Chapter 12
If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life
you doubt, as far as possible, all things.
-Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
I had been itching to get more information about the blackout because I sensed it was related to my scoop. Finally there was a lull in the conversation.
“You were a bit hard on your Nan over the veranda globe weren’t you?” I ventured.
“She forgets stuff sometimes so I had to remind her.”
“But energy saving bulbs are environmentally friendly.”
Pete rolled his eyes.
“Keep it polite Pete,” prompted Zac.
“If you were a scientist instead of a journalist you wouldn’t say that Maya. There - is that polite enough?”
Pete’s tone resembled a low-throttled growl. It reminded me of a German Shepherd about to bite big time. The others smiled faintly.
“Want me to stop the debate before it starts Maya?” asked Zac diplomatically.
“No... You all seem to know something about CFLs which I don’t. I’m interested to know what...”
“She’s a journalist Zac. She must know!”
“Why don’t you find out if that assumption’s correct?” suggested Zac softly.
I glanced at Pete blankly.
“I still don’t know what you mean but it smells like a filler article for the midweek edition... Hang on... I might want to write this down... Okay... I’m ready... Give me a good introductory statement first Pete.”
“An intro statement? Okay... Thomas Edison tried 17,143 times before he was satisfied with the incandescent light bulb which he’d developed for home use. Because he put in all that groundwork, his invention was pretty safe. People used Edison bulbs for a hundred years under all conditions. Now Australian legislation has followed a UN directive and outlawed his invention. What we’ve really done is thrown away something tried, tested and safe, and replaced it with something which is environmentally harmful.”
“Er... okay... Um... Brendan. Do you feel the same way?”
“Yeah. The thing that still irks me is we were forced to surrender our freedom of choice, which meant we were forced to use something which we knew was worse for the environment. Not only that, the ban has made some people’s lives a lot harder.”
“Whose lives?” I asked, looking up briefly from my version of Pittman hieroglyphics.
“Kids with reading disorders, elderly people... epileptics... The ban was also made without considering people like Dave and Jen too. CFLs aren’t suitable for anyone who’s reliant on home generators... they can explode with even the most minor voltage fluctuations. They also aren’t suitable for anyone who uses HF radio because they cause an interference hum. Unless of course the person has their equipment in a Faraday cage like Dave does.”
“You make it sound like CFLs are little E/M weapons...”
“They’re harmful to the environment like little E/M weapons,” interposed Jake. “As Australia’s about to find out... I hope I’m wrong and it’s just Nan’s CFL that’s burst... But if what I think’s happened in Perth tonight has happened, there’s gonna be repercussions for years...”
Jake felt the same way too?
They had my attention now.
“How can a few blown CFLs have repercussions for years?” I frowned.
“Have you ever written a story about a company that pollutes the environment?”
“Yeah... I’ve done a few. How’s that related?”
“Well suppose I owned an Australian-wide company. Now suppose my 10 million workers each decided to dump 50g of mercury, cadmium, phosphorus and benzene into the groundwater near the factories they worked in. The environmentalists would be up in arms! And as a journalist you’d criticize the workers for their environmentally unfriendly actions, wouldn’t you?”
“So?”
“So that’s what 10 million Australian households have unwittingly started doing already. And they’re gonna keep doing it year after year until a truly environmentally friendly alternative replaces CFLs.”
Jake’s allegory hit home.
“I think this article might be better as a full pager in the weekend paper,” I murmured.
“If we’re correct and most of the CFLs in Perth have been fried, then in the next few weeks several million CFLs may end up in Perth landfill… And Perth local councils will be left with the daunting task of trying to stop the mercury and other neurotoxins from finding their way into the groundwater.”
“Are you serious?”
“Deadly... A couple of rubbish tips take CFLs as hazardous waste, but otherwise the only public collection facility I know of in Perth is the Ikea store in Innaloo... And I can’t see people from Mandurah tripping 100 kms up to Innaloo with a bag full of their blown CFLs, can you? They’ll just dump ‘em in the council bins... And they’ll shatter inside the rubbish trucks and the neurotoxins will coat the general household rubbish before it’s dumped into landfill... When they hose out the rubbish trucks more mercury will find its way into drains and river systems... Other people will probably toss their bulbs into the recycle bins, ‘coz they assume anything the media call ‘environmentally friendly’ is also recyclable. Except that’ll contaminate the other recyclables and possibly the council workers handling the recyclables...”
