The Blood Line (26 page)

Sam’s additional notes

Entry 2

I looked up Pyxidis, the name of the God thought by the people of Mu to have visited their planet. This is what I found.

T Pyxidis is a binary star with a big, white dwarf star, and a smaller star more like our Sun. The bigger one draws energy from the smaller causing periodic thermonuclear explosions. These have been observed to occur in 1890, 1902, 1920, 1944, 1966 and 2011 and it was thought that the mass of the system might have increased enough to make it go supernova, essentially collapsing under its own weight. Because the stars are relatively close to Earth some scientists thought it might have a big impact on us, even damaging the ozone layer and causing us to be bombarded with radiation. But other scientists have, more recently reckoned that the kind of supernova which would have that effect is unlikely to happen for another ten million years. As the Universe is expanding and stretching apart by then the stars will be too far away to affect us. Anyway, apparently there was a supernova near to the Earth in the year 1054, and we survived that. At the time Chinese astronomers saw a star brighten so much that it was visible during the daytime. The supernova created what we now call the Crab Nebula. It was so big and near that the new nebula was visible to the naked eye for a couple of years after the explosion.

Anyway, I am getting side-tracked. What is important is that Pyxidis is a binary star, not a god, and it poses no threat to us. The question then, is what – or who – is the threat?

Entry 3

The Montauk Project is believed by some conspiracy theorists to be the next stage of the Philadelphia Experiment which has also been known as Project Rainbow and allegedly took place in 1943. The original experiment was based around a theory proposed by Albert Einstein concerning gravity and electromagnetism. The US Navy, having studied Einstein's theory, thought that it might be possible to bend light around objects thus rendering them invisible. Clearly, this was of significant interest in the field of battle. Equipment was developed in complete secrecy and fitted to a ship sitting in the Philadelphia Naval Yard, the USS Eldridge. It is said that when the equipment was switched on there was some success. The entire ship seemed to disappear.

However, when the USS Eldridge reappeared it was obvious that something had gone horribly wrong. The crew were all terribly badly affected by the experiment, something about the event had affected their minds. Some complained of severe nausea and headaches. Some were so badly affected that they were eventually diagnosed with mental disorders and were never the same again.

But, the senior military men present had seen the ship disappear. And they would not give up. The crew, or at least those that could still speak, were hushed up. The machine was recalibrated and the experiment tried again. Again, the ship disappeared from view but this time the consequences were even more terrible.

It seemed that the ship hadn’t just become invisible. It had actually moved to another place entirely. Crew aboard another ship, the SS Andrew Furuseth, 200 miles away in Virginia saw the ship appear. After a short time it disappeared again. When the ship eventually reappeared in Philadelphia the crew were not just affected mentally but physically too. Some men were embedded into the very walls of the ship as though the reappearance had confused what was human and what was metal. Sailors had limbs trapped in and fused to the hull but these were the lucky ones. Some men seemed to have been turned completely inside out. Some were dead for no discernible reason. Some came back mad, psychotic. Some did not return at all.

The Navy now decided that it was such a disaster that it should not continue and the Philadelphia Experiment came to an end and was hushed up.

But men cannot resist power. Around ten years later some of the surviving researchers banded together. They had seen what the experiment had done to the minds of those men and they saw that this could be a weapon. Imagine what America could do by blasting a wave of that power at an advancing army. Manipulating minds to make men feel sick so that they could not carry on. Millions of lives could be saved. A war over before it even began. Imagine what could be done if you could fire a gun at a man to make him go insane.

The project began again, although this time it was not about making ships invisible. It was about making men go mad and it was even more secret than before. Funding allegedly came from ten billion dollars of gold seized from a Nazi train by US soldiers. Those soldiers were killed and the train destroyed. The secret project had its money.

It began in New York under the name the Phoenix Project but the scientists realised that they needed a large satellite dish so the project was moved to a decommissioned Air Force base called Camp Hero in Montauk and it was there, deep underground, that men began to build. The Montauk Project became a reality. By the 1970s work was really underway and the project had developed in unexpected directions. Originally a project about invisibility, then teleportation, then mental capacity no-one really knows what the work of these secret men and women became but some conspiracy theorists hold that many strange events occurred at the site.

It is said that mind control was practised on the homeless and young runaways who were abducted for tests. Some people had their psychic abilities developed exponentially to the point where they could move objects and even themselves using their minds. However, this caused madness in some and certainly emotional instability in many. These powers were developed through the use of a special chair which conferred the power to certain men who sat in it.

Some believe that a link was made with the original Philadelphia Experiment and the USS Eldridge which allowed the experiment which was occurring many years earlier to be stopped. The ship had not been rendered invisible but rather transported through some strange doorway to another place and time.

Experiments were conducted in teleportation and doorways were created which allowed the scientists to travel to another world where they met aliens and came across strange creatures. Apparently some metahuman or monster came through one of these doorways and destroyed the equipment effectively ending the experiment.

Other theories, not specific to the opening of these doorways, inevitably sprang up in the following years. It is said that strange animals were created there, that 'men in black' were developed there, that a hole to the centre of the hollow earth is hidden beneath the building and that the hangars were used for the creation and development of 'flying saucers' and strange secretive black helicopters.

