Sun of the Sleepless (34 page)

Dale interrupted again.

'I still don't know what you're talking about, what are 'vortices' for a start?'

It was Jolene who responded first.

'Whirling eddies in a fluid substance, just like the spiral of water disappearing down a plug hole or the turbulent air flow created at an aircraft's wing-tip. Is that close enough Jackson?'

'Certainly close enough,' nodded Jackson, 'and to go back to your previous question Jolene, vortices later made an appearance in another development by Schauberger, the so-called 'Repulsine', a small levitating disc that looked like a toy spinning top. It was purported to have employed vortices to generate a purely aerodynamic effect allowing it to rise up and fly. Now, regardless of the actual truth behind the mechanics that might have propelled it, there is a clear link to the use of vortices to generate propulsion.'

'Was this a one-off?' Jolene asked, looking unconvinced.

'No, not at all, in Appendix 3 of my report I list some of the scientists involved with the Society for Truth, men and women at the top of their fields covering the mathematics of vortex dynamics, the study of fluid dynamics, advanced gravitation theory, electro-magnetics and many other subjects that, put together, add up to the search for a method of employing vortices to effectively derive energy from nothing and to harness it for propulsion and weapons development. Instead of purely aerodynamic effects, they were looking to harness the powers suggested by quantum mechanics.'

Dale started to shake his head.

'You're talking about flying saucers again aren't you?'

Jackson shook his head angrily.

'No Dale! Let me clarify this point once and for all. It is true that there are is a lot of fiction attached to the Vril Society and the group of psychics led by Maria Orsitsch, the nonsense perennially perpetuated by fantasists and conspiracy storytellers. Yes, they regularly claim that the society had developed a whole fleet of flying disks, labelling them as the 'Haunebu' series of aircraft and possessed of unheard of performance attributes, even the allegation that they were capable of flying outside of our atmosphere, but these claims are ludicrous and totally unsubstantiated.

'The truth is more prosaic in that the group wanted to develop such craft but their research was in its infancy during the 1920's and only reached experimental maturity toward the end of World War II.'

'Whhoooahh!' exclaimed Dale, looking slightly alarmed and clearly eager to belabour the point.

'You're telling us that they did create some kind of UFO? That is ridiculous!'

'No!' Jackson grimaced in an exasperated tone.

'You are taking my words out of context. All evidence points to the Vril Society financing projects which were specifically aimed at researching and developing propulsion technology beyond the mainstream concepts of the day. Even beyond the emerging technologies of pulse jets, rockets and conventional jet engines. All of these ideas were supported by the Nazis in the pursuit of military technology within the confines of physics as it was readily understood even by the allies, however, I am talking about a whole new sphere of science, the products of which are the stuff of dreams even now!'

Even as Dale lowered his head after his chastisement, Jolene nodded thoughtfully.

'Or possibly a reality if the current threat is to be believed.'

She paused a moment before looking directly at Jackson.

'So this relates back to your previous assertions concerning the Aether?'

'Yes,' he nodded, 'the new concept effectively held that all matter, the neutrons, the electrons, the protons, all of the smallest particles of the universe, they are simply bubbles of effervescence within the material void of the Aether, all vortices in individual states of equilibrium that could coalesce into larger particles and create the substance of the universe that we see today.

'The scientists of the Society for Truth believed that if they could control the vortices, they could manipulate all forms of physicality, from electro-magnetic waves to atomic structures, or even assimilate or dissimilate energy from the Aether itself, a kind of osmotic process at a sub-atomic level - effectively tapping into a limitless sea of energy at will.'

Jolene's eyes were glazed as she contemplated the hypothesis.

'They could control the very fabric of the universe -'

She suddenly snapped out of her musing.

'If it were possible, of course.'

'- but its not, is it?' Dale tentatively asked, somewhat incredulous at the implications. 'I mean, you're talking about a Hollywood science fiction movie.'

Jackson just shrugged and sat back in his chair, resting his fingertips against the edge of the table.

'In truth, I cannot find a single shred of hard evidence that the allies found anything relating to this subject, either during or after the collapse of the Reich. Absolutely nothing!'

He leaned forward and clasped his fingers together.

'However, that is what makes this so interesting! The allied forces found underground factories and production lines with V2 rockets in various stages of construction. We found plans, designs and prototypes for all kinds of highly advanced aircraft, some of them displaying attributes that we would recognise even in today's stealth aircraft. We smashed and grabbed our way across Germany and the occupied territories and uncovered every technological advance that the Germans had made - except in the field of vortices. Yet, I have uncovered irrefutable evidence that the Vril Society had pursued this technology right from the 1920's, eventually obtaining funding from the Nazi regime itself, but nothing has been found, or rather, nothing is recorded as being found - that is what spikes my interest!'

'Maybe nothing came of it,' Dale offered.

'I don't think so, you see, every advance in technology has a precedent, the V1 pulse jets, the V2 rockets, the jet planes, everything derived from a chronological evolution, but there are instances of technology that jump out of nowhere.'

'Such as?' asked Jolene.

'Foo Fighters!