I felt Jake’s passion for the environment leaping out of his prognosis.
“I know some other stuff about them if you want to know more for your article,” added Dale.
This article looked like it was turning into a double page spread.
“Okay...”
“Well CFLs pose a fire risk... They’re mostly manufactured in China, and depending on who manufactures them, the electronics can overheat and catch fire, particularly if they are used in closed lighting fixtures. There’s heaps of photos of it on the internet. They can also interfere with smoke alarms... security alarms... hospital equipment... air-band radios... AM radios... emergency band frequencies... The list is pretty exhaustive.”
I could feel tense, freak-out potential stirring in my guts as Dale’s words hit home. I glanced at Zac.
“Are they all exaggerating?”
“’Fraid not... Personally my conscience won’t allow me to use CFLs because hundreds of the Chinese factory workers who manufacture energy-saving bulbs for Westerners are dying of mercury poisoning... It’s affected the water supply of entire Chinese villages... Pregnant factory workers are giving birth to deformed babies... It also takes six times as much energy to manufacture energy saving bulbs because of the complex electronics in them. So they aren’t really energy saving at all...”
“I never knew about any of this...” I said solemnly.
“I had a hunch you didn’t... Confirm the facts for yourself in some of the on-line science journals we’re subscribed to if you want to. Pete and the others can help you understand the articles if you come across anything technical you’d like to know more about.”
Zac looked reflective.
“Actually I want to pick up on something you brought up about the long term effects of E/M warfare Jake... It’s not just the cost of replacing items with fried electronics and the insurance claims, but your government is going to have to think really carefully about the en-masse disposal of everything that’s been wiped out due to this incident.”
“Because of the heavy metals?” I interrupted.
“Ah ha. The amount of mercury in just one CFL is sufficient to make 26,000 litres of drinking water unfit for human consumption. And older computers, mobile phones and teles contain neurotoxins too. Not to mention the tilt switches in top loading washing machines and many circuit boards. If sufficient heavy metals get into your water supply as a result of everyone incorrectly disposing of their bulbs and other blown gadgets, that’ll create problems not only for Perth residents, but also for towns like Kalgoorlie that are dependent on pipeline water from Perth catchment dams.”
??
?But scientists have been saying CFLs are environmentally friendly for years!” I blurted out.
“Whoever sold that idea to everyone probably valued his pay-cheque more than the truth,” supplied Pete dryly.
“Should be forced to put warnings on the packets,” added Brendan.
My eyes caught Zac’s. Congenial empathy reflected back from them.
“In the U.S the packaging warns consumers not to break or vacuum up broken CFLs. It states clearly that they contain neurotoxins which can harm the environment and harm people… However Australian legislation permits Chinese manufacturers not to warn the Australian public about the dangers of CFLs. Check out the packaging next time you’re in the supermarket… Then read the warnings on the boxes next time you’re in the States.”
“I don’t get it. If what you’re saying is true, why haven’t Australian scientists spoken up about this?”
“Voices in the wilderness,” sighed Pete.
“Don’t get him started Maya,” advised Dale. “He lost a scholarship because he spoke out against how un-environmentally friendly CFLs were.”
“It was more than that. I said publically that I believed some environmental scientists thought funding was more important than the truth, and I cited other examples where environmental science has fibbed. And the scholarship committee couldn’t handle it…”
“Other lies?”
“A few years ago an Australian marine biology student named Amanda Byrd went to the Arctic on a field trip,” explained Zac. “It was in the middle of the Alaskan summer, and the fringes of the ice caps were melting a bit – just like they do back home every year. Amanda saw some polar bears standing on a slab of floating ice not far from the shore and took a photo of them. It was just your typical holiday snap. She took heaps on her trip. Anyway, Amanda gave a copy of her photo to another person on the cruise - Dan Crosby. He gave it to the Canadian Ice Service, who gave it to Environment Canada, who gave it to Associated Press, who subsequently released it to dozens of media agencies worldwide. Not only did the media wrongly claim the photo had been taken by Canadian environmentalists but suddenly that holiday photo Amanda had snapped 2½ years previously became “proof” of here-and-now global warming. Al Gore told a gasping sympathetic audience that global warming was forcing beautiful animals like polar bears off the planet and leaving them with nowhere to go. Alaskan residents know that’s not the case though. Polar bears often stand on pieces of floating ice. They’re good swimmers too. They dive off floating ice and swim back to shore then turn around and swim back to the ice. I reckon they do it for fun actually. I mean - there are limited recreational activities in the polar regions for bears - they just run, swim, play, fish, procreate and hibernate!”
