Visitation - Reality (book 1 of 2)

HAVE YOU HEARD THE NEWS

“AFTER ALL THIS TIME, Sue, do you think it might finally happen?” John asked his wife lowering his cup of steaming tea onto the coaster.

“Well they’ve been there, is it three times before, and we’ve heard nothing as yet, unless they did find something and kept it all quiet.”

“You know what these people are like,” Sue replied reaching for her welcoming cup of tea.

It was the middle of the afternoon and Sue and John were having an afternoon tea break sat in their cosy easy chairs and the equally cosy living room of their sedate three bedroom bungalow in a leafy suburb of Manchester.

They were both watching the special TV news bulletin intensely. It was announced that the latest probe to Mars had been successful in landing safely without damage and the mission was about to get under way. Pictures had not been promised yet, but they were to be released, apparently, as soon as this was practicable.

Images had to be processed from the telemetry sent back to Earth to make them suitable for viewing, it was claimed with the further explanation this was not a fast process.

These images, of course, would only be those considered suitable for general public consumption, the ones that were deemed ‘entertaining’ enough; others were not to be released.

The mission had started with a fanfare of media coverage centred on the highly visible launch, over a year ago. Progress announcements on its long journey through space had occasionally been referred to in the media outlets but now the long awaited climax of a successful touchdown and the start of a program of exploration were anticipated.

It was announced, at the time of launch, to be a follow up to a previous mission, which had ended in disaster but without reasonable explanation.

A technical fault during descent, or was it a failure of the electronics following touchdown, or perhaps it didn’t touchdown gently but crashed into the surface, were some of the various speculative reasons under consideration by the media. The space agency never offered any explanation claiming no knowledge of the possible causes.

The actual reason was never disclosed by the project team and officially, it was a malfunction too technical to be considered by the public and therefore nothing more had been heard of it.

An earlier mission, some five years previous when the engineering systems were not as advanced as the current technology, had been a sort of success. At that time an improved spacecraft had been employed to carry and ultimately control from orbit, the explorer payload; it had been hailed as the great leap forward.

More instruments included for than previous missions, improved cameras and, most importantly, new computer control systems should have spelled out considerable success, but it was not to be.

A broken cable or damaged solar cell, interrupting the power supply permanently had been attributed to a wind devil. This had not made sense to many people as official information releases stated very clearly that there was no atmosphere to talk about, so how could dust devils exist?

Explanations, if there were any, were never forthcoming but where they were provided they were done so with the deliberate obfuscation of differing specialists' theories; robust challenges to the physical attributes of an atmosphere were simply ignored.

John and Sue had been most disappointed with these failed events as they had a special interest in how the missions were going. They and their friends smelt a rat, as did many of the world’s press.

They had to remain satisfied however with what information was being released officially. They had to let others expose themselves to the establishment criticisms and worse. This included for some arrests of those brave souls who were attempting to expose the inconsistencies of the official line.

John and Sue’s group did not dare risk arrest or anything approaching it and stayed clear of any sort of action that may bring them to the public or official attention.

The pictures from that last mission to land safely, had been clear and in colour for the first time. They had shown the same rocky desolation as the fuzzy black and white pictures from the very early probes many years previously.

The colours of the few images that were transmitted officially for general consumption before the breakdown were now being brought into question.

A probe sent at almost the same time to a very northerly position had simply failed to record that it had landed and it was assumed, officially, that it had crashed into the frozen surface, some sort of malfunction on descent. That seemed to be another official untruth, similar to some of the previous announcements, but why?

This latest mission's probe was again in a particular area of the northern hemisphere, as the last ones, and except for the last far north one, was within a few hundred miles of the others.

The project team seemed to be particularly interested in one or two areas of the northern hemisphere but again without explanation as to why in response to the probing media questions.

John and Sue were not an exceptional couple to the outside world. They were middle aged and lived in an unremarkable detached bungalow in the urban outskirts of a major city.

