The P.H.O.T.O. (VOL 1) The Search

  I need to tell you about it’s covering. The bottom saucer ‘ring’ was spinning – I mean really spinning – causing a loud humming noise. It reminded me of standing next to a rushing waterfall, or the crashing of waves on a rough beach. As this bottom ring spun, it glowed bright orange that appeared to be hot; however, I didn’t feel any heat emanating from it but I could feel the rush of air it caused. The really strange thing was the static electricity that jumped from it to the ground. It danced all around the ‘craft’. These electric sparks caused a loud crackling noise. Since the Earth is negative charged I assume the ‘craft’ must be positively charge, at least that fiery looking ring was.

  The first section, above this bright orange spinning section was a silver color. But, not aluminum, I’m thinking it was more like platinum! I thought of manganese or chromium, but no, I’m sticking with platinum. It was stationary and did not move.

  The most interesting feature on it was the four large portholes along the front, each circular and about 3’ in diameter. Inside I could see one of the ‘visitors’ at each porthole, dressed in golden suits, sitting in seats staring out.

  In between each porthole was a column, appeared to be plastic or glass but whatever - they were transparent tubes about 1’ wide and 5’ high that had lightning running up and down inside these tubes.

  “How many tubes were there, and what did they do?”

  “Let me think – five, yeah five. One between each of the four portholes, that’s three and one on the right and one on the left of the end portholes, would make five.

  If I forget, remind me to tell you another fact about this ‘ring’ later.

  Oh, what did the tubes do you ask? Scientifically speaking - little bolts of lightning ran up and down them...! Seriously though, I have no idea what purpose they served! Oh, almost forgot, over each porthole was a symbol: the first one had the outline of a man' face; the second looked like a lion; the third had, I guess, a cow and the last one was an image of a bird!

  One of them asked, “What did these symbols mean?”

  “Simple answer: Didn’t know then and don’t know now!”

  Over the porthole ‘ring’ was another ‘ring’ exactly the same width as the porthole ‘ring’. But this ‘ring’ was gold colored, gold plated or who knows – it might have been made of gold!”

  The final ring extended up to the top of the craft where a large, what appeared to be an observation dome, was located. This ‘ring’ was gold too but the dome was not. It was transparent like glass but tinted shiny blue. It was hard to see through the tinting but there was a ‘visitor’ sitting up there too in a gold colored spacesuit watching every move I made. There was some type of internal light shining on him from, what I guess, was an instrument panel that caused him to be more illuminated than those at the portholes. The lights shining on his golden suit gave the impression that he was on fire. Maybe the four at the portholes had theirs lights turned off, I don’t know.

  During the time I have been here I have determined their leaders wear the gold uniforms – reminds me of gold tinfoil, the others wear silver uniforms. The ‘golden boys’ must be the ones that fly the ‘craft’ too because the ones I saw in the portholes and the one in the observation dome were all dressed in this gold tinfoil type material.

  “Was the ‘saucer’ floating or hovering?” one of guys asked.

  “No it was sitting on legs – four of them. Now, I’m glad you asked – these babies WERE weird! They were like struts wide at the top and narrow at the bottom that came down an attached to a round stationary wheel. At the point where the strut joined the wheel was a ball-joint type fixture that divided into two parts, forming what looked like a inverted “V” – this wheel did not turn and was mounted on a 90 degree axis to the center of another wheel just below, which did rotate. The top wheel had no spokes the bottom wheel did – 7 spokes to a wheel. The whole wheel assembly could rotate at the juncture of the strut to the main body of the craft. It was a wheel within in a wheel. Reminded me of a gyroscope. The rim of the bottom wheel was surrounded with round shiny studs or cleats about 5” or 6” in diameter, a couple of inches apart and stuck out at least a couple of inches.”

  “How big were the wheels?” Little ‘S’ asked.

  “I’d guess the top wheel was about 6’ in diameter and the bottom, bigger, I’ll say maybe 8’ or 10’. The whole craft sat about 15’to 20’ off the ground.