Everyone laughed.
“So are there other environmental science fibs?”
“The carbon tax is an example,” shrugged Brendan. “Tax Australians if you must, but don’t pretend your tax will help the environment.”
“But carbon’s polluting.”
“Carbon is a black solid you can touch. Carbon dioxide is a colourless gas that’s being demonized. It isn’t a poisonous gas, and it can’t kill you unless you’re trapped in an airtight safe, and then you die from lack of oxygen, not because there’s too much carbon dioxide. It’s not even a significant greenhouse gas. The most common greenhouse gas is water vapour. And there’s no way you can stop the oceans evaporating or plants respiring. Not only that, CO2 is heavier than air. And because it’s ground hugging, most of it gets absorbed by plants anyway - because they grow near the ground.”
Heavier than air? Ground hugging?
I was starting to realize I’d been conned by my peers.
“Lies of omission annoy me most,” added Jake. “Like in the melting icecaps debate... Scientists know that undersea volcanoes up to a mile in diameter have been erupting along the Gakkel Ridge in the Arctic Sea for the past ten years. They also know the lava is still 1250°C by the time it hits the Arctic Ice. You don’t have to be very bright to realize that a continuous stream of hot lava is going to have an impact on the ice and the sea temperatures in the immediate vicinity. More impact than a 2°C increase in atmospheric temperature anyway. Not to mention, there are indicators which suggest E/M weapons have been misused to trigger at least some of the underwater volcanic eruptions in recent times.”
“What indicators?”
“Remember all those schools of dead fish which were washed up around the world at the start of 2011? And all the unusually severe storms they blamed on melting ice in the polar regions?”
A frown creased my brow.
“Think back to your school history classes,” added Dale. “There were other times in the past when the climate was warmer, but it wasn’t catastrophic for the human race. Like back between 900AD and 1300AD, history records Greenland wasn’t covered in ice. It was green which was why it was called Greenland. And the Vikings farmed crops there…Whatever caused global warming back then - one thing’s for sure - it wasn’t CO2 producing cars or Edison light-bulbs. Because they weren’t invented until hundreds of years later.”
“And think about what you learnt in meteorology,” added Brendan. “It doesn’t take much additional energy to create a micro-storm... A body of water just has to be artificially warmed up a few degrees by an E/M triggered eruption… or air just has to be warmed up a few degrees warmer than normal so it rises faster and carries moisture as a hostage... Create your micro-storm in the right place and nature can turn it into a massive storm...”
Zac searched my face. Reading my features.
“Go easy guys… Maya’s fighting information overload…”
“No I’m not… I’m just fighting off that same feeling I got the other night when you dropped that other bombshell…”
“Which one?”
“Tell a big lie that generates enough fear in the masses, and they’ll give their government full control over their lifestyles and private property in order to feel safe...”
“History repeats itself Maya. There are dozens of big lies that have deceptively made use of ‘scientific facts’ in the last century. And not all of them have been for political reasons.”
“Dozens?”
“Off the top of my head... Piltdown Man, Nebraska Man and peppered moths are some classic science hoaxes...”
“Piltdown Man was a fraud?”
“Yep. Take a human skull, attach an orang-utan jawbone, file down the teeth to make them look more human-like, chemically treat and paint the fabrication, add a piece of chewing gum and then tell the media to tell the world it’s a missing link... The real scandal though is that such an amateurish attempt went unchallenged by the scientific community for 40 years. No one even checked the ‘find’. When it was finally re-examined, the file marks on the teeth were so blatantly obvious that they were embarrassing...”
“You’re kidding?”
“Same with Nebraska man. It was really a worn pig’s tooth. And anthropologists knew it too, because they found other similar teeth attached to the skull of another pig... But by then no one wanted to say anything.”
“Why?”
“Researchers have to pay their bills like everyone else,” shrugged Pete. “There’s a publish-or-perish mentality in academic circles. And Government funding quickly dries up unless you come up with the results they want you to come up with. So there’s pressure to fudge data.”
