and as soon
as a successful effort is made to reduce these mathematical formulae to simple
concepts easily grasped by the mind, these concepts, together with the
additional truths which will then become self-evident, will open the door to
Space travel with a surety and ease which you would now find hardly possible
even to imagine.
"The difficulty with your present mathematical
approach to the problem of relativity lies not in any error of the mathematics
themselves, but in the fact that the methods and terms used in the attempt to
explain them often lead to incorrect thinking and assumptions.
"For example: the best known formula, perhaps, which
has emerged from the study of relativity, is the expression E=MC2,
which simply states that the .quantity, of energy (in ergs) which is inherent in
any mass, is equal to the number of grams of that mass. multiplied by the
square of the quantity C. The quantity C you consider to be a constant, in fact
the only constant which has survived in a relativistic world.
46
"In almost every text-book on physics on your Earth
today the statement is made that the quantity C represents the velocity of
light (in centimetres per second), yet every student in your world who has
studied the subject, knows that the velocity of light is not a constant. That
its velocity, in fact, varies slightly with each different medium through which
it is propagated. Any student who has ever passed a beam of sunlight through a
prism to produce a spectrum of colour has demonstrated that not only does the
velocity of light vary in different media, but that the change in velocity
varies somewhat with the frequency of the light when propagated in material
media. This, of course, is the principle upon which all of your spectroscopes
are designed, although most text-books state merely that the light is refracted
or ' bent ' in passing from one medium to another. There are many who will
dispute the statement that the change in velocity varies with the frequency,
but when sufficiently precise tests are made, entirely within a single medium, the
results indicate convincingly that this is true."
"Yes, but the quantity C refers to the velocity of
light in a perfect vacuum, but where in the Universe can we find a perfect
vacuum in which to test this assertion?" objected Fry. "Astronomers
and physicists have estimated that even in the remotest depths of intergalactic
Space there will probably be found, from three to seven nuclear or atomic
particles per cubic centimetre. A beam of light travelling at approximately 3 x
1010 centimetres per second would still encounter a rather large
number of such particles during each second of its journey. While it is true
that the proportionate decrease in velocity which would be produced by this
minute concentration of matter is so small that it might be negligible for all
practical purposes of measurement, nevertheless it demonstrates the fact that
we have chosen as our sole remaining 'constant ' a quantity which actually can
never be a perfect constant anywhere in the known Universe."
"Fortunately there is a value to which the quantity C
can be assigned which is a constant," replied Aylan. " More over the
assignment of the quantity C to this factor makes
47
possible a much better understanding of the natural laws
involved in the propagation of energy.
"The quantity C is actually the kinetic energy
equivalent of the mass energy of matter. In other words, if we take a gram (or
any other quantity of matter: Newtonian mass) and convert that matter gradually
into energy according to the formula E=MC2, and if the resultant
energy, as it appeared, were constantly applied to the remaining matter in such
a way as to accelerate it uniformly in a given direction, when all the matter
had been so converted you would find that you had zero Newtonian mass, infinite
inertial mass, and a resultant velocity equal to the quantity C, or
approximately 3 x 1010 centimetres per second (with respect to the
given reference or starting point). The maximum velocity attained would always
be the same, regardless of the quantity of matter with which you started. This
is a fact which can easily be verified by anyone who is mathematically
inclined, and who is familiar with the laws of acceleration. The energy
required to accelerate each gram of mass to the velocity C through energy
conversion is exactly equal to the total energy inherent in any matter having
that mass.
"This fact forms the true basis of the statement in
our present day physics that the velocity C is a maximum or limiting velocity,
since it represents the greatest kinetic energy differential which can exist
between two given reference points. Since a good understanding of this concept
is of great importance, I will refer to it again, and discuss more fully when I
come to energy and matter.
"You must always remember that your ordinary physical
laws, as they are usually expressed, do not hold true when carried to an extent
which permits the error to be measured, because they do not follow a straight
line reaching to infinity, but a curve of finite radius. In a timeless
Universe, this curve would be represented by a circle, but since the laws
operate through time as well as space, the curve is more readily understood if
depicted as a ' sine wave.' In this case the base line of the wave represents
zero, and the portions
48
above and below the line represent the positive and
negative aspects of the law.
"Thus we see that there are points and conditions in
which the natural laws reach zero value with respect to a given reference
point, and that beyond these points the laws become negative, reversing their
effect with respect to the observer."
"The constant repetition of the term 'reference
point' or 'observer' is necessary to emphasise the frequently unrecognised fact
that none of the basic factors of nature have any reality or significance except
when considered from a specified position or condition."
49
7
ERHAPS THE GREATEST obstacle to
Mans achievement of his dream of Space travel has been a factor which has been
given the name of gravity," went on Aylan.
" Its 'discovery' is usually credited, in your
elementary school text-books, to a seventeenth-century mathematician and
physicist, Sir Isaac Newton. Actually, of course, every man 'discovers '
gravity soon after birth and the stone-age man who first rolled a boulder down
upon the head of the cave bear who was attempting to scramble up the cliff
after him was making a practical application of this force. It was, however,
Sir Isaac Newton who first made a complete mathematical analysis of the subject
on your Earth. His conclusions were compatible with subsequent observation and
test, and were virtually unchallenged until the dawn of the era of relativity.
"In brief, his conclusions were that gravity is a
quality which is inherent in all matter, and that it manifests itself as a
mutual attraction between all bodies of matter. The value of this attraction
between any two given bodies was said to be directly proportionate to the
product of their mass, and inversely proportionate to the square of the
distance between them. The attraction between the Earth and an object near its
surface is known as the weight of the object. The difficulty with the statement
that the force varies inversely as the square of the distance lies in the
implication that if the distance becomes zero, the force should become
infinite. Thus it would at first seem that a man standing or lying upon the
surface of the Earth would be one of two bodies between whom the distance was zero,
therefore, the weight of the man should be infinitely great. The reply to
50
this assumption is that the force acts as though it
originated at the centre of the mass, called the ' centre of gravity,' and that
the man on the surface of the Earth is still some four thousand miles from its
centre of gravity. This explanation, however, creates a new problem in that, if
we accept it literally, we must assume that if there were a well or shaft
extending to the centre of the Earth, and if a man descended this shaft, his
weight would increase as he approached the centre of gravity, becoming infinite
as he reached it. Actually, of course. his weight would decrease. becoming zero
when his centre of gravity coincided with that of the Earth. So the are forced
to the further explanation that gravity is inherent, not in ' bodies,' but in
particles of matter, and since a mail at the centre of the Earth would have an
equal number of particles attracting him from every direction, the resultant of
the forces would be zero.
"If we assume the gravity to reside independently
within each atom, our problem is solved as far as the marl and the Earth are
concerned, but if we look within the atom itself in the attempt to find the
point where the distance becomes zero. and the force infinite, we find that the
same problem again confronts us. We have not solved it, the have only changed
our scale of observation. There is conclusive evidence that the attraction,
called the binding energy, which exists between the Newtonian particles (the
protons and the neutrons) is intense almost beyond our ability to describe.
This force, however, does not increase uniformly with increasing mass, but at
certain points not only reaches zero but actually becomes negative.
"We can demonstrate this fact by adding a single unit
of Newtonian mass, a neutron to the nucleus of an atom of uranium 235. When
this is clone, we find that the gravitational force within the nucleus, instead
of increasing actually becomes negative. that is. the attraction between its
parts becomes a repulsion, and the parts begin to separate with considerable
brisance. During the expansion. however, several new centres of gravity are
formed. which, because of the smaller amount of mass involved in each, are
strongly
51
positive. The result is that two or more simpler atoms are
formed, plus a few neutrons which have acquired too great a velocity to be
captured by this regrouping process.
"This phenomenon, if carefully examined and
considered, will furnish several strong clues to the nature of gravity itself,
but let us for the moment content ourselves with the observation that it
demonstrates that a gravitational field can, under certain conditions, become
negative.
"Because of the manner in which our gravitational
laws have been expressed, it has commonly been assumed that a gravitational
force can manifest itself only as an attraction between two bodies of matter.
This is not, however a necessity of thought, since there is no logical reason
why it should necessarily be true: In fact. if it were true, it would set
gravitational fields apart as the only force fields with which you are familiar
which could not produce a repulsion, as well as an attraction between bodies of
matter. The reason for the assumption of a universal attraction is simply that
all of your early and limited observations seemed to indicate that this was true.
However, as I have already mentioned, any number of observations, if made on a
sufficiently limited scale, will tend to indicate that the Earth is flat,
rather than spherical.
"For many years a school of thought existed which recognised
that gravitational fields, like all other fields, must possess a dual polarity.
They called these poles gravity and levity. They assumed that some objects and
materials normally possessed the quality of levity, while others normally
possessed the quality of gravity. An object possessing levity would be repelled
by all objects possessing gravity. The theory eventually became discredited,
and was almost universally discarded, not because it was ever disproved, but
because so many attempts had been made to assign this quality of levity to
objects and materials which did not actually possess it. For instance it was,
for a time, assumed that gases such as hydrogen and helium possessed levity
because when they were contained in a light bag or envelope, they were observed
to rise against the gravitational field. It
52
was soon demonstrated, however, that their rise was
caused, not by any quality of levity, but simply because of the fact that their
specific gravity was less than that of the air they displaced. After a number
of unsuccessful attempts to assign the quality of levity to specific materials
or objects, the theory fell into disrepute to the extent that the very word
levity has become synonymous with humorous nonsense. Nevertheless, the Earthly
philosophers who developed the theory were perfectly correct in their primary
postulate. They erred only, in failing to realise that gravity and levity are
not properties of specific materials but are conditions under which all matter
may come.
"We have now observed negative gravitation in the
microcosm (the interior of the atom). we also observe it in the macrocosm
(between the galaxies).
"Many technical articles have been written in recent
years concerning 'Our Expanding Universe.' yet where, in any of them can you
find any logical explanation or reason why it should expand at all? Under the
theory of universal attraction. all of the matter in the Universe should be
rapidly coalescing into one gigantic lump. Instead, we find that every one of
the large groups of stars which we call 'galaxies,' is rapidly retreating from
every other group, at velocities which increase with their distance from the
observer. Velocities of recession exceeding twenty-five thousand miles per
second have been calculated.
"A number of interesting but hardly convincing
theories have been advanced in the attempt to reconcile the observed state of
the Universe with the existing concept of universal attraction. Some of your
cosmic theorists have proposed that at one time all of the matter in the
Universe was contained in a single tremendous star, or 'atom.' For some reason which
is not given this atom exploded, hurling outward the matter which has become
the star clusters. and imparting to them the motion which we now observe. several
billions of years later. I shall discuss this theory further later on and will
only point out here that such a theory will not stand up when examined under
our linear concept of physical law.
53
In the first place, such an inconceivably huge mass of
matter, even at the very great temperature which was assumed for it, would,
under Newtonian laws, produce a gravitational field so intense that no velocity
less than that of light itself would be an 'escape' velocity. In fact, it has
been calculated that even the light emitted by this huge sun would not escape
completely, but would circle in a comparatively small orbit about it.