John went to work on a part time arrangement each week where his accounting skills were of benefit to his employer. He kept the grass cut neatly, Sue tended the flowerbeds in the summer and the family size car was nicely cleaned and polished every weekend.

The couple had raised two sons, who were now grown up, and had reached ages where they had found themselves two nice young lady friends. They each married eventually at the local Anglican church with a reception in the adjacent hall.

They had then moved away from their home area to start their married lives. The two wives had been carefully selected but only John and Sue, the sons and their wives knew why; the reasons were not religiously based.

“Do you think they will find anything this time John,” Sue enquired in a general sort of way.

“I’m convinced the last probe’s failure had nothing to do with sudden technical difficulties,” he replied.

“This had been the general opinion amongst the larger group,” he added. “There was some conviction that this much improved mission was triggered by events, not by wishing simply to improve the engineering; we shall see.”

“I do hope you’re right love. It would be nice to know that we were amongst the generation that finally saw the circle closed.”

“I have a call booked for tomorrow, when I‘m sure this will be raised. I think we should hang on until then,” John advised reaching for a ginger biscuit to dunk it in his tea.

A quiet Thursday afternoon, one of the two days he did not work in his part time routine, was made perfect in his eyes, with a nice cup of gently brewed tea and a couple of his favourite ginger biscuits.

“You know John,” Sue responded, “I’m sure our phone messages and encrypted text messages were starting to be monitored.”

“This would explain the concerns of some of the group over the last year or two. I’m so glad the decision was made to swap over to some of the hidden technology.”

Despite her age, considered by many in this contemporary society as an oldie, Sue was quite abreast of advances in personal technology especially where they were concerned.

“They can monitor all they want,” she continued, “this is one system they cannot detect, never the less decode, even if we employed the normal web systems openly.”

John nodded as soon as the tea cup had left his lips to be returned to the coaster.

Sue had to keep talking; it confirmed for herself, if nothing else, that she was aware of what was going on in the world. John just listened in confirmatory silence.

“This internet web stuff we have these days is great, just piggy back onto the old comms devices and the info going down the fibre optic stuff is fully hidden, it’s perfect.”

“Catching up with what we know of the ancient system and making use of it, suits us perfectly.”

John nodded again.

John and Sue had waited for some time to have a high-speed fibre optic internet cable brought into their home from one of the commercial providers, ostensibly to watch TV and make phone calls.

They had lived in an area where this service had not fully reached into and had previously relied upon the rather slower and very interceptable telephone cable system.

They had waited for a considerable time to make use of the new global internet that would speed up and make their communications almost instantaneous.

The World Wide Web that everyone, including the members of their scattered group were now being connected to, could also be employed in ways that the ancient technology could make use of and in ways that could not be detected, or so it seemed.

The news being received via their devices piggybacked on to the new fibre optic cable connection, not via their computer and hard drive, was not as good as had been expected.

The words of the latest message read :-

◊

START

◊

ALL

◊

A COLLEAGUE ACROSS THE POND HAS BEEN THE SUBJECT OF

SOME EXTENSIVE PHYSICAL MONITORING AND HAD BEEN

ALMOST CAUGHT IN THE ACT OF COMMUNICATING.

◊

THANKFULLY HE HAD JUST SECRETED HIS ANCIENT DEVICE

WHERE NO ONE COULD FIND IT WITHOUT HIS PERSONAL

CODE WHEN, IT IS REPORTED, SEVERAL MEN IN BLACK - NO

THIS IS NOT WIND UP FROM SOME FILM - BURST IN AND

REMOVED HIM

◊

IT IS UNLIKELY HE WILL SAY ANYTHING

◊

HE SERVED IN THEIR MILITARY FOR MANY YEARS AND

WILL PROBABLY GIVE A GOOD IMPRESSION OF REVEALING

NOTHING OR DIE IN THE PROCESS.

◊

WE CAN ONLY WISH HIM WELL, BUT WE REALLY KNOW HE

WILL NOT BE HEARD FROM AGAIN.