“There’s also pressure to ignore what you see as a scientist if it conflicts with ‘renowned’ scientists too,” added Zac. “Have you heard of Shickel Painter?”
“Vaguely.”
“He was an American zoologist famous for giving the world the official number of chromosomes in each human cell. He said it was 24 pairs... And he was such a powerful ‘authority’ that no one challenged this number - for the next 35 years! There are even photos of human cells printed in older journals and textbooks which clearly show 23 pair of chromosomes... yet the captions under the photographs de
clared the figure to be 24! Until 1956, scientists just agreed with Painter. Anyone who questioned him didn’t even get their work published. Finally two researchers managed to get their research published in a Scandinavian journal... The research showed Painter was wrong and everyone who agreed with him was wrong...”
Jake carried the empty mugs over to the sink.
“Did you say before that peppered moths were a hoax too Zac?”
“Yeah... You didn’t know?”
“Nah... Although logic’s always told me something wasn’t right though. Moths come out at night, but the whole evolutionary argument centred around them being more visible in the day... It just never gelled with me...”
“Sometimes it takes one scientist to risk making a stand before others will. That’s what happened with the peppered moths. One researcher published a paper and he said that in 25 years of researching peppered moths, he had only observed three moths resting on tree trunks in the day during all those years of research... The norm was for them to hide in foliage during the day. Then another research assistant revealed that he’d help create fraudulent footage for a NOVA documentary on natural selection. His job was to glue dead moths onto tree trunks so that the film-makers could get supporting footage for their documentary, because they couldn’t find any live moths resting on tree trunks.”
“Sounds a bit like what food stylists do...” I added. “I’ve watched them when I’ve been taking stills for adverts... they glue sesame seeds on the bun, spray lacquer on the lettuce to get that fresh droplet effect...all to make the product look more palatable.”
“Brendan... you haven’t said anything for a while... What’s the most blatant science fib in your opinion?”
“Haeckel’s fraudulent embryo pics... He drew them more than 100 years ago. And everyone’s known for years that the sketches are incorrect - on the basis of observation, ultrasound, x-ray and so on. Yet the drawings are still used in high school science texts today as proof of evolving from common ancestry. I saw them recently in my kid brother’s book.”
My brow wrinkled.
“Some academic texts are produced by the same publishers that produce newspapers...”
Zac looked at me with steady eyes.
“When a scientist is brave enough to swim against the tide and risk his livelihood and reputation, I sit up and take notice of what he's saying Maya… Because he has a lot to lose. If someone like Pete gets no financial gain out of maintaining his stance but he’s still maintaining his stance, then you need to ask why…”
“That’s how I feel when a journalist risks being called loopy…”
“Scientists and journalists are similar in some respects... they both need strength of character. They both need to be able to cope with external pressures like peer ridicule, media scorn and government harassment... Above all they both need to have the guts to abandon their pet theories if their findings or the facts don’t support them...”
“Frank’s not gonna take any of this very well... He’s totally pro everything mainstream media call environmentally friendly...”
“And you?”
“I was majorly... until about half an hour ago... Now my head’s spinning.”
“Why don’t you sleep on it for the night Maya?”
“I can’t Zac... It’s become a matter of personal integrity. People living in Perth need to know that information has been withheld from them and that CFLs could poison our city’s water supply.”
Zac reached out and squeezed my hand...
“Go on then. You be the one to warn them girl...”
Ω
“Frank... This is important... There’s a chance that every CFL in Perth has popped. They all have electronics in them which may have been affected by the fireballs.”
“Says who? Another one of your scientist informants?”
“Frank! Can you confirm their suspicions?”
“Well almost all the bulbs blew in our building...Except for the LEDs in the hallways.”
“What did you do with them?”
“Nothing... Maintenance replaced them.”
“What did maintenance do with them?”
“Who knows? Who cares? I’ve got enough on my plate as it is. We’re using sat phones for communications and internet connections and it’s costing me a fortune. And Coates Hire have got a fortune out of me tonight as well. On top of the trailer hire, now we’re running on one of their generating plants because something in our backup generator is cactus. And as if that’s not enough, tomorrow’s issue is gonna be late because we’ve had to get the old manual press out of mothballs.”
“Why?”