"Through the concept of the curvature of physical
law, however, we see that the addition of mass to an existing body does not,
necessarily, increase the force of attraction between its parts, but may under
certain conditions, cause the field to become negative and the attraction to
become a repulsion. We can explain the observed actions of the present Universe
by postulating that an attraction exists between the individual bodies within a
galaxy. because their total mass and distance is such that they are within the
positive portion of the gravitation curve with respect to each other. In the
vast spaces between the galaxies however, the curve dips below the zero line
with the result that a repulsion exists between the galaxies themselves. This
also explains why matter, although rather evenly distributed throughout the
known Universe, is not distributed uniformly, but is found in quite similar
concentrations at comparatively regular distances."
"These explanations may be very interesting to the
astronomer or to the theoretical physicist, but how can they help us in
achieving Space travel?" demanded Fry.
"We must have some understanding of the physical laws
before we can make the proper use of them in attaining our own personal
ambitions," replied Aylan.
"In his dream of Space travel, Man has generally
considered only three possibilities of escaping from the Earth. First, gravity
must be destroyed. That is, the operation of the gravitational field must cease
between the Space craft and the Earth, so that it will not hinder the departure
of the craft. While a number of highly imaginative stories have been written
along this line of thought, no theory has ever
54
been evolved, or test conducted, which could give us any
hope that such a condition can be achieved.
"Despairing of the first possibility, we pass on to
the second. Gravity must be shielded. Some type of screening material must be
interposed between the craft and the Earth to cut off or absorb the
gravitational field so that while it still exists, it will no longer act upon
the craft. Here again you have found imagination raising your hopes, and
reality disappointing, for no material has been discovered which shows any promise
of fulfilling such a function. With your hopes considerably subdued. you pass
on to the third possibility. Gravity must be overcome. You must apply a greater
force so that you can rise against the pull of gravity, even though you trust
pay an exorbitant tribute of energy for each foot of progress.
"In this last plan, you have a slight degree of
initial success. Rocket motors have fought and struggled their way upward
against the implacable. if impersonal, pull of the Earth's gravitational field,
for distances of up to two hundred and fifty miles. While this is a very small
step toward complete escape from the Earth. the fact that any progress at all
could be achieved has so stimulated the age-old ambition that science is now
devoting a large portion of its total efforts to this 'last hope of escape.'
When Man attempts to attain his ends by pitting one
natural law against another, he usually finds that it is a wasteful and
laborious process. While it is true that it is perfectly possible to propel a
rowboat by throwing rocks from the stern, it is not a method which an
intelligent man would choose if he were aware of other possibilities. In the
first place. the thrown rock must accelerate, not only the boat. but all the
rocks which remain to be thrown. If a long journey were planned. the greatest
problem would be to find enough room in the boat to store the required number
of rocks. Since the thrust produced is equal to the mass of the rock multiplied
by the velocity of its ejection, it is obvious that there are three limiting
factors. First, there is the total mass of the available rocks, which is
limited by the size of
55
the boat which contains them. Second, there is the total
amount of energy available. (This is a factor only because you have so little understanding
of the true nature of energy.) The third, and at the present time the most
serious factor, is the limited mechanical strength of the throwing arm.
"In a rocket motor, the 'rocks' are represented by a
gas produced by combining or 'burning' the fuels within the combustion chamber.
The gas, at a high temperature and pressure, is expelled through an opening or venturi
in the stern. Since the amount of fuel is limited by the size of the rocket,
the only means of increasing the total thrust is to increase the velocity of
ejection, but this can only be accomplished by increasing the temperature and
pressure of the gas within the combustion chamber. Regardless of the amount of
energy which is available, the amount of thrust which can be produced is limited
by the ability of the chamber to withstand the temperatures and pressures
involved.
"Since these limits are reached (and often exceeded)
by ordinary chemical energies, it is clear that the vastly greater energies
available in nuclear reactions are, at the present time at least, of academic
interest only to the rocket engineer. In the case of craft which remained in
your atmosphere, of course, more 'rocks ' could be taken aboard while in
flight, by scooping up the atmosphere through which the ship was travelling,
and allowing the surplus energy to act upon it. In Space flight, however, this
is not possible, and it is hardly likely that the efficiency of the rocket
motor can be increased sufficiently in the near future to permit of practical
or economical Space travel.
"Actually, the rocket has been obsolete for
centuries. There has not been a single basic advance in the rocket concept
since your year 1214 A.D., when the invading hordes of Genghis Khan were met by
the military ordnance rockets of the Chinese defenders in their walled cities,
more than seven hundred years ago. True, you have produced stronger combustion
chambers, you have improved slightly the shape of the venturi, and you have
developed fuels with considerably
56
higher specific impulse, but you have done nothing to
advance the basic concept. You are still propelling your boat by throwing rocks
over the stern.
"Earth men now living will stand upon the surface of
Mars and Venus, but they will not go there in a rocket. There are better and
simpler ways.
"It is time to re-examine your position to see if
there is not something you have overlooked. Have you forgotten the old saying,
'If you can't lick 'em, join 'em '?"
"You have tried for centuries to 'lick' the force of
gravity. You have tried to destroy it, and failed. You have searched for some
method of shielding yourselves from its effect. You have not discovered it. You
have attempted to overcome it by opposing it with superior force, and found it
a wasteful and cumbersome process. Isn't it about time you gave up the idea of
fighting the force of gravity, and began to consider the possibilities of
making use of it?
"You have learned that gravity, like all natural
factors, has a negative, as well as a positive value. If, after building your
Space craft, you could arrange conditions so that the ship was in the negative
portion of the gravitational curve, it would fall away from the Earth as easily
and as naturally as a stone dropped from a tower falls toward the Earth."
"Yes, but while negative gravitational fields have
been shown to exist," objected Fry, "they have been found only within
the atom and at inter-galactic distances. How can we place a Space Ship within
the negative portion of the curve, with respect to the Earth?"
"The natural laws are not absolute, but
relative," replied Aylan. "That is, the size and shape of the curve
of one law is dependent upon the value and position of the others. We have seen
that the nucleus of the atom of uranium 235 dips below the zero line with the
addition of only one mass unit, making a total of 236, yet the nucleus of the
atom of uranium 233, although close to the zero line is still on the positive
side of the curve because of the fact that the shape of the gravitational curve
is modified not only by the mass present but also by the number and position of
the electrical charges."
57
"But there are the same number of electrons (92) in
each of these atoms," Fry pointed out.
"I am referring not only to the charges in the outer
shell of the atom but to those within as well." replied Aylan, "and
especially to the fact, not always realised that the neutron possesses both a
positive and a negative charge, although when united within the neutron they
are not discernible as charges, but exist as energy which produces the
gravitational field.
"When you acquire a better understanding of the laws,
you will be able to produce any shape of curve you desire, with the Earth as
one reference point and the Space craft as the other.
"Suppose you were to hand a bar magnet and a similar
bar of soft iron to a man who was intelligent, but uneducated, with the request
that he examine and test the two objects in order to determine their
properties. One of the properties which the researcher would be certain to list
would be the ' inherent ' property of mutual attraction between the two
objects. He would observe that when either end of one bar approached either end
of the other bar, a condition of attraction was observed. He would probably
conclude that the attraction was an inherent quality of these objects, and that
it would continue to persist regardless of anything which could be done.
"We know, of course, that if a length of insulated
wire were wound around the soft iron bar, and a flow of electrons were induced
in the winding, the two bars could be made to exhibit a repulsion as readily as
an attraction. Note that in this case we have not destroyed the field of the
permanent. magnet, we have not shielded the field, nor have we overcome it. We
have simply produced a field which is in opposition to it, or to state the case
more concisely, we have polarised the field, by placing one end of the soft
iron bar within the negative portion of the magnetic curve with respect to each
end of the permanent magnet which is already so polarised.
"The same possibility exists with respect to
gravitational fields except that the results are not obtained in quite the
58
same way. It is not too difficult, however, to work out
means of polarising a gravitational field, once we discard the old assumption that
it is impossible."
"Whew," ejaculated Fry after Aylan had finished
speaking. "Do you think you could sum up what you have told me about
gravity before we go on?"
"Good idea," replied his friend. "Here we
go. These are the seven corrections and additions to the gravitational theory
as it is now understood on your Earth.
“First, the law of gravity is not a linear law but follows
a curve common to all factors of nature.
"Second, the gravitational field does not diminish
precisely as the square of the distance as Newton believed, but because of the
curvature of natural law it diminishes normally at a slightly greater rate so
that it reaches zero value, not at infinity as is usually supposed, but at a
finite distance or degree of separation. Beyond this distance or degree of
separation the force becomes negative.
"Third, we can define a gravitational field as
negative when the application of the factor called time tends to increase the
degree of separation between any two reference points in the factor called
matter.
"Fourth, the value of the gravitational field at any
given point is controlled by the values of the other factors of nature at that
point.
"Fifth, the electric charges within the atom are a
factor which modulates the shape of the gravitational curve of the nucleus.
"Sixth, gravity is not the enemy of Space travel. It
is a friend, but there must be true understanding before the friendship can
bear fruit.
"Seven, it is perfectly possible to produce a
negative gravitational field between the Earth and a given object on or near
its surface by the proper application of moving electric charges. Such a field
would be effective only with respect to the given object. All other matter in
the vicinity would remain within the positive portion of the curve."
59
8
UCH OF THE confusion which exists
in our scientific concepts today is brought about by our failure to distinguish
carefully between matter and mass," continued Aylan. "Until a
comparatively few years ago, it was assumed that mass was a property which was
exhibited only by matter. Upon closer examination, however, it appeared that
energy also possessed mass, as when energy was added to a body of matter, the
mass of the body was increased.
"We should, perhaps, pause at this point to define
the terms which we are using lest we add to the confusion instead of resolving
it. Mass is defined as resistance to change in the existing state of motion. It
is measured by the amount of the energy which is required to produce a given
change in velocity. All matter has the property of mass, but not all mass has
the properties of matter. For our purpose now we will postulate that there are
two types of mass, inertial mass, which is simply the property of resistance to
change in a state of motion, and the mass inherent in matter, which we will
call Newtonian mass, because it includes all mass which obeys the original laws
laid down by Sir Isaac Newton. Since you may be under the impression that all
mass obeys the Newtonian laws, let us pause here long enough to examine the
facts and to point out the differences in the properties of inertial and
Newtonian mass.
"All physicists of today are agreed that the electron
has mass. Yet if it were possible for us to hold an electron between two of our
fingers and then suddenly release it, we would find that there was not the
slightest tendency for the electron to fall to the Earth (unless the surface
happened to
60
be positively charged at the moment). The electron is not
in the least affected by the gravitational field of the Earth, so long as it is
at rest with respect to that field (if the electron is moving through the
field, however, the direction of the motion will be affected).
"The electron has mass only because it has an
electric charge. As we know, when an electric charge is accelerated in Space, a
magnetic field is produced, and energy is required to produce this field. The
energy 'spent' in producing this field is said to be the ' mass ' of the
electron, since it is the entire cause of its resistance to acceleration. The
greater the degree of acceleration, of course, the more intense the field, and
the greater the amount of energy required to produce it. So we say that the
electron gains 'mass ' with every increase in its velocity. If an electron
could be accelerated to the velocity C (commonly called the velocity of light),
it would have acquired the maximum velocity with which energy can be
propagated. It is obvious, therefore, that no amount of energy could further
accelerate this electron (with respect to its original reference point), so it
would be considered to have acquired 'infinite' mass.