Whatever the truth the area is now mostly open to the public as Camp Hero State Park. It attracts many visitors each year. Many simply go for the natural beauty of the place but some are undoubtedly looking for a clue, a doorway to another place or time or perhaps even the incredible chair which infuses some men with the power of telekinesis; a chair that creates gods.

Entry 4

“The Somerton Man Mystery. On 1
st
December 1948 at 6:30 in the morning a man was found dead on Somerton Beach in Adelaide, South Australia.

When the police arrived they went through the usual process of checking the body for identification and clues as to how the man had died. Unusually, they found neither. The corpse was lying on the sand, with his head resting on the seawall as if he had laid down to sleep. In his pockets were a used bus ticket to the beach, an unused train ticket, a comb, some chewing gum, some cigarettes and a box of matches.

The police made an immediate plea for witnesses. Some came forward to say that they had seen the man lying in the same spot at around 7pm the previous evening. They had presumed him drunk or asleep and had not checked him closely. No-one seemed to have seen him arrive or could offer an explanation as to how he had died.

With nothing to hint at the cause of death the police left the body with a pathologist and concentrated on uncovering the man's identity. The man was thought to be around 40-45, perhaps British in appearance and in top physical condition. He was slim, healthy and had the kind of muscle structure in his legs which one might see in someone who did a lot of running. He was 5 feet 11 inches tall with hazel eyes and fair hair. He was wearing good quality clothes consisting of a white shirt, a blue and red tie and brown trousers. Unusually, given how hot it gets in Australia in December, he had been wearing a brown knitted jumper and a fashionable coat. Also unusually, for a man wearing a suit in 1948 anyway, he was not wearing a hat. It was strange that he was so warmly dressed, almost as though he had suddenly arrived from somewhere colder. But, more strangely, all the labels from his clothes had been removed. The police began to suspect that this was a man who did not want to be identified. They could not have been more right. The mystery was to deepen.

Whilst the police were making inquiries the pathologist continued his work. Dental records were checked and matched no known individual in Australia. The autopsy offered little by way of evidence. The man seemed to have suffered some kind of internal bleeding. He had eaten a pasty about three or four hours before his death. The pathologist thought it likely that some kind of poison had been used, but he could not say for sure what the cause of death was. Normally, with a poison one can see evidence of vomiting or convulsions. Here neither was present.

So unusual was the case that the decision was taken to embalm the body to preserve it. This was the first time the police had ever taken such steps. An inquest into the death was postponed for, as it happened, about six months whilst work went on to uncover the man's identity.

The day after the body was found a small article appeared in an Adelaide paper about the grisly find. The next day, whilst announcing that the Somerton Man's fingerprints were not on any database the police also released a photograph of the dead man to the media.

This triggered something quite extraordinary for over the next five years the police collected testimony from people who claimed to know the Somerton Man. Over that five years the police had hundreds and hundreds of witnesses assert that they knew his identity. Literally hundreds of people came. They all knew him, knew him without a doubt. So, why did the police not make public the man's identity? Every one of the 250 names they received was different. It was as though the man had cloned himself and every one of his clones had gone off to live different lives.

One of the first witnesses to come forward was a man who claimed to have had a drink with the man a few weeks before. The Somerton Man had given his name as 'Solomonson'. A month later the body was identified as a wood cutter named Robert Walsh by several people. However, this was soon proved incorrect when the absence of a defining scar was noted, leading to much confusion from those identifying the body. Others identified the body as a missing friend, a missing stablehand, a steamship worker and a Swedish man. 28 people from the Australian state of Victoria said they knew him. He was identified as a seaman named Tommy Reade but this was soon disproved, just like all the other identities suggested.

So far so strange.

Around six weeks after the discovery of the body a brown suitcase was discovered in the cloakroom of Adelaide train station. In the suitcase, along with items of clothing, was a reel of orange thread not normally available in Australia. It was an exact match to some thread sewn into the pocket of the dead man's trousers. The clothes in the suitcase had all had their labels removed apart from some which showed the name T. Keane. A worldwide search revealed that no-one named T. Keane had been reported as missing. But what about the orange thread sewn into his pocket?

When unpicked it was found that the dead man had a hidden pocket within his trousers. Inside this tiny pocket was a tiny piece of rolled up paper. On that piece of paper were printed the words 'Tamam Shud' in a distinctive font. When translated it was found that the words were taken from the last page of an unusual book called The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The words meant 'finished'. The police released this clue into the public domain and a man came forward to reveal that he had found a very rare first edition copy of the 1859 version of the book in the back of his car, parked near where the body had been found. The central theme of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is that one should live life to the full and have no regrets when it ended. This seemed to be relevant. When checked it was found that the words Tamam Shud had indeed been cut from the back of this book.

Where the words were torn out there was a series of letters written in faint pencil. At first it was thought that this might be something written in a foreign language but subsequently it was realised to be a code.

W R G O A B A B D

W T B I M P A N E T P

M L I A B O A I A Q C

I T T M T S A M S T G A B

A small x appears above the 'O' in the third line. To this day the code has never been translated despite analysis by professionals and amateur experts from all over the world.

Also found in the book was a telephone number. This was traced to a woman who had owned a copy of the book but had given it to a man named Alfred Boxall. The woman was asked if she could identify a plaster cast of the body. She agreed to take a look and assured the police that she did not know the man but it was noted by the police that on seeing the cast she had been completely taken aback and had nearly fainted. It was as if she had seen a ghost.