“The computer which controls the printing press is dead. And the main computer’s in a death roll... Huge chunks of it have been wiped... employee records... accounts... thirty years worth of archived stories... Bob’s trying to get the system to restore using some back up files he stored in internet cloud-land, but it’s still down at the moment.”
“All that’s a nuisance Frank... But this is life threatening! If everyone’s CFLs have burst or blown in Perth you must issue a public health warning... Run my other story. But hold the front page for this one... I’m emailing it to you now...”
Ω
“Gidday Gordon.”
“Zachariah... I make it midnight in Western Australia. You should be asleep!”
“It’s been a busy night. Or has David filled you in already?”
“You two got acquainted eh?”
“Yeah... You and your blasted curve balls.”
Gordon laughed roguishly.
“Actually I haven’t heard from him tonight... Possibly because I’m en-route to Australia so I had my laptop switched off for a while.”
“You’re in the air?”
“I’m on a U.S Airforce jet... I’m hitching a ride as far as Darwin, then taking a charter from there. We’re somewhere over the Atlantic at present...”
“Over the Atlantic? But that means you’ve been in the air about five hours.”
“Yeah... Six maybe.”
“But it only happened three hours ago... How did you know about the sat-based E/M transmitter?”
“What happened three hours ago Zac? And who’s turned a satellite into a weapon of mass destruction?”
Ω
Zac ended the call and sagged into his bed. He glanced at Jake’s sleeping form in the semi-darkness... Zac hadn’t noticed it before now, but Jake’s lips and jaw-line were the spitting image of Gordon’s. Gordon was en-route, because he’d been aching to interact with his love child for years. He’d hopped on the first Airforce flight to Australia after Zac had ended their conversation. Tired as he was, he hadn’t even gone to bed.
Zac wondered what Jake’s reaction to Gordon would be when he found out he was his Dad. He reflected on what he’d told Jake about Gordon....
Gordon would’ve made Brendan do 80 push-ups. And got him to strip down to a towel for the massage...
If only he’d known Jake was Gordon’s son! He would have toned down what he’d told him about Gordon rather than create the wrong impression of him.
I think it would be embarrassing to have Gordon as a mentor...
What about as a father? Would Jake be afraid of Gordon? Embarrassed? Mortified? And why had Gordon kept away from Jake all this time? Was he afraid that whoever killed Tess might kill Jake too? Or have another shot at him?
Ω
Zac fell asleep quickly out of exhaustion. He dreamt vividly of Tess being shot... her blood puddling in his hand as he helped Gordon cradle her wounded head... Tears were streaming down Gordon’s face as he bent over her dying body. Gordon was shattered... The look on his face... Tess was mouthing the words, ‘Watch over’ as she died... Except the dream was so vivid that this time Zac could read her lips...
“Watch over Jake!”
Zac cried out in terrified grief. His pillow wet with tears. Next moment Jake was standing over him, shaking him awake... Telling him he was having a n
ightmare...
Zac jolted upright... breathing deeply to regain his composure. In the dim 6 volt light, it was her eyes peering at him with concern. Zac knew without a doubt that Tess and Jake were mother and son.
“Do you often have nightmares about when you got shot?”
“No...” sniffed Zac shakily.
“You were screaming out Tess’s name... And mine...”
Zac wiped his moist eyes with his fingertips.
“Why were we both in your dream Zac?”
Silence. Zac took a deep breath.
Here goes.
“Well... ten years ago there was this amazing young Australian scientist lecturing overseas... she was working in our field... on the geophysical constant that you cracked... I never knew her personally because Alaska’s kinda isolated academically... but this afternoon I found out that she was very well known at the University of California... The scientific community there still remember her and talk about her... Everyone called her Tess for short... but her real name was Professor T.S. Lewis...”
Jake gasped softly.
“The Tess you tried to save was Mum?!”
“I’m so sorry Jake... Both Tess and Gordon were strangers to me that day in Alaska. Just visiting lecturers. And I just happened to be in the front row when I saw the gunman... I tried to save them both Jake... And now I’ve found out that the woman I didn’t manage to save was your mother and that you had to grow up without her I feel... lousy. I wish I could somehow turn back time... I wish that I’d done something different and somehow saved them both! I feel... I feel like I failed you.”
Jake shook his head and moved closer to Zac.
“Nah. You didn’t fail me. You just found a way that didn’t work when it came to holding down a woman. From what I remember about Mum, she was a lot like Maya... You know... Kinda feisty.”