"Let us pause a moment to examine this statement
carefully since it is a point upon which there is much confusion. The electron
would have acquired infinite mass only in reference to its original energy
level. If observed from a reference point which had itself received the same
degree of acceleration, the mass of the electron would not have changed a
particle. This increase of inertial mass with increasing velocity is simply the
measure of the kinetic energy differential between the observer and the point
which he is observing.
"Let us make a simple analogy, in the hope of making
this more readily understood. An observer is stationed in 'free Space ' far
from any gravitational or other fields which might affect the results of the
experiment which he proposes to make. He has in one hand, a sphere of cork or
other light material which has a mass of 10 grams. In the other hand he has a
pistol which fires bullets also having a mass of to grams and a velocity of
1,000 feet per second. The man
61
holds the ball out at arm's length, and fires a bullet
from the gun into it. The bullet is not absorbed by the cork, but shares its
kinetic energy with it, so that after the impact, the bullet and the cork ball
each have a velocity of 500 feet per second. The observer now fires a second
bullet at the cork. This bullet also has a velocity of 1,000 feet per second
with respect to the observer, but now the target has a velocity of 500 feet per
second in the same direction, so that there is a differential of only 500 feet
per second which the bullet can share with its target. After this impact, the
bullet and the ball each have a velocity of 750 feet per second. When the
observer fires the third bullet, He finds that now there is a differential of
only 250 feet per second between it and the target, so that the velocity of the
target is raised by only 125 feet per second, and so on.
"The observer notes that each succeeding bullet,
although it has the same energy with respect to him, produces a smaller and
smaller acceleration in the target. He would observe that the `mass of the
target ' (its resistance to acceleration) appears to increase with its
velocity. If he made mathematical calculations based upon his observations,
they would show that the greatest velocity which he could ever induce in the
target would be 1,000 feet per second (the velocity of the bullets), and that
to produce this velocity it would be necessary to fire an infinite number of
bullets. His experiment demonstrates conclusively that as the velocity of the
target approaches 1,000 feet per second, his ability to accelerate it further
approaches zero. Persons with lesser intelligence or insight than our observer
might be convinced that this figure of 1,000 feet per second was an absolute
and inescapable limit. The observer, however, as we said, has greater
understanding. After he has accelerated his target to the 'limiting' velocity
of 1,000 feet per second (by firing an infinite number of bullets), he steps
aboard a small Space Ship (with which he has thoughtfully provided himself),
and takes off in the direction of the target. He accelerates his ship to a
velocity of 1,000 feet per second, with respect to his starting point, and now
finds that he is back upon exactly
62
the same energy level as his target, and he can begin his
shooting all over again. He observes that his first bullet accelerates the
target to a velocity of 500 feet per second with respect to his new reference
point, and he notes that the ‘infinite mass' of the target returns to its
original to grams, as soon as he reaches the same energy level. He realises
then that the 'increasing mass' of the target is only the measure of the
kinetic energy differential which exists between them. The mass approaches
infinity only as the energy level approaches that of the accelerating force.
(In this case it is 1,000 feet per second.) In the case of the quantity C,
usually called the velocity of light, the differential is equal to the total
energy inherent in matter (about 3 x 1010 centimetres per second or
9 x 1020 ergs per gram). It is, therefore, a maximum of limiting
velocity, but only with respect to a given reference point.
"When I was telling you about the non-linearity of
physical law. I said that the energy inherent in a gram, or any other quantity
of matter is precisely the quantity of energy necessary to accelerate its mass
to a velocity equal to the quantity C by energy conversion. This statement may
be hotly disputed by some of your Earth students who have not yet learned to
distinguish between matter and mass. Their argument is to the effect that no
mass can ever be accelerated to the velocity of light since the mass would then
be 'infinite' and consequently the energy required to produce the velocity
would also be 'infinite.' The incorrectness of this assumption can be
demonstrated simply by pressing the button of a pocket flashlight. A beam of
light will be produced which any physicist will agree has mass and which, by
its very definition, is moving at the velocity of light. Yet all the energy
required is released by a small amount of chemical change taking place within
the cells of a battery."
63
8
ELL, AYLAN, THIS is all most
fascinating," commented Fry. "Can you tell me anything about Space? I
know that among all of the great basic factors of the Universe, it is perhaps
the most difficult to define or explain. While many of our greatest
philosophers and scientists have attempted definitions, few have succeeded in
offering anything which the average mind could readily grasp. The German
mathematician Leibnitz said, 'Space is simply the order or relation of things
among themselves.' Several centuries afterwards, Dr. Einstein used almost
identical terms. 'Space has no objective reality except as an order or
arrangement of the objects we perceive in it.' "
"Yes," replied Aylan, "I was coming to
that. The average Earth man's definition of Space is: 'That in which matter can
be placed ' or ' that which matter occupies.' This last definition is subject
to dispute by those who maintain that matter does not occupy Space, but is
itself, only a warp or distortion in Space. Another school of thought insists
with equal vigour, that while matter does occupy Space, it creates a warp or
distortion in the Space surrounding it. Since both of these concepts are
subject to the same set of mathematical laws, the same laws can be offered in
support of either. There is little, however, in either of these assumptions which
seems to furnish a good foundation for understanding and it is understanding
rather than algebraic formulae that I am trying to help you to find.
"For our purpose, a simple definition will suffice.
Space is that which separates bodies of matter, whether these bodies be atoms,
galaxies, or any component part of either. We can extend this definition by
stating that the degree of separation
64
which exists between any two bodies is determined by the
degree of curvature of the natural laws which exists between them.
"In making observations, of course, we must remember
that, since the natural laws are relative, the mass of the body itself
influences the degree of curvature. In the theories of relativity given to the
world by Dr. Einstein, the natural laws, in general, retain their linearity,
but the Space in which they operate is considered to be curved. This concept
offers the simplest mathematical presentation, since all of the observed
deviations from linearity can thus be explained by a single postulate. Unfortunately,
like most of your mathematical presentation, since all of the observed
deviations from linearity can thus be explained by a single postulate.
Unfortunately, like most of your mathematical presentations, the concept offers
but little for the human mind to grasp. A curved Space cannot be pictured
mentally, nor can it be drawn upon paper. There is always something remaining
outside the curve. Furthermore, attempts to rationalise this concept lead to
many paradoxical statements which become more and more evident, the greater the
effort to explain.
"One of the best efforts by an Earth man to bring to
the average mind an understanding of the principles of relativity, was made by
Lincoln Barnett in his well-known book, The Universe and Dr. Einstein. Because
of its careful preparation and its explicit presentation of present theory,
however, it brings out very clearly the paradox which must exist between
successive assumptions. For instance, reference was made, as I have already
remarked, to the theory of Abbe Lemaitre, which supposed that at one time all
the matter in the Universe was contained in one huge lump or star. Since the
curvature of Space is considered to be determined by the amount of density of
the matter present in it, at that time the Universe was very small. That is, it
had a very high degree of curvature. Light and other forms of energy do not
move outward from this curve, but follow the circumference, so that the light
emitted by this body, after a comparatively short journey, returned to its
starting point. No attempt was
65
made to speculate upon the length of time in which this
body had existed, or the origin of the matter and energy of which it was
composed. The theory merely supposed that, after perhaps an infinity of
quiescence, this body suddenly exploded. Portions of the mass moved outward in
all directions and thereby enlarged the radius of Space. If the radius of Space
were increased, it is obvious that the matter did not follow the curvature of
Space, but actually moved perpendicularly to it (or perhaps at a tangent). At
any rate, we see that while the radiated energy followed the 'curvature' of
Space whose radius was determined by the mass and density of the matter, when
the matter itself expanded, instead of following the curve, its motion
increased the radius.
"It is interesting to note that the statement is
repeatedly made by man on Earth that this sudden expansion began about two
billion years ago, yet a few moments ago I stated that the calculated radius of
the Universe is now about thirty-five billion light years. Simple calculation
would indicate then that the Universe or at least that portion which we call
Space, must have moved outward at an average velocity equal to about seventeen
times the velocity of light. Either this velocity of expansion is still
maintained or at some period in the past it must have been even greater.*
"These statements raise some perplexing questions in
men's minds. In your theories of relativity it is assumed that light follows
the 'curve' of Space. Yet it is difficult to picture a photon following a curve
whose radius is expanding at a rate equal to seventeen times the velocity of
the particle."
"In the book The Universe and Dr. Einstein,"
put in Fry, "it is also stated that while Space is expanding rapidly, the
matter of the Universe. which is likened to ' inelastic patches on the surface
of an expanding balloon,' is not expanding
* Since Daniel try talked with Aylan it has been announced
by Walter Baade of the Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories that. as' a
result of the recalibration of the cephid variable stars, the previously
calculated size of the Universe trust be increased by a factor of 2.8 However, the
correction factor also applies to the time of expansion, so that the rate of
expansion remains the same-Author.
66
with the Space, since if it were, we could not detect the
expansion.
"If it is Space that is expanding, it is difficult to
understand why we have never detected the increasing distance between the Earth
and the Moon or the Sun. No attempt was made to explain why the space which
exists between the individual atoms, and between the component parts of those
atoms, should not expand also."
"None of these difficulties, of course, invalidate
any of the mathematical laws from which the concepts have been derived,"
Aylan pointed out, "but they do emphasise the great need for explanations
which are more compatible with reason and understanding."
"In the above case," asked Fry, "would it
not be simpler to assume that the degree of separation which exists between the
galaxies, when considered as individual bodies, is apparently increasing
because they occupy opposite portions of the sine curve of natural law?"
"If we exchange our postulate of linear laws and a
'curved Space' for a concept which incorporates the curvature of natural
law," replied Aylan, "we find that we have not thereby destroyed or
invalidated any of your present mathematics, but we have achieved a position
from which the operation of the natural laws can be pictured by the human mind,
and can be charted upon paper. Thus we have taken a great stride in the
direction of understanding."
"Can you sum up again?" asked Fry.
"Certainly," replied Aylan. "There are
three major points to remember in our discussion about Space.
"First, our definition-Space is that which separates
bodies of matter. This separation is a vector function of the time, energy, and
mass differentials.
"Second. the degree of separation which exists
between any two bodies, or reference points, determines the degree of curvature
of the natural laws between them.
"And third, the natural laws are relative. That is,
the value of one can be altered between any two reference points by altering
the value or relationship of the other. This last
67
fact should always be borne in mind when we hear some
dogmatist solemnly declare that we are forever barred from reaching the stars
by the hopelessly great degree of separation between us.
68
10
E HAVE SEEN," went on Aylan,
" that the factor known as the quantity C has a greater significance than
is usually credited to it. It is not merely the velocity with which light and
other forms of energy are propagated in a vacuum. The quantity C is a degree of
energy differential. We can define it as the maximum differential which can
exist between two reference points in the factor which we call matter. We can
also define it as the minimum differential which can exist between a reference
point in matter, and one in energy. This is only true, however, when the reference
point in matter is at the same energy level as the observer.