◊

HOW HE CAME TO BE PICKED UP NO-ONE KNOWS AT

PRESENT BUT IF OR WHEN THIS INFORMATION FINALLY

SEES THE LIGHT OF DAY, IT WILL BE CIRCULATED SOONEST.

◊

As far as the probe news went, the message confirmed :-

◊

WE BELIEVE THE CONCERTED EFFORTS IN CERTAIN

AREAS OF THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE OVER

THE LAST FEW YEARS ARE DELIBERATE.

◊

THERE IS A HINT WHICH HAS RECEIVED SOME

CONFIRMATION FROM A COLLEAGUE CLOSE TO THE

INSIDE THAT SOMETHING OF SIGNIFICANCE MAY HAVE

BEEN FOUND.

◊

OF THE PREVIOUS PROBE’S FAILURE, THE OFFICIAL

LINE IS THAT NO-ONE KNOWS OR CAN REVEAL

ANYTHING ABOUT IT BUT THE GUESS IS THAT THE

ANNOUNCEMENT WAS FALSE.

◊

IT IS CONSIDERED THAT THERE HAS BEEN A

DELIBERATE MOVE TO COVER UP EVENTS WITH A

DELIBERATE MIS-INFORMATION RELEASE.

◊

DOES THAT SURPRISE YOU?

◊

WATCH THIS SPACE FOR WHAT MAY COME OUT OF

THE CURRENT MISSION.

◊

NOTE CAREFULLY THE NUANCES OF ANY

INFORMATION PRESENTED VIA THE NORMAL MEDIA,

TV, INTERNET, SOCIAL MEDIA, ETC..

READ BETWEEN THE LINES, PICK UP THE

OBVIOUS ‘ERRORS’ OR WORDS IN THE DIRECTION

OF THE TRUTH.

◊

WE WILL TALK ON THIS AGAIN SHORTLY AS

ARRANGED - THE DATE AND TIME WILL FROM

NOW ON BE NOTIFIED BY THIS ALTERNATIVE

MEANS ONLY.

◊

SECURITY REMINDER

◊

THIS MESSAGE IS ENCRYPTED AND IS TO BE

CONSIDERED AS FULLY CONFIDENTIAL WITHIN

YOUR LOCAL GROUPING BY VIRTUE OF THE

SECURE MEANS OF COVERT TRANSMISSION

NOW BEING EMPLOYED UPON THE COMMON

AND OPEN WORLD WIDE WEB SYSTEM.

◊

YOU MUST NOT COPY IT OR USE IT FOR ANY

OTHER PURPOSE OR DISCLOSE OR DISTRIBUTE

ITS CONTENTS TO ANY OTHER PERSON NOT

AUTHORISED TO RECEIVE IT.

◊

ALL MESSAGES AND ANY RECORDS OF THIS

SECURE TRANSMISSION WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY

DELETED FROM THE COMMUNICATIONS DEVICE

YOU HAVE EMPLOYED WHEN THIS MESSAGE IS

CLOSED

◊

IF YOU EMPLOY A REGULAR PERSONAL COMPUTER

OR SIMILAR DEVICE TO HOLD AND PRINT A HARD

COPY OF THIS MESSAGE, ENSURE THAT IT HAS BEEN

ROUTED THROUGH YOUR DEVICE ACCORDING TO

STANDING INSTRUCTIONS AND THE PRINTED COPY

IS FULLY DESTROYED AFTERWARDS.

◊

DO NOT COMPROMISE SECURITY

◊

END

This was a little disconcerting to them; as far as they were aware from the earlier briefings, the old devices sat now on the new fibre optic technology, was foolproof and could not be detected.

Perhaps this was not entirely true.

The message had concluded and the hard copy print out being fully read, several times by both of them, was carefully burnt and the ashes deposited amongst the contents of the garden compost bin.

“Well there you go Sue, this could either be the big one, or the biggest cover up yet,” John summed up the situation as he saw it with a mixed sense of resignation and repressed excitement.

“Fancy another cup of tea dear?”