Zac smiled sadly.
“I remember she was feisty after I pulled her to the ground... She looked like she was gonna sock me... Gordon still maintains I should’ve kissed her... He says astonishment’s the best way to immobilize an independent woman...”
Jake screwed up his nose and chuckled at the thought.
“You would’ve had enough dare in you to kiss my mother?”
Zac shook his head.
“Nah. I would have had enough dare in me to threaten to kiss her though. Especially if I thought there was a chance it would save her life.”
Jake inched closer still to Zac and studied his face in the semi darkness.
“How’d you work out it was Mum? Was it my screensaver photo?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought so... I saw the look on your face... Have you asked Gordon about my Dad?”
“Yeah... How’d you know?”
“I figured you would... I could tell you thought you recognized them both but you didn’t want to get my hopes up without asking someone older... You know, someone from the hippie era. Do you reckon Gordon knows who my Dad is?”
“Yeah... I’m pretty sure he does Jake...” said Zac carefully.
“Wow! I hope he’s still alive. I can’t wait to meet him...”
“Let’s just leave the ball in Gordon’s court for now, eh? But don’t worry... I’m sure you’ll get to meet your Dad real soon...”
Ω
I was up as the others slept. Writing my scoop of the century for page 2 of the morning issue. I shook Zac awake about 2 am and he gave it the nod. Or maybe he was nodding off but I took it as a nod and decided to submit the scoop anyway. My story landed in Frank’s email box at 2.30 am. I knew he’d be awake... Finalizing the front page spread... Fighting with the machinery he’d been forced to take out of mothballs because of all the fried electronics in his latest high tech printing press...
Memo to self: Hi tech printing equipment is vulnerable to hi tech weapons.
Within minutes of emailing my scoop, Frank was online... And livid.
“What the bleep’s this, Maya?”
“I take it your emails are getting through now.”
“Still only via sat phone... Maya I can’t let you put your name on this story.”
“Are you running my other two stories?”
“Yeah... they’re both on the front page... But I didn’t put anyone’s names on them either.”
“I proved it to you hours ago that my sources are reliable Frank... The only thing my sources didn’t mention was that the E/M scalar test would cause all the CFLs to burst.”
“And that’s ‘coz your sources didn’t know about that at the time, right?”
“Right. So why won’t you print my scoop?”
Frank paused.
“Because a few years ago I had a similar scoop. And it destroyed my career.”
“Huh??”
“I was dumped from prime time television because I refused to stop investigating a story about three fireballs seen by half of Tom Price back in October 1994.”
“You’ve never told me that. What happened at Tom Price?”
“The first fireball made a pass over the town just 200 metres off the ground and hung around for five minutes before disappearing from view. Then a second fireball did the same thing... appeared over the hills to the west of Tom Price, then disappeared over the hills to the east. Then a third fireball did the same thing! It was only 8:30 at night, and most of the town was awake, so it wasn’t like a couple of thousand witnesses dreamt up the incident or were all drunk as skunks.”
“Are you saying these E/M tests have been going on in W.A. for nearly 20 years?”
“Possibly longer... And not just in one small patch of the state, but all over the state... It wasn’t only Tom Price residents who saw the fireballs that night... a huge chunk of the northwest saw them or experienced the results of them. The power station at Dampier was knocked out by an overvoltage spike at precisely the same time as the fireballs were viewed in Tom Price. Residents in Paraburdoo also saw them... Over the next few days I interviewed dozens of people... Uncovered all these eye-witness reports that it wasn’t the first time this had happened... I found out that they’d seen other FOO events as you call them... Some people said they’d seen bright lights out in uninhabited bush-land east of Tom Price. Exmouth residents even maintained they’d be chased by them. About the only witnesses tight-lipped about the FOO were the local coppers... One let slip that he’d been ‘briefed’ by some ‘officials’ and it wasn’t worth his job or his life.”
“His life? Who were the officials?”
“The same people that got my Tom Price story canned... I spent a week filming interviews... Even arranged to fly two key eyewitnesses down to Perth for live interviews... and suddenly the story got canned - by head office.”
A lengthy silence.