"One of the postulates of the theory of relativity is
that as a body of matter accelerates and approaches the velocity of light, or a
kinetic energy differential equal to the quantity C with respect to a given
observer, the body loses dimension in the direction of motion. If the velocity
reaches the velocity of light it will appear to have lost all of its dimension
in this direction. To this observer it would no longer be matter, since matter,
by definition, requires three dimensions. The matter would have become energy
in so far as the original observer was concerned since it would now exhibit a
kinetic energy differential equal to the total energy inherent in the original
matter.
"This statement, however, seems to produce a
misconception in the minds of many Earthly students of physics. I will
therefore attempt to clarify the concept by the use of a simple analogy. Let us
assume that we have three Space Ships assembled at a given point upon the
surface of the
69
Earth (or at a given point in Space). For the purpose of
this analogy we will assume that the ships are capable of any desired degree of
acceleration. We will dispatch two of these ships into Space, flying side by
side in a given direction. We will launch the remaining craft in the opposite
direction in Space.
"We have an observer upon each of the three craft and
a fourth observer who remains at the point from which they departed. Let us
call the ships which departed together as A and B. the ship which is moving in
the opposite direction as C, and the observer at the starting point as D. When
we have accelerated all three of the ships to a velocity equal to one half that
of light (with respect to the starting point) we pause to determine what
changes. if any. have taken place. To the observer at the starting point D, the
three ships have become slightly shorter in the direction of their motion, and
have gained a small amount of `mass.' but are otherwise unchanged. The observer
upon the ship C, however, discovers that while he and his own ship appear to be
unchanged, the ships A and B have lost all dimension in the line of motion,
because they have reached the velocity C with respect to his reference point.
They have ceased to exist as matter and have entered the plane of energy. The
two observers upon the ships A and B also note that C has ceased to exist as a
material object, but when they examine themselves and each other, they find
that no change whatever has occurred to them or to their ships since they are
all upon exactly the same energy level and no differential exists between them.
"We will now accelerate all three ships to the
velocity C with respect to their starting point D. At this velocity the three
ships cease to exist materially insofar as the observer at D is concerned,
since they have entered the plane of energy, and are also at the zero point of
the curve of time with respect to him. The observer upon the ship C would note
that the ships A and B were again in existence but that they were now in the
negative portion of the curve. Since you may find this concept somewhat
difficult to grasp at the
70
first attempt I will explain it further and give a simple
analogy when we come to discuss Time.
"The analogy I have just made also demonstrates that
the terra velocity has no meaning or significance except as an observed kinetic
energy differential between two specified points of reference.
"If we examine this analogy carefully, we will find
that we have demonstrated the most important aspect of the factor which I have
called quantity C. C is a constant, the only true constant in the Universe,
because it is the pivotal point about which the natural laws become manifest.
It is the factor for which many great physicists have spent years of search,
even though they had it constantly in their possession. In short, the quantity
C is the measure of the radius of curvature of natural law. It is the factor
which will enable us to determine precisely the degree of change in the
curvature of one law which will be brought about by a specified change in the
application of the others. It is the factor which will eventually tell its how
to place our Space craft in either the positive or negative portion of the
gravitational curve with respect to the Earth or any other planet which we may
choose to visit.
"When we state that the quantity C is the radius of
the curvature of natural law, we mean simply that if a differential of energy
equal to this quantity exists between the observer and the point which he is
observing, the natural laws will be suspended. If the energy differential is in
excess of the quantity C, the laws will appear to operate in reverse at that
point. As I said before I will show this effect by a simple analogy when we get
to the factor called Time.
"While we have repeatedly referred to the quantity C
as an energy differential, we have hitherto considered it only in terms of
kinetic energy. Some may believe that it can be reached only when there is a
rate of increase or decrease in the degree of spatial separation between the
reference points, equal to 3 x 1010 centimetres per second, or in
simpler terms, a velocity equal to that of light. It is necessary therefore to
point out the fact that an energy differential does not necessarily
71
manifest itself as a velocity. It can also exist as a
frequency. Our present laws of physics state that the energy level upon which
an electron, a photon, or other particle exists is proportionate to its
frequency. The mathematical rule is E equals Fh where E is the energy. F is the
frequency and h is a factor called Planck's constant.
"We can now see that a frequency differential which
by the just mentioned formula is equal to 9 x 1020 ergs per gram
also represents the quantity C. When such a frequency differential exists
between the observer and the point which he is observing. we again find that
the natural laws at the observed point reach zero value with respect to the
observer.
"If the frequency differential exceeds this value. the
action of the laws will become negative. A material object such as a Space
craft upon or near the surface of the Earth would cease to exist as matter and
would enter the plane of energy in so far as the observer on Earth was
concerned. but as we have previously pointed out, an observer upon or within
the object. whose frequency or energy level had been raised to the same degree
as that of the craft, would be unable to detect any change.
"You Earth men must clear your minds of the thought
block produced by the assumption that the quantity C is a factor of absolute
limit. You must realise that it is a limiting factor only with respect to two
given reference points, and that it is perfectly possible to conceive of a
series of consecutive reference points between each two of which a differential
equal to the quantity C may exist."
72
11
N HIS EXAMINATION of the natural
laws or facts of the Universe," said Aylan, "Earth man is greatly
handicapped by the fact that in so far as Time is concerned, he has never
progressed beyond an unidimensional perception. If you are familiar with the
analogies used to explain some portions of the theory of relativity, you will
recall that in attempting to achieve a concept of a four-dimensional continuum,
the student is asked first to imagine a man who is conscious of only one
dimension in Space. His entire Universe consists of a single line. If a dot
were placed on the line in front of him, and one behind, he would be completely
imprisoned, since he would not be able to conceive of going over or around
them. As his intelligence and consciousness developed, he would eventually
become aware of a second dimension, and to imprison him then, it would be
necessary to enclose him in a circle. With further development, he would become
aware of a third dimension in which a sphere would be a prison, and so on.
"Earth men are now conscious of three dimensions of
Space, and have done considerable mathematical reasoning in regard to a fourth.
Unfortunately, in so far as Time is concerned, your consciousness has never
progressed beyond the first dimension. You are confined to a single line in
Time. You have no concept of lateral motion, nor can you even turn around upon
that line. You can only go forward. Many of the difficulties which you
encounter in your attempt to understand the operation of the natural laws arise
because of your severely restricted concept of the nature of Time.
"Time has often been referred to as the 'fourth
dimension' by those who attempt to explain our present concept
73
of relativity. It is usually pointed out that, since all
known bodies of matter in the Universe are constantly in motion with respect to
each other, if you wish to describe the position of any body, it is necessary
to give a point in Time as well as spatial relationship to any other body or
bodies. There is, however, a more convincing method of demonstrating that Time
is a dimension, although I believe it would be more precise to consider it as
the first dimension rather than the fourth since it is the one dimension in
which all motion must take place. Earth men are, at the present, conscious of
three dimensions of Space, and you know that motion can take place in any one
of the three, but whichever dimension of Space is involved, the motion must
also take place in Time. Your term for the rate of motion is the word velocity,
which is defined as being the degree of change in location per unit of Time. If
an object has a velocity of 1,000 feet per second, with respect to our point of
observation, we will see that in one thousandth of a second the object will
have moved one foot. In one millionth of a second it will have moved only one
thousandth of a foot, and so on. We can easily see that if the Time becomes
zero the motion must also become zero.
"The science of photography on Earth has reached a
state of development which permits you to take photographs with very short
exposure times. By the stroboscopic method of photography, which is now being
superseded by an even faster method. you were able to take several hundred thousand
consecutive pictures in one second. In these pictures even the fastest
projectile seems frozen into immobility. You have taken pictures of a rifle
bullet penetrating an ordinary electric light bulb, in which three complete and
consecutive pictures have been made between the time the bullet first touched
the bulb and the time that the first crack appeared in the glass. In these
pictures, the bullet appears to be completely motionless. Of course. the taking
of the pictures actually did involve a very small elapse of time, and so a very
small amount of motion did occur during the taking, but it again illustrates
the fact that no
74
motion which we can perceive can take place except within
that dimension of Time of which we are conscious.
"Having pointed out the limitations of your
consciousness concerning this factor which we call Time, let us now go back and
examine it as best we can, with that degree of consciousness and understanding
which you have.
"I will again attempt to choose the simplest possible
definition. I defined Space as 'that which separates bodies of matter,' so I
will define Time as 'that which separates events.' (If there be no discernible
separation in this respect, the events are said to be simultaneous.)"
"But events may be separated by Space as well as by
Time," objected Fry.
"Although this is usually considered to be
true," replied Avian "it forms a stumbling block which has
precipitated many a philosopher into the quagmire of misunderstanding and
paradox. The difficulty arises in the attempt to define the term simultaneous.
If two events are separated by Space, how shall we determine whether or not
they are separated by Time? The observer cannot be present at the site of both
events, and so must observe one or both of them through the separation of
Space, and therefore through the curvature of natural law which the separation
represents.
"In referring to this problem in the introduction to
his first book on relativity. Dr. Einstein pointed out that since your only
contact with the world about you is through your senses, and since all of the
knowledge which you have concerning the Universe has come to you through them,
if you are to formulate mathematical rules based upon your observations you
must begin with the assumption that the things which your senses tell you are
true. If you should observe, through a large telescope, the creation of a nova
in a remote galaxy, and at the same time observe the eruption of a volcano upon
your Earth, you must assume, for the purpose of your mathematics, that the two
events are simultaneous. This is an assumption which is difficult to accept
because the faculty which we call reason immediately interposes the objection
that a separation in Space involves an elapse of
75
time between the events and our perception of it. However,
Dr. Einstein points out that if you allow your reason to modify your
observations, you will be evolving a concept whose value is based only upon the
validity of our reason rather than upon the accuracy of our observations. We
must assume that events which are observed simultaneously occur simultaneously
in so far as that. observer is concerned. and that, therefore, the simultaneity
of events is a condition which depends entirely upon the position of the
observer with respect to those events.
"If we examine this concept carefully, we find that
Time follows the same curve of natural law which is apparent in the operation
of all the basic factors of nature, and again the radius of that curvature is
measured by the quantity C. A simple analogy may serve to make this statement
more readily understood.
"Suppose you were to start to-day to build a Space
Ship, I will assume that the ship will require one year of your time to build,
and that when completed, it will be capable of infinite acceleration. I will
assume that a continuous supply of energy is available from an outside source,
and that the craft will continue to accelerate so long as this energy acts upon
it. During the year which you spend in building the craft, light is being reflected
from us into Space, so that an observer with a telescope stationed at some
other point in Space could follow the course of its construction. When you have
completed the construction of your craft you will enter it and take off for a
destination which I will assume to be a planet circling about Alpha or Proxima
Centauri, your next nearest suns. about four light years distant. You have a
telescope of unlimited power in the rear of the craft pointed toward the Earth
which you are leaving. and another telescope at the front, focused upon the
planet which is your destination. You will set the field strength for a
constant acceleration, and seat yourselves at your telescopes to observe the
result. After you have risen a few miles from the surface, you will, for the
purpose of furnishing an additional reference point, eject from the craft and
its field a cannon
76
Daniel Fry
Truman
Bethurum
ball or other sphere of metal which has been specially
painted so that it can readily be observed from any distance with the rid of
your unlimited telescopes. Since you had not yet reached escape velocity when
the ball was ejected, you will observe that it soon begins to fall back to
Earth.