  Around the whole craft was an eerie blue glow and I got the whiff of ionized air, I guess the whirling ‘ring’ caused it. That’s about it guys, best I can do.”

  “You said to remind you about one of the ‘rings’,” they asked.

  “Oh yeah, the ring above the portholes, the first gold one - when I went upstairs into the building I slipped over to one of the windows and the craft was still sitting there. The bottom ‘ring’ had stopped spinning and the humming roar had stopped too. The gold ‘ring’ above the portholes had dropped down and now covered the entire ‘ring’ that contained the portholes. Right in the center of this closed ‘ring’ was another blue oval with three gold colored pyramids joined with a white bolt of lightning.”

  Miss Lu apologized, “I’m sorry guys I let my engineering degree get me carried away! I want to think I passed out and dreamed all this, but I really do not believe I did.”

  The Captain spoke, Miss Lu, your throwing some heavy stuff on us. How long has it been since you got off that ‘craft’?”

  “We have no calendars, and aren’t allowed watches, radios, newspapers or television either, but I would guess at least six or seven months.” she responded. “I don’t even know WHERE I am. I just assumed they gave me an injection or sprayed me with some type of sleeping gas that knocked me out then they moved me to this place, I guess, to a different location in Taiwan.”

  “Miss Lu… Miss…” Captain Scarburg softly spoke trying not to alarm her, “I hate to be the bearer of bad news… you are not in Taiwan.”

  “I’m not? Where am I?”

  “You are in Cambodia!”

  “No… no… this cannot be… Cambodia?” She began to cry.

  “There, there, Miss Lu everything is going to be fine now that you have thrown in with us. We will make sure you stay safe.”

  “Who else works with you? And how many of these ‘silver men’ are there? Where are they now?” asked the Captain trying to calm her down and reassure her of her safety.

  “The people working here with me are very nice - but they are in the same predicament as I. They were abducted to come here to work too. I know at least two of them are Americans, and there are some from Japan and some other people, I believe are Germans. They are from everywhere. How many of our captors are there? I know exactly, I’ve counted them so many times - there are 21 of them.”

  The Captain asking one more question, Miss Lu, the other prisoners here what type of training do they have?”

  “They are all scientists. Their fields varied but most are, as far as I can tell, experts in, radio, television, electronics some are physicists, and I know one is an astronomer. Some of the others, I either can not remember or never knew.”

  Spook jumped in, “That’s okay Miss Lu, where are those other scientists now?”

  * * * * *

  “During the night when all the shooting and gunfire was occurring in the swamp the ‘les hommes en argent’ got nervous and kept constantly communicating back and forth with each other. When they talk to each other we ‘captives’ cannot hear what they say; even when they are standing next to us talking to each other, we hear nothing but silence. About 3 or 4 am this morning I heard a loud purring sound, reminded me of a cat but more mechanical sounding. Looking out the window toward the left rear I saw that same ‘craft’ object I described earlier floating or hovering about 5 or 6 feet off the ground, and a ladder was sticking out the bottom.”

  “Hold on Miss Lu, are you telling us this object was the same one that brought you here - the ‘flying saucer’?
”

  “Captain I’m not calling it anything, I’m just telling you what I saw and yes it was the same one or one just like it! Next thing I saw our captors starting herding everyone out of the building into that round polished gold/platinum looking thing.”

  Spook asked, “How many other ‘workers’ are there and why didn’t you go?”

  Miss Lu said, “I realized they were taking them somewhere so with all the hustle and bustle, the shooting, the scrambling around, no-one noticed me get into the closet and squat down in the corner. I put my hands over my head and shut my eyes. The machine made a roaring noise as it left. Similar to the sound a jet engine makes, but not quite as loud though. Oh, yeah, how many workers? There are twenty other captors, not counting myself.

  I listened to the gunfire getting closer, could feel the building shake when the explosions went off, but I just kept hiding in my closet until Sarge shot the hell out of it, scaring the shit out of me!”

  “Sorry ‘bout that Miss Lu,” Sarge mumbled.

  Spook said, “Miss Lu, are you saying the ‘flying saucer’ can accommodate 42 persons?”

  “Well, there are twenty-one of us, and twenty-one of them, so yeah, I suppose they were going to put me in there too. That would make 42, but hell you could put twice that many people in that thing easily.”

  * * * * *

  “Did these ‘people’ ever tell you anything about themselves? Where they are from? Why they are here? Anything?” asked Little ‘S’, falling back into his Intelligence Officer role.

  “No, they never discussed their personal lives…. Except once when one of them was giving me some work assignments – he (it) slipped and said they had come to Earth before.”

  “When? How many times?”

  “He didn’t say – but I could tell by the way he acted I wasn’t supposed to know that information. This same ‘fellow’ seemed to like me and was very kind – saying ‘please’ when asking tasks to be performed, not demanding as the others do. He never seemed to get agitated, like some of the other ‘visitors’ would. But as a whole the ‘the silver men’ treated us decently – the food is good and we are furnished clean clothes and decent sleeping quarters. Although their mannerisms are different from ours I believe they are not dangerous. The only reason I stayed here, well a couple of reasons: first I liked the research I was doing and the knowledge I was obtaining and second I didn’t know which way to go to escape. Although I thought I was in my own country we're still in the middle of nowhere!

  One strange thing happened to me one day that I need to tell you about.”

  “What…? What…? This is exciting.”

  “He and I were working on a project of theirs and he approached me, when no one was around, held out his hand to me. It contained something that he wanted me to have. I took it from him and later, when alone, looked at the object. It was a scrap of plastic sheeting with some numbers on it that made no sense to me.”

  “Do you still have this piece of plastic?” Little ‘S’ excitedly asked.

  “Yes it’s right here hidden in my notebook,” she said as she pulling the small folded sheet from her documents and handed it to the Captain. Sarge and Spook crowded around Little ‘S’ to get a better look at what the piece of plastic contained. Little ‘S’ slowly removed the mysterious sheet of plastic and written on it were these words:

  1st Section, Book 26, Chapter 1, Paragraphs 5 – 26

  Taking the scrap of plastic from Little ‘S’ Sarge was the first to speak, “Did he tell you what this meant?”

  Miss Lu shook her head ‘no’.

  “Do you have any idea what it is about?”

  Again she said no. “You guys got any ideas?” Little ‘S’ and Spook both shrugged their shoulders.

  Sarge finished by stating the obvious, “Its got to be important or ‘he’ wouldn’t have taken the risk to past it on to you Miss Lu, we’ll just have to figure it out. Just on its merits it is saying something is probably written in Paragraphs 5-26 of Chapter 1, Book 26 of Section 1, which might explain who 'the silver men', are. Now ain’t that something! Miss Lu is there a library anywhere in this building, or a collection of books?”

  “Sorry, no – I have never seen anything like that.”

  Sarge finishing with the small piece of, what appeared to be cellophane, noticed that unfolded it displayed no fold marks. Walking over to Little ‘S’ he asked, “Son, fold this sheet, tightly, and place it on the palm of your hand.”

  “What… you gone nuts Pop?”

  “No, please, just do it – I want to try something.”

  Little ‘S’ reluctantly complied but astonishingly, when placed upon his palm, the plastic unfolded, by itself, into its original flat sheet-like condition. “Get your knife and cut off a corner,” requested Sarge. Little ‘S’ tried but the plastic would not cut. “Here, take my Zippo and see if the corner will burn.” Little ‘S’ flipped open the Zippo lighter, using his thumb he struck the little wheel and a spark ignited the wick. Holding the flame to the cellophane-like sheet did nothing – it would not burn. “Hummm… won’t fold up, won’t cut and it can’t be burned. This damn piece of ‘whatever’ is practically indestructible! I wonder what it is?” he said as he put it into his ruck’.

  * * * * *

  “Okay”, enough of that,” said the Captain, “now tell us more about this place.”