“I was really wound up about it, because the evidence pointed strongly towards weapons testing scenarios in W.A. I was ordered to stop investigating the story, but I couldn’t get it out of my system. I spent nights researching E/M weapons... Discovered they were being developed by the military to knock enemy aircraft out of the sky... And that the military used them to alter the local weather to move troops... I took annual leave to investigate what had happened up at Exmouth in greater detail. I discovered there were numerous aviation incidents involving electronics failures in light and commercial aircraft. When I got back from my holidays I tried to show my boss the information I’d gathered. And I was instantly dismissed.”
“You were fired from Channel 7 for investigating your scoop on your own time?”
“Yep... Fellow reporters avoided me for fear that they’d get fired too. Your Dad was one of the few men brave enough to stand by me... He created the assistant editor position for me, even though he’d done without an assistant editor for years. And encouraged me to keep collating information about the weapons tests. The internet was just starting up and he helped me put my articles online.”
“Using pen names?” I confirmed.
“Yeah, your Dad told me about other Aussie scie
ntists he knew who dared to disagree with the mainstream views... creationists like Bates, Sarfati and Walker. I figured I was a bit like them... so I used a combination of their first names and surnames and came up with unique names. Like Jonathan Walker - from the scientists Jonathan Sarfati and Tas Walker.”
“I didn’t know that you’d had such a hard time Frank,” I whispered compassionately.
“Your Dad was such a big help... He believed in me...And sent me off to investigate every incident that might have even remotely been connected to weapons misuse in Western Australia. Like in August 2005 a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 was flying in the Exmouth region when it suddenly started displaying erroneous data that indicated it was simultaneously stalling and over-speeding. And on October 7, 2008, QF72 from Singapore to Perth ran into trouble when the Airbus A330 experienced uncommanded movements... And again on 27th December, 2008 QF71 from Perth to Singapore also turned back, when their Airbus auto pilot disconnected without command.”
“All in the Exmouth region?”
“Ah ha. And CAA flight incident records show hundreds of minor incidents in the same region due to electronic failures every year, and that’s just the ones that are reported... Listen Maya, what you’ve uncovered is real... But it’s just not worth losing your credibility as a photojournalist over. If you pursue this story Maya, these people might destroy your reputation and your career like they did to me.”
“What people Frank?”
“I don’t know who they are Maya. Maybe your scientist friends know. But either way, I don’t ever intend to lock horns with them again... I refuse to publish your scoop Maya with your name on it. So there’s no point investigating it any further... I want you back at your desk by the end of the week. With a boring, harmless article about a minor earthquake in Laverton, for the Saturday edition.”
“And if I refuse?”
“I’m gonna have to take you off salary until you stop investigating the E/M weapon link.”
“Fire me for reporting the truth?”
“No... Distance you from the paper so we don’t all get censored.”
“Okay... take me off salary... I’m freelance as of now, okay?”
“Maya! You’re being difficult! Cool off a while... I’ll call you in the morning after you’ve had some sleep.”
I hung up and vented my frustration by slamming my laptop lid shut. Someone cleared their throat softly.
Jake.
His pin-stripped P.J’s rated about 9 on the fashion disaster scale and his hair was bed-tousled, but I felt drawn to him. Two refugees from the same city unsure of their city’s future fate...
“Sorry... I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I wasn’t asleep... Zac had a nightmare earlier and woke me up.”
“A nightmare? Is he alright?”
“Yeah... sleeping like a log now... I was just drifting off again when I heard you arguing with your boss... Um... I was thinking... Why don’t you publish your scoop using an untraceable pseudonym, but still keep writing for Frank as a front?”
“There’s a way of doing that?”
“Yeah... I’ve been writing articles as four different scientists for years now... and they have no idea where the other three me’s live because I’m my own ISP.”
“So you’re saying I could submit an article anonymously to a media giant and they’d never know it was me?”
“Yeah... easy.”
“What about sending Parliament an official looking press release?”
“Hmmm... more challenging... but still achievable.”
“And they couldn’t trace it back to you Jake? The last thing I want to do is get you into trouble.”
“Nah... They wouldn’t know where it’d come from Maya.”
“Great! Let’s do it... Let’s make it news throughout the whole of Australia... every state. Several different slants on the whole story to make it look convincing... So what’s happened in Western Australia doesn’t get swept under the carpet because we’re the Cinderella state. I don’t care if I don’t get the credit for it Jake. I just want Australians to know what’s happening under their noses...”