"As you continue to accelerate, you will observe that
the kinetic energy differential which you are producing between ourselves and
your points of observation is producing exactly the effect upon Time which is
predicted by your assumption of the curvature of natural law. Since the
distance or degree of separation between yourselves and the Earth is increasing
with Time, the energy differential is negative, which means that the natural
laws at the observed point will be displaced towards the base or zero line of
the sine curve, in so far as our observations are concerned. If you reach a
velocity equal to one-half that of light, and then observe a clock on Earth
through your telescope, you will see that in ten hours of your time, only five
hours have been recorded by the Earth clock. If you observe the test sphere
which you ejected during your take off (assuming that it has not yet reached
the ground) you will see that it is not falling at the rate predicted by your
laws of gravitation, but at a rate only half as great. You will also observe
that the sphere is not accelerating at the rate predicted by your laws, nor
even at half that rate. Since you yourselves are still accelerating, the
observed acceleration of the sphere is diminished by a factor which is
proportionate to yours. You must remember that you can only observe events
through the light which is emitted or reflected by the objects concerned with
those events, and if you yourselves have a motion equal to one-half that
velocity in the direction in which the light is moving, then a column or
sequence of light impulses which were emitted from the Earth during a five-hour
period, would require ten hours to pass your point of observation.
"When the velocity of your craft reaches that of
light with respect to the Earth, there will be a negative energy differential,
equal to the quantity C, existing between you and your point of observation.
You will observe that all natural laws
77
upon the Earth have reached zero value with respect to
you. All motion and all changes have ceased. If you observe your test sphere
you will see that gravity is no longer acting upon it, since it has ceased to
fall. All laws of motion are in abeyance and the factor which we call Time has
ceased to have any significance.
"To make these observations, of course, you would
require one of the new telescopes which operate on the retention of vision
principle, where the last image to arrive remains upon the viewing screen until
a new light image arrives to change it. When you reach the velocity C, no new
light will arrive, hence the picture will not change until you change your
velocity. With an ordinary telescope the Earth would disappear from vision.
"Since I said at the beginning of this analogy that
your craft was capable of unlimited acceleration, and since the assumed force
continues to act, your velocity will continue to increase and you will have
between yourselves and the Earth, a rate of increase in the degree of
separation which is greater than that specified by the quantity C. You can do
this from your point of reference although, as will be explained later, you
cannot do it from the point of view of an observer upon the Earth. When you
have passed through the velocity C, a startling change occurs in your
observations. You no longer observe the Earth from the telescope at the rear of
the craft. The Earth now appears in the telescope at the front, and you are no
longer leaving the Earth, you are now approaching it. You will see a craft
which is identical to yours, and which is indeed your own craft, detach itself
from you and move back toward Earth ahead of you at a rate which is
proportionate to your excess over the velocity C. If we observe the Earth, we
discover that all natural laws are operating in reverse. If you observe the
test sphere you will see that it is now falling away from the Earth rather than
towards it. Gravity between the Earth and the sphere has become negative with
respect to your point of reference as have all the natural laws. You observe
this through the forward telescope rather than that at the rear, because you
78
are now overtaking the light which had passed you before
you had reached the velocity C, and since you are now overtaking it, you
encounter first the light which had passed last. All events occur in reverse,
just as would the scenes in a motion picture film which is being run backwards.
"If you complete your journey to the planet which is
your destination, at an average velocity equal to four times C, you will arrive
with an elapsed time of one year as measured by the clocks of your own craft.
During the journey, however, you will observe the elapse of five years of time
upon the planet which you are approaching, and the elapse of three years of
negative time upon the Earth which you are leaving. In other words you will
arrive at your destination three years before you left the Earth. If,
immediately upon your arrival, you seat yourselves at a telescope of sufficient
power to observe the Earth at close range, you will see yourselves going about
the daily tasks which you performed two years before you began to build the
Space craft in which you made the journey. If you then focus the telescope upon
the proper point in Space you will see yourselves in your Space craft. flying
backwards toward the Earth.
"You are now in a position from which you can observe
the sine curve nature of all natural law, and to measure precisely the radius
of the curvature. If you observe the Earth, you see that Time there is
positive. That is, it is moving in the direction which we consider normal.
Since there is no significant energy differential, the Time rate is essentially
the same, but because of the degree of spatial separation there will be a
displacement along the Time curve, between the observer and the point which he
is observing. According to the theory of the curvature of natural law, this
displacement should be equal to D divided by C, where D is the distance and C
is our basic factor. In the case of your present observation the distance is
equal to 4C years, which if divided by C will equal 4 years, which is precisely
the degree of displacement which you would observe. If you now turn your
attention to the Space craft, you find that you are observing it through an
energy differential
79
which exceeds the quantity C and therefore the craft is
within the negative portion of the curve, and all natural laws will be
operating in reverse at that point. You are now in a unique position, in that
you now can, from a single point in Time or at least from a single point in the
only dimension of Time of which you are conscious, observe yourselves occupying
three rather widely separated positions in Space. First, your position at the
telescope as the observer. At this point Time is positive. Second, your
position on the surface of the Earth. Here Time is also positive but has a
negative displacement upon the Time curve which is equal to four years. Third,
your position in the Space craft. Here Time is negative, as demonstrated by the
fact that you observe it flying backwards toward the Earth, and all actions
taking place within it occur in reverse order. This is, of course, due to the
fact that the craft had a velocity greater than that of C and so was constantly
leaving behind the light which was emitted or reflected from it. As you observe
the craft from your new reference point, the last light which it emitted arrives
first.
"If you continue to observe for several years, you
will eventually see yourselves build the craft and take off into Space. At the
same time you can see yourselves in the same craft hurtling backward through
Space toward the inevitable meeting point where the past and the future join to
become the present. Since you are observing yourselves simultaneously occupying
three different positions in Space, we can readily see that you are forced to a
concept of Time which includes more than one dimension. If you continue to
observe the two craft, you will see that the one which is moving away from you
is constantly slowing down, while the one coming toward you from the Earth is
accelerating. At the instant in which the velocity of the receding craft reaches
zero, the approaching craft will reach it, coincide with it, and both craft
will disappear completely from your view. Your lateral excursion into Time has
completed its curve and you have returned to the starting point of your unidimensional
concept.
80
"There is only one thing left for you to do. You
immediately leap into your Space craft and begin your return journey to Earth.
As before, you achieve an average or mean velocity equal to 4C. You land your
craft near the observatory of an astronomer who is a friend of yours, and rush
in to tell him of your return. You find him seated at his telescope observing
your landing upon the planet which you had set out to visit. When you inform
him that you achieved an average velocity of 4C, his reply is that this is
impossible since the laws of relativity clearly state that no object can
achieve a velocity in excess of C (with respect to a given reference point). He
will also point out that he has been observing you constantly since your take
off from the Earth and that only now, to-day, five years later, were you
observed to have reached your destination. Since the journey required five
years of Earth time, our average velocity was only four fifths that of light.
"According to the primary postulate of relativity,
that for mathematical purposes we must accept the results of our observations
as valid, the astronomer is perfectly correct in his statement that you did
not, and could not have exceeded the velocity C. The mere fact that you may
have returned, be seated at his side. and may perhaps be assisting him in his
work, does not in any way affect the validity of his observations nor the
mathematics of relativity which he applies thereto. He can only state that your
arrival upon the distant planet, and the moment of your return to Earth were in
fact simultaneous.
"We can see that, even if your energy level had been
so close to infinite that the outward trip had required only one second, if
during the one-second trip you had emitted enough light to make observation
possible. the astronomer upon the Earth would note that the trip required four
years and one second, and so would have undeniable proof of the mathematics
which assume that only with infinite energy may the velocity C be achieved.
81
12
HAVE DISCUSSED with you briefly,
Dan, a number of these aspects of the principle of relativity which have
created what I have described as thought blocks in the minds of many Earthly
students, scientists, and engineers. I have pointed out that these thought
blocks are not actually inherent in the mathematics of relativity, but are
obstacles created by the arbitrary interpretations which Earth men have placed
upon those mathematics. Yet these are the illusory obstacles which have
prevented you from making the one approach to Space travel which is certain of
ultimate success. You Earth men must come to realise that the natural laws are
not enemies to be destroyed, neutralised, or overcome, but are friends who
will, if you only make the effort to understand them, produce for you any end
which you may desire. You must realise that the rules of limitation found in
your mathematical approach to nature, are limitations only of your own
perception and consciousness, and have no absolute significance in so far as
nature itself is concerned.
"Some of the more dogmatic of your scientists still
assert that you can never hope to reach even the nearest of our neighbouring
stars because even with infinite energy the trip would require many years. I
have shown you that while this statement may be perfectly correct with respect
to a reference point upon the Earth, if you leave the surface of the Earth,
your reference point will go along with you, and the 'limitations of
relativity' will always precede you at a distance equal to the quantity C. You
need not fear that you will ever overtake or be hampered in any way by those
limitations.
"The concept of the sine curve nature of physical law
is
82
not at all new upon this Earth, although the present civilisation
has not, as yet, achieved any great understanding of this concept which has
enabled previous civilisations to accomplish, in their comparatively brief
periods of development, many things which your present vaunted science has not
yet been able to duplicate."
"Yes," agreed Fry, "One of the most convincing
evidences of the fact that previous civilisations upon the Earth were familiar
with the sine wave characteristics of natural law is the symbol which has come
down to us from them, the circle with the sine wave passing through its centre.
The circle, being without beginning or end, symbolising the infinite nature of
the Universe itself and the sine wave passing through it symbolising the curved
but finite nature of the laws which operate within the infinite whole. This is
one of the great basic symbols which have been found in every one of the
ancient languages and cultures of the Earth. The precise meaning and
significance of the symbol has become somewhat blurred through the ages, with
the result that the explanations of it vary slightly with different sources.
For example, the Chinese describe it as the symbol of Yang and Yin, the male
and female principle, or the positive and negative aspects of the natural law.
The same symbol is upon the pottery, ornaments and historical tablets left by
the prehistoric race known as the Mound Builders of North America, who
inhabited the Mississippi Valley area an estimated five to seven thousand years
ago. To them it symbolised the origin, nature and operation of the
gravitational forces of the Earth.*
"In the book A Dweller on Two Planets by Phylos,
written in 1886, the symbol is described as referring to the 'day and night
side forces of the Universe' but here again they are also referred to as the
positive and negative aspects of natural law. From Egypt to Easter Island the
symbol is found, and at least partially understood by all students, with the
sole exception of those who follow that branch of learning which
* Sacred Symbols of Mu, by James Churchward.
83
is commonly known as 'Modern Science.' These students have
apparently agreed by common consent to discard and ignore all knowledge which
had its origin more than a few hundred years ago."
"Exactly," commented Aylan. " The
inherently aggressive nature of Man leads him to attack, instinctively, any
obstacle which lie may find in his path. The prospector in the mountains, who
stubs his toe on a pebble and falls upon his face, is much more likely to arise
and instantly hurl the offending pebble into the canyon, than he is to examine
it carefully to see whether it may contain the gold which he is seeking. The
same situation exists in your science of to-day. Whenever you come upon a
natural law which appears to be an obstacle to the particular end for which you
are striving, your automatic reaction is to seek means to destroy, to neutralise,
or to overcome that law. The result is that your present science follows an
almost incredibly complex pattern of basic conflicts. Natural laws are pitted
against each other, or a greater degree of one law is applied in opposition to
a lesser degree of the same law. You seldom pause to consider the fact that,
because of the dual nature of all physical law, if one aspect or pole of the
law is a hindrance to your end, the other pole or aspect of the same law will
provide the assistance which you require.
"Having resolved the misinterpretation of your
mathematics the job of the theoretical physicist is done. The next move is up
to the practising physicist and to the engineer." Aylan paused.
"Well. Dan," he went on, "I think that is about as much new
knowledge as even you could assimilate in one day."
"Thank you very much." said fry. his mind in a
whirl.
"Good bye. Dan. Don't go away from here for a while
as I shall be around again soon."
Daniel Fry listened, but Aylan's voice did not come again.
He looked at the trees around him, all bedecked for spring and marvelled at
what he had been told. He thought of all the things Aylan had said to him,
about gravity, the curvature of natural law, and most amazing of all, about
Time.
84
He held his head in his hands-he had too much amazing new
knowledge there and knew that he would forget Aylan's vital information if he
did not write it down. He had been sitting on the soft turf while speaking to
Aylan, but now sprang up and ran back to his house as fast as he could. He
fetched paper, sat down, and began to write ....
85
13
RUE TO HIS promise, on 28 April, 1954, Aylan established direct contact with Daniel Fry for the third time, only
a week after the second meeting. There was a sense of urgency in this contact
which had not been present during their previous meetings. It was also the
first time that it was made clear to Fry that he had a personal duty and
responsibility in the effort which Aylan and his friends are making to alter
the natural flow of events, and thus avert the holocaust which is otherwise
inevitable. Fry was still at his place in the Oregon woods, in the hope of
making this contact, because he wanted guidance as to what use, if any, he
should make of the information he already had.
Fry had been absolutely alone for three days when, early
in the evening of the third day, Aylan's voice came to him in its usual abrupt
fashion. "Well, Dan, how much longer are you going to hide your light
under a bushel?"
In spite of the fact that he had come eight hundred miles
and had been waiting for seven days in the hope of making this contact, Daniel
Fry was just as startled as though he had never heard Aylan's voice before. He
looked quickly around the room half expecting to see someone standing in the
shadows, although his reason told him that there could be no one there. Finally
he recovered enough to make an answer, but all he could say was, "What do
you mean?"
"You know what I mean," Aylan replied. "In
your great book of wisdom and philosophy which you call the Bible, it is stated
that when a man has lighted a candle, he does not place it under a bushel, but
holds it forth that all men may be guided by the light. We have expended
considerable time and patience in the effort to light a few candles among
86
the races of your planet. It has been our hope that the
light of these candles might grow in brilliance until it exposed the terrible
abyss toward which the peoples of your world are so blindly rushing.
"We have given you information which is both of
interest and of value to your people. Why do you keep it to yourself?"
"But what can I do?" demanded Fry. "I am
unknown. How can I reach the public, and who would listen if I could?"
"Those who are not blind to truth will recognise the
value of the message, regardless of who the messenger may be. Write what you
have learned from us in a book. You have already met the man who will publish
it. Tell the story through your newspapers, your radio and television stations,
and if necessary, shout it from the house-tops, but let the people know."
"You don't realise what you are asking," Fry
said. "If I adopt this course a few people may listen, but many more will
not. There are too many people in this world who are afraid of the truth, and
who are more afraid of anything which might change the existing order of
things. If I attempt to make public the information which you have given me, it
will only mean that I will be scorned and ridiculed. I will be called a liar by
some, a fool by others, and a charlatan by still others. If I give a statement
to our newspapers, they will either ignore it entirely, or they will print a
comic distorted version which will make me appear stupid and ridiculous."
Aylan's voice took on the patient but slightly strained
tone of a teacher who is attempting to explain a simple fact to a somewhat
backward student. "Of course you will be ridiculed. Ridicule is the
barrier which the ignorant erect between themselves and any truth which frightens
or disturbs them. Can you name any man of your planet who has ever accomplished
anything of great value to your people, who was not ridiculed and scorned by
some? It is the price which is exacted from every man who is as much as one
step
87
in advance of his contemporaries. There is a saying in the
records of the previous civilisation of your world which I believe should be on
the frontispiece of every book of philosophy. 'It is easier to ridicule than to
investigate, but it is not as profitable.' Yes, you will be called a liar by
some and a fool by others. If you seek or accept any financial assistance,
however small, you will immediately be accused of commercialism, and yet the
expenditure of at least some money is a prerequisite among your people to the
accomplishment of almost anything. There are many problems which you will have
to face, but remember that they are by no means peculiar to your position. They
have been faced and met by every individual who has ever offered his services
and his knowledge to his neighbours, in the attempt to advance the culture of
the race. Remember also that you will have friends, more friends than you ever
dreamed of. While it is true, as you say, that there are too many persons who
fear for anything which might change their way of life. there are others, more
than you think. who sense the critical position of your civilisation, and are
searching diligently for the remedy. They will look before they laugh, and for
every one who looks, you will have another friend.
"Don't forget what I have told you about the power of
thought. When you have friends, you are never alone no matter where you may be.
Every mind that is for you will be with you, and will give you added courage
and ability."
"I hope so," said Fry. "I have a feeling
that I am going to need plenty of both.
"It has been almost four years since you first made
contact with me." Fry went on. "In a few more months you should be
completely adapted to our environment. Why don't you simply set your craft down
on the White House lawn some morning, ask for world-wide communication
facilities, and give the whole world your message at once?"
"This 'simple solution ' is only wishful thinking on
your part," Aylan replied. "We have discussed this before, and if you
will think a little, you will see that there are many reasons, both general and
specific, why such a course would
88
not be successful. In the first place there is the
psychological aspect. If we were to appear as members of a superior race,
coming from above to lead the people of your world, about thirty per cent. of
these people would insist upon considering us as gods, and would attempt to
place upon us all responsibility for their own welfare. Of the remaining
seventy per cent. most would consider that we were potential tyrants who were
planning to enslave their world, and many would immediately begin to seek means
to destroy us. If any great and lasting good is to come of our efforts, the
actual leaders must be your own people, or at least men who are indistinguishable
from them.
"From the practical standpoint, you know as well as
we that if we were to land our craft near the seat of your government, we would
immediately be surrounded and taken in charge by those military forces whose
duty it is to protect the heads of your government from any possible danger. We
would be questioned for hours, perhaps days, before any request which we might
make would even be given consideration. We would be forced to display our
superiority in the realm of the material science. Once this superiority had
been demonstrated, the military leaders would inevitably adopt the position
that it was imperative that their country acquire and 'protect' this advanced
scientific knowledge. The attitude of your government, in common with the governments
of other advanced nations of your planet to-day, is that all new knowledge,
particularly scientific knowledge, is the property of the state. This is not
the fault of any individual or political faction, but is simply a philosophy of
government which developed during the last two great wars upon your Earth. It
was given much impetus in your country by the necessary secrecy attending the
development of your nuclear weapons. However the secrecy of military ' security
' has now grown far beyond the bounds of its reason, and has become, in many
cases, only an excuse to conceal anything which might embarrass any member of
your governing bodies. As a matter of fact, most of the
89
tension which exists between your nations to-day is the
direct result of this excessive secrecy.
"You must realise that any information which your
government might acquire concerning us, our craft or our knowledge, would be
considered the most vital 'military' secret which they had ever
possessed."
"But supposing that you did land," persisted
Fry. "Supposing that you did give our country the benefit of your
knowledge, wouldn't that tend to prevent the outbreak of another war? Surely
you don't think us so barbaric that we would attack another country simply
because we felt that we possessed the means to conquer it?"
"Not at all," Aylan replied. "You miss the
point entirely. If we were to land in your country, your government would
attempt to keep it a secret, but it would not succeed any more than it
succeeded in keeping the secrets of its nuclear weapons. The government of Russia
upon being apprised of the fact that the military forces of the United States
were acquiring highly advanced technical knowledge, would decide that their
only hope of avoiding complete domination by the United States was to launch an
immediate attack. Have you so soon forgotten the lessons of your Pearl Harbour
that you do not realise this?
"If we were to land in both countries simultaneously,
the result would be only to intensify the existing race for armaments, and
would eventually bring about the very holocaust which we are attempting to
prevent.
"We will point out the way, and give you such help as
we can, but you and the other people whom we have got in touch with must 'carry
the ball.' Whether or not your children have any future to look forward to,
will depend largely upon the success or failure of your own efforts."
"I realise the danger to our civilisation which the
possibility of atomic warfare poses," admitted Fry. "Everyone whose
work is in the technical field does. Almost every top scientist of our country
has, at one time or another, made the statement that full-scale atomic warfare
will probably
90
result in the virtual destruction of our civilisation, but
no one seems to pay any attention to them."
"That is because they have stated only the problem,
without offering any solution," Aylan said. "Actually, the
possibility of atomic warfare on your Earth is not the problem, it is merely a
symptom, and no one has ever had any great success in curing an illness by
treating only the symptoms.
"Your civilisation is facing a great problem, and
during the last few years it has become a critical one. Its existence is not
the fault of any race, creed, or political faction, but is purely the result of
natural tendencies. It is an extremely simple problem, and like most simple
things, its importance has been overlooked by too many of your people. Also,
like all simple problems, the solution is inherent in the complete
understanding of the problem. In order that you may understand it thoroughly, I
will state it in the simplest possible terms.
"There are three types of branches of science which
are necessary for the proper development of mankind: the Spiritual Science, the
Social Science, and the Physical or Material Science. The spiritual and social
sciences must come first. There can be no development of the material science
unless there first exists a foundation of the spiritual and social sciences.
You can prove this to yourself by considering the difference between Man and
the animals. The animal has no spiritual or social science and consequently has
never developed a material science. A few of your insects such as the ant and
the bee have developed a rudimentary form of social science to the extent that
they are able to live together in large numbers, work together for their mutual
welfare, and have a form of discipline which is common to all. As a result of
this they have also developed a very limited material science, in that they
erect structures and store food against a future time of need. The fact,
however, that they have no spiritual science has proved an absolute bar to
further development with the result that they have not advanced a single step
in thousands of years.
"Man, on the other hand, has, from the very beginning
91
of his development, sensed the fact that there is a
supreme power and intelligence which pervades and controls all nature. Man's
attitude toward this power has varied from fear and resentment to reverence and
love, but always he has had the desire to learn more of the nature of this
power. Thus the spiritual science had its beginning in the very dawn of human
intelligence. With the realisation that man could improve the conditions of his
life only by co-operation, came the first tribal gatherings which were the
beginning of the social science.