  “All right, as I said, the professor thought photography had to be one of the greatest inventions ever and going back to basic high school physics he understood when simple film is exposed to light a chemical record of the light is captured, the process involves many very small light-sensitive particles which are in a solution, or chemical on the film. These little particles undergo a change when hit by light. Once developed other chemicals react with the light-sensitive ones.

  After I started working here I learned when you take a photograph a moment in time is frozen – a vast amount of data, that we never knew about, is stored in the visible light reflected from what ever object was in view. I wish Professor Lee had just an inkling of the datum the photographs contained.

  Light is made up of photons. The theory is they move though space as electromagnetic waves. Without going into some technical data, I’ll say photons are made up of atoms, and they possess frequencies too. These ‘les hommes en argent’ have figured out how to tap into these sub-atomic particles and convert them into words.”

  Captain Scarburg jumped in, “You mean ‘convert them into pictures’. You said ‘words’ by mistake.”

  “No words, is correct. I’ll explain: when a light wave strikes an object, depending upon the energy of the light wave, remember this you guys: ‘the energy of the light wave’, the frequency which electrons vibrates in the material will depend on the type material. The amount of external energy applied will determine if the light wave can hold on to its electrons and not produce protons of light. Guys, right now, forget everything you ever knew about photons and photography; this stuff we do is way out there in fiction land. It is beyond what you know as reality.

  The main thing the ‘les hommes en argent ’ are interested in is what happens when light hits an object and light is reflected. Some atoms in certain materials have loosely held electrons. The photograph’s atoms hold many free electrons that readily jump from one atom to another within the same material. When hit, again with enough energy, these energized electrons start vibrating and will come back out of the object as a light wave with the same frequency as the incoming wave.” ‘She finally stopped for a minute to catch her breath.

  At this break, Sarge said, “All of this particle, atom shit is giving me a headache.” He got up from the table saying he needed a Winston. He walked out the door, onto the mezzanine, down the stairs and across the floor to the outside morning air. Mumbling all along, “I’m leaving all this techno crap to the two pointy heads in that lab! Well from the sound of her the “three pointy heads” up there!”

  After Sarge lef
t, Miss Lu began taking again, “You both understand light possesses properties of both a wave and a particle. As a particle photons of light exhibit both wavelength and amplitude frequencies. Photons have no mass but we know when light strikes any surface, the surface emits electrons called photoelectrons.

  We constructed a vacuum chamber allowing a picture to be inserted into one end; at the other end is a complicated apparatus called a Photoelectron Collector. Focus a laser beam of light and a tremendous amount of energy, remember I told you about ‘the energy of the light wave’ this is where it is used, on the object, in our case a picture; photoelectrons are released and will move toward the collector at the other end.

  Next a current is created in the wires that connect the two ends; once the photoelectrons are collected they are re-assembled to re-create the ‘slightly’ altered original picture. There are a couple of complicated instruments; one is called an 'Optical Homodyne Imaging Detector'. Inside this machine the end result happens but time does not permit detailed explanation at this time. Gentlemen this is merely a kindergarten version of the science that is being performed inside this machine. I emphasize, they use a tremendous amount of electricity to perform these tasks.”

  Captain Scarburg spoke, “So you are telling us you can transmit pictures over a distance using this ‘collector’ thing?”

  "Captain, transmitting of data is already being accomplished everyday, this is multitudinous more complex than that. When I arrived I had to piece together most of what went on here; I believe, these 'silver men’ started out, like you said trying to broadcast pictures, not like our television, but somehow different.

  I really believe it was more than over the air transmission; they were sending information in something they call ‘digital’ format. They named the units of data ‘bits’ and assign binary values of 1 or 0, just like my professor was trying to do. They then combine the ‘bits’ into ‘bytes’, which can represent single characters of text or individual dots on photographs that they call ‘pixels’. A name they stole from my professor. I do not know if I told them or they ‘read’ my mind but they further developed my professors 1s and 0s concept but I truly believe they already possessed the technology for the transmitting of information, they were working on something bigger, much bigger!”