"From the foundation provided by these two sciences
the superstructure of the material science began to emerge, and here begins the
problem. The development of the material science, being constantly stimulated
by the ever-increasing needs and desires of the body, progresses normally
according to the square of time. This too, you can prove to yourself if you
consider the inventions and material developments which have taken place within
the last thirty of your years, compare them with the development of the
previous hundred years and then compare that in turn with the previous thousand
years. You will see at once that the development of the material science takes
place at a rate which is constantly accelerating. The spiritual and social
sciences. on the other hand, progress normally, only directly with time, and
even this rate of progress is not always maintained.
"You now have the problem of a huge and massive
structure, growing at an ever increasing rate, standing upon, and supported
only by a foundation which is growing at a much smaller rate. It is obvious
that unless some means are found to stimulate greatly the growth of the
foundation, a time will inevitably come when the structure will collapse upon
that foundation, bringing ruin and destruction to both. This has occurred
before upon your Earth, and your civilisation has now entered the stage where
it is likely to occur again.
"Your race is now in constant danger of total
destruction by an agency which it has itself produced. Why should a people be
menaced by their own creations? Simply because they have not progressed far
enough in the spiritual and
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social sciences to enable them to determine the uses to
which their creations shall be put.
"Most of the thinkers of your race are well aware of
the danger inherent in the use of nuclear weapons, but there is another aspect
of the problem which is not generally recognised. That is the fact that unless
unity is achieved between your nations, the very existence of such weapons will
eventually bring about the downfall of your civilisation, even though they are
never used. The truth of this fact can be understood by anyone who will think a
little. Civilisations are built and maintained by men of vision. who think and
work for the future. What man will be willing to dedicate his life and his work
to the benefit of generations yet unborn, when the foreseeable future does not
extend beyond the next twenty-four hours?
"Already many articles have appeared in your
newspapers and magazines commenting upon the rapid rise of what they describe
as juvenile delinquency. Some writers place the blame upon the parents, some
upon the schools, others blame the church or the state. Actually none of these
agencies are especially at fault. The condition is due principally to the fact
that youth is particularly sensitive to a condition of insecurity (any of your
psychologists will verify this) and never in the history of your race has the
future been less secure.
"It has been publicly stated by one of your highest
government officials, that the political and military tension between your
government and the government of Russia may continue at its present level for
the next forty years. This would mean that two more generations of your people
would be born and reared under the constant threat of imminent annihilation. No
civilisation which the Universe has yet produced could endure under these
conditions."
"I think I understand the problem now," declared
Fry. "But what about the solution? There are many people who sense the
hazard of our present position, but their advice varies. Some say that we
should halt the development of the material science. stop working with advanced
conceptions of any sort. and prohibit the study of nuclear physics. Others
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go even further and say that we should destroy the
material science entirely and 'go back to nature,' living as the animals
do."
"If you were in the process of erecting a large new
building," Aylan replied, "and you suddenly discovered that because
of a miscalculation, the foundation was not going to be strong enough to
support the structure, would you at once begin to tear it down? Hardly! You
would, instead, if you were at all intelligent, begin at once to seek the means
to enlarge and strengthen the foundation.
"The progress of the material science cannot
successfully be halted. Either it will go forward, or it will go back. If it
goes back, it will collapse because of the fact that the principal supporting
members will be the first to weaken under a programme of retrogression. There
is nothing that is intrinsically wrong with your material science. It will
progress and expand to horizons as yet undreamed of, if only your people will
provide a foundation capable of supporting it."
"And if they do not?" asked Fry.
"Then your civilisation will go down," Aylan
replied slowly. "It will destroy itself in a holocaust which will leave
few survivors. Those few who do survive will have neither the ability nor the
desire to rebuild their science. In a few generations their descendants will
have returned almost to the level of the animal. Then the process of evolution
will begin again. In fifteen or twenty thousand years another civilisation will
emerge. It will face the same problems and have the same opportunity for their
solution. If it fails, it will in turn go down. This is an immutable law of the
Universe, but one which operates according to the free choice of the race. Your
race and your culture are not doomed to extinction, they may continue upon
their upward course until they have left this danger behind them for ever. The
choice is Yours."
"There is little doubt," declared Fry,
"which choice the people would make, if they were aware of the
alternatives between which they were choosing."
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precisely," Aylan replied. "That is why we are
here, and that is why you are here.
"As I have said before, our ancestors were a group of
survivors of the last complete collapse of civilisation on this planet. This
was more than thirty thousand years ago as you measure time today, but even
then they had developed a material science which was, in some respects at
least, considerably advanced over your present position. They followed the
natural laws, instead of pitting one against the other as your science does, so
that their devices were much simpler, and yet they could accomplish things
which you have not yet been able to do. They, too, failed to realise the
absolute necessity of an equal development of the spiritual and social values.
"A political and social cleft developed between the
two principal nations of that era. Friction between the two increased yearly,
until at last it exploded into a war of annihilation. Weapons of absolute
energy were used by each nation against the other, weapons whose destructive
power was a thousand times greater than that of the hydrogen bomb which
threatens your race today. There was no question of victory or defeat. They
simply destroyed each other. There were few survivors and the radiation level
of the entire surface of the planet had been raised beyond human tolerance.
This did not mean that all survivors were doomed to immediate death from the
radiation, but it did mean that progressive deterioration of the mental and
biological functions, together with the large number of mutations which would
be produced in succeeding generations, would, eventually bring their level of
existence down almost to that of the beast.
"On a high plateau, in what is now the country of Tibet,
six of our aerial craft had been landed by their crews. A council was held to
determine what, if anything, could be done.
"It was suggested that an attempt be made to reach
another planet. The aerial craft then in use were capable of travelling in
Space and had been frequently used to reach
95
heights of a few hundred miles above the surface of the
Earth. However, no attempt had yet been made to leap the gulf between planets
and the crew members were far from certain that such an attempt would prove
successful.
"The planet you now know as Mars was then in conjunction
with the Earth and at that time, the surface conditions of temperature,
atmosphere, and water were much better suited for human survival than the
conditions which your astronomers report to exist at the present time.
"A vote was taken and the members of the crews of
four of the craft elected to take the huge gamble in the hope of preserving
thereby at least a portion of the culture of the race.
"The remaining crew members believed that because of
the elevation of the plateau on which they were gathered and the comparatively
low level of the radiation which existed there, that they could continue to
live in this area without suffering complete physical or mental degeneration in
themselves or their descendants. They elected to remain.
"Since I can see the question which is forming in
your mind, I will explain that this race had achieved perfect equality of the
sexes and both were about equally represented in this council. Of the four
craft which essayed the great leap, three arrived safely at their destination.
There is no record in our history as to the fate of the fourth.
"For many generations the grim struggle for survival
demanded the entire time and energy of the people. These were the dark ages of
the new race and we have comparatively little knowledge of this period.
However, the original crew members, immediately after their arrival upon the
new planet compiled a detailed history of the races of Earth, pointing out the
reasons for their downfall. Throughout the intervening centuries this history
has been carefully preserved. It is known as `The Great Lesson' and is the
first thing which is taught to all of our youth when they begin to prepare
themselves for active life.
"As the battle for survival was gradually won, the
development of the material science resumed its normal pattern, but with the
lesson of the past constantly before our people,
96
it was maintained always in its proper relationship to the
social and spiritual values. We have found that all three of the sciences have
the same basic natural laws and we have come far in their understanding.
"We are now essentially independent of planets. Some
of our craft are very large, judged by your standards. They are many times the
size of your largest ships. We are able to produce all of the necessities and
comforts of our physical lives within these craft and since we have solved the
problem of energy we have no personal need to land upon any of the planets,
except occasionally to obtain raw material for new construction.
"The satisfaction of our own physical needs now
requires only little time and effort. consequently we are able to devote much
of our thought and energy to the assistance of those races which have not yet
passed the critical point in their development."
"Can you give me some specific instructions?"
Fry asked him. "Some definite information which I can pass along to anyone
whom I can persuade to listen?"
"There is little need to do this." Avian
replied. "Your own philosophers, both past and present, have given your
people instruction, ample wisdom to enable them to chart the proper course, if
they can only be made to realise the absolute necessity of following it.
"If a man with a blindfold over his eyes were rushing
toward a cliff, a great effort might be necessary to turn him away from the
danger. However, if the blindfold is removed (a much less difficult task) no
further effort is necessary, since the man will now turn of his own accord.
"There are many statements in your books of religion
and philosophy which show that the great thinkers of your race, down through
the ages, have been well aware of the dangers of concentration on material
science. In the first book of your Bible there is the story of the Tower of
Babel, of a race which had lost sight of the spiritual science entirely and
were attempting to reach God by the work of their
97
hands. The attempt ended, of course, in frustration and
chaos as such attempts always do.
"The development of the social and spiritual sciences
becomes almost automatic if the vital necessity of that development is
understood by everyone.
"If reduced to the simplest terms, social science is
the study of Man's relationship to his fellow man. The spiritual science is the
study of Man's relationship to God. The indispensable requirement for progress in
either of these sciences is a sincere desire for a better understanding.
"One of the errors which was made in the translation
of your Bible was that the words 'love' and 'charity ' were used when the words
of the original text actually meant 'understand' and 'understanding.' In your
Bible it is stated that the greatest commandment of all is this 'Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all
thy mind and with all thy strength.' The translation should have been 'Thou
shah strive to understand.' There is no need to command Man to love God. If Man
understands God, love follows inevitably.
"Again, there is the statement. 'Though I speak with
the tongues of men and angels and have not charity (understanding) I am become
as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.' It is obvious that no matter how
fluently a man may speak, his words can have no real meaning unless he
understands what he is speaking about.
"Your books of philosophy state that Man should love
his neighbour and forgive his enemies. Ours say that if a man understands his neighbour
and his neighbour understands him, they will never become enemies.
Understanding your fellow man requires the ability to put yourself in his place
and to see things as he sees them. There is a great difference between
knowledge and understanding. The seat of knowledge is in the head but the seat
of understanding is in the heart.
"The vital need of your world today is simple
understanding between the people of your nations. There is but little value in
a treaty, a pact, or a guarantee between
98
governments, if understanding is lacking between the
people. "You have developed the means of rapid, world-wide communication
through your radio, television, telephone, and telegraph. Why are these means
not devoted to a much greater extent to the propagation of understanding
between nations? True, you have a few radio broadcasting stations which have
been dedicated to the task of spreading truth, but they are far too few and the
programmes they carry consist principally of propaganda. Propaganda is merely
the means of 'selling' another person or nation an idea or a course of action
which you believe should be followed.
"What the people of your world must recognise is that
the needs and desires, the hopes and fears of all the people on your Earth are
actually identical. When this fact becomes a part of everyone's understanding,
then you will have a sound basis for the formation of the ‘One World' of which
your politicians speak so glibly, and your spiritual leaders so wistfully.
"The people of your nation, through your government,
are spending billions of dollars each year in 'Foreign Relief,' treating the
symptoms of the illness. You are spending tens of billions yearly in
preparation for the global conflict which, if it comes, will only prove that
the illness becomes fatal. If ten per cent of this money and effort were spent
in an attack upon the illness itself (which is simply the lack of knowledge in
the individual and the lack of understanding between them) in a few years the
illness would be cured.
"The industries of your nations, released from the
necessity of expending half of their time and energy in producing the means of
destruction, could raise the standards of living of everyone on your Earth to
the point that there would be complete freedom from want. With freedom from
want comes freedom from fear and your civilisation would be safely past the
critical point in its development. Your greatest era. your Golden Age lies just
before you. You have only to go through the proper door.
"I have given you as much instruction as you are
capable of absorbing at this time. Do everything possible to bring
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our words to the attention of your people. If you make any
progress we will make contact with you again. As I have said before, we will
not and cannot force our knowledge or our culture upon your race, nor can we
appear in person before your people as a whole unless and until there is
substantial evidence that the majority desire it. This is far from being true
at the present time.
"I will leave you with a final quotation from your
own philosophy, 'Examine all things. Cling to that which is good.'
"Good-bye, Dan. Do your best."
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14
IVE MONTHS HAD passed since Daniel
Fry's two momentous meetings with Aylan, when he had been given such
revolutionary scientific information and the urgent warning of the necessity of
avoiding a Third World War at all costs. Although he was back in the bustle of Los
Angeles, he could never forget Aylan, and wondered if he would ever see the
vimana again or receive another message. He reflected that for such contacts it
was essential to be in a lonely spot-they would hardly occur in the crowded
city of Los Angeles.
Yet on 18 September, 1954, this is exactly what happened.
Daniel Fry was driving along the crowded Garvey Boulevard at one of its busiest
times-the early afternoon rush, when it must have resembled London's Great West
Road at six o'clock on any weekday evening. He was driving to the workshop at
Aerojet, intent on putting in some more work on an instrument he was
developing. He was intent on the traffic and he had little thought for Aylan or
Space Ships on that crowded road. Then suddenly he had a hunch, no, more than a
hunch, a realization, the feeling was so strong. He was going to see a U.F.O.!
If he had a camera he would be able to photograph it. There was no verbal
communication as there had been before, but just this overpowering feeling that
he was going to see a Space Ship. He acted at once. Knowing that there was a
chemist's shop back in El Monte, where he lived, he turned his car round, a
difficult feat in that crowded boulevard, and raced back to the Thrifty Drug
Store. Here he bought a Brownie Holiday Snapshot camera and a roll of film.
Back he went towards his work shop, keeping a sharp look-out all the time in
the sky as
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much as the traffic would allow him. He was between Baldwin
Park and Azusa when he turned off Garvey Boulevard into Arrow Highway to
reach his workshop.
He was only a few buildings away when he suddenly saw the
Space Ship in the sky! It was on the right of the road and at an angle of about
45 degrees. It had the familiar shape of a vimana, but Fry could not tell if it
were a vimana or vidya as he did not know how far off it was. It consisted of
two discs, the upper one much smaller than the lower. It shone brightly silver
in the sun. It did not move except for a slow and eccentric rotation about the
vertical axis.
Daniel Fry pulled his car into the side of the road,
seized the camera and began to take photographs of the U.F.O. as fast as he
could. He got six snapshots in all. Then the vimana moved south-eastwards and,
gathering speed, was lost to Fry's sight in a few seconds.
Naturally Fry was full of his sighting when he arrived at Aerojet.
A fellow worker came up to him and reminded him that he had seen a similar
object in the sky a few weeks before. He saw it against the mountains and
estimated that it was between 18 and 25 feet in diameter, establishing that it
was in fact, a vimana, if rather smaller than the usual scout ship.*
* This was by no means Daniel Fry's last contact with the
people from Outer Space. He has had several contacts since and has received
more startling information. He is writing an account of these visits which was
not ready at the time this book went to press (April, 1957). The publishers
hope to bring out a book telling of Daniel Fry's further experiences with Aylan
as soon as the material is complete-Author.
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15
EFORE WE GO on to the second half
of our story it would be well to pause and see if any other people have had the
same experience as Daniel Fry, that is, the ability to hear the voice of
someone from Outer Space sounding inside one's own head and not being perceived
by the brain through the ears.
For those that will protest that Daniel Fry is the only
person to experience this method of communication we can state that in 1954 a
certain Herr yon Cihlar from Vienna experienced the same thing when high up in
the Hoch Wechsel mountains near the famous Semmering Pass. A vimana landed and
he was able to talk to the crew, who told him they came from Mars. Another case
also occurred in 1954 when a young Italian lad met what he described as three huge
Space men in the wilds of Northern Canada. Yet when they spoke. the sound did
not seem to come from them! In 1957, Mr. Philip Rodgers of Grindleford near Sheffield,
England, had the same experience. He let his mind go blank and then often
received messages. On several occasions he saw lights above the moors when
forecast by the voices. Often the messages were incomplete. I, myself, have met
Mr. Rodgers and have talked to the Space people through him. Unfortunately it
is not possible to check back on them, as when I asked them information I knew
already, they gave me wrong facts deliberately. Mr. Rodgers told me
subsequently that they strongly dislike being tested. Other recent contacts,
besides the one in Austria, have shown clearly that there is a mode of
communication, far superior to ordinary telepathy, in use by our
extra-terrestrial friends whereby the voice of the communicator is heard within
one's own head
103
in a sort of clairaudience which it is not possible to
confuse with the telepathic reception of thoughts and ideas from another person
or with thoughts or impressions arising within one's own mind from
sub-conscious levels.
With this type of communication it matters not if the mind
wanders or if other thoughts pass through the mind, for the voice still remains
strong and clear, and is not in the least disturbed by the recipient's fleeting
thoughts and questions. So intriguing is this aspect of the experience of Mr.
Fry and several others that inquiry has been made into the mode of reception wherever
messages from people of other worlds are being received. I am convinced we are
confronted with a true clairaudience and are approaching the independent voice
which the scientific investigator longs to encounter.
The recent contact in Northern Canada has been considered
by some to be rather fantastic, but becomes more comprehensible and acceptable
the moment we realise that the three huge "Space men" may have been
wearing Space suits! However the fact that the badly frightened and uneducated
Italian lad also stated that the Space man did not speak to him from the
outside, but actually within his head, lends more credibility to the
genuineness of the encounter than any detail related. This young man had never
heard of Flying Saucers, and certainly had never read about Spacemen, extra
sensory perception, telepathy. clairaudience, independent voice, or
voice-in-head phenomena. This fact alone gives it the appearance of a very real
experience.
In the case of Herr yon Cihlar of Vienna. he was made to
comprehend exactly what the man from Mars wished to say to him, although he is
convinced the man uttered no sound and probably did not speak German anyway.
Mr. Rodgers on two occasions, once in December 1956, and
the other in January 1957, went up Sir William Hill above his home at Grindleford,
near Sheffield and saw mysterious lights on the moors at the same time as the
voices had forecast.
According to Daniel Fry, it is entirely possible that the
extra-terrestrial people may have an electronic device capable
104
of modulating the auditory nerve currents in such a way
that speech may be heard by us although no one is speaking within range of our
hearing. That this is easily possible is evidenced by the fact that the ear is
not essential to hearing, nor is sound for that matter. Any electronics
engineer can easily set up a device whereby the human body as a whole may
become a radio receiving set with the nerves carrying the modulated current
which will in consequence be heard as sound and interpreted as speech. As their
scientific knowledge is quite evidently much superior to ours, this type of
communication should present no difficulty to them, but it is also entirely
possible that they are so far beyond us in science that they may have
discovered a way to modulate our nerve currents or brain waves directly without
the need of intervening electronic gadgets.
Perhaps they have learned how, to activate some dormant or
little-used brain cells which open tip these new. or at least little used,
faculties. In view of the fact that we find frequent references to a third eye
in the communications coming from the people of other worlds, it is not
unlikely that they have also made this discovery. They use the expression
"third eye" to refer to parts of the brain where these dormant
faculties are to be found. In no other way can we hope to account for some of
the things contained in the text of the messages received.
This particularly applies to the knowledge of the remote
past exhibited by Aylan in his later messages, and in his ability to probe the
working of Mr. Fry's mind during the White Sands meeting. There is also the
prophetic aspect of this contact, and in fact of all the other contacts as
well, which implies the possession of a superior faculty of insight and intuition
at least in regard to the future of Mankind.
Clearly we have to deal here with unusually highly
developed type of individuals, in all probability not of the rank and file of
the inhabitants of other worlds or planets, but rather the most advanced
individuals of their sphere of life, beings similar in many respects to those
usually denominated Masters when appearing among men. At all
105
events they have achieved a mastery over Space travel, magnetics,
gravitation, and other scientific matters, not likely to be possessed by the
rank and file of their people any more than our advances in nuclear physics are
understood by the average layman.
Because we are privileged to receive a vital and spiritual
message from such advanced and perfected beings, delivered with clear and
prophetic insight, we would be well advised to give heed while there is yet
time to change the trend of events. In this way we may perhaps avoid the
pitfall from which only Michael and his angels could save us by direct
intervention.
An ever-increasing number of our people are becoming
uneasy over the apparently impending fulfilment of prophecy and the imminent
danger of a third world war-this time of a most destructive sort. The
development of nuclear weapons, guided missiles, nerve gases, and bacterial
warfare does not help to allay the suspicion that we may be on the verge of a
war of extermination instead of merely self-preservation and freedom.
So it comes almost as an answer to our prayers and fondest
hopes. that in all contacts with the extra-terrestrial people, through whatever
channel they reach us, the cheerful view prevails, and they assure us that the
greatly-feared catastrophe may be averted if we will but heed their
oft-repeated warnings. But it has remained for Daniel Fry, Truman Bethurum, and
their extra-terrestrial friends to tell us exactly what is the problem
confronting humanity and exactly how it may be solved. But most important of
all, just what we may do to help prevent the impending third world war and
world conflagration, which threatens to bring about the doom of our era of civilisation.
The situation is so serious that it becomes necessary to
alert all thinking people to the dangerous trend of events, while there is time
to take corrective measures, and so find the way to peace. It is obvious,
however, that there can be no lasting peace until there is mutual trust and
understanding among nations and a willingness to live and let live.
106
Tyranny and despotism have always been short-lived, yet
many great civilisations have vanished from our Earth mainly from such causes.
Surely it is high time for the people of Earth to find a way to prevent this
tragedy, and if the voice of the little men could be heard they would certainly
insist upon it. The day of war-lords has passed, for no longer can they find
safety in rear ranks or sanctuary in castles. Indeed in this era of nuclear
weapons and radiation problems, many in high places are fast becoming convinced
of the truth of what extra-terrestrial people have long been telling us,
namely, that war is obsolete as a method of settling differences. They fear
there might be no one left to enjoy the settlement! While this alone will not
usher in the millennium, it is indicative of a new trend in world affairs.
We should be duly thankful that other eyes than ours have
seen the handwriting on the wall and have given the warning to men of Earth in
time to prevent the repetition of the ancient tragic error.
In any event, the future is bright with a new hope and
perhaps even intervention by extra-terrestrial friends should the need arise!
We know of their interest in at least two places on Earth as probable landing
places, Stafford, England, and the Arizona Desert, U.S.A.
Remember, we are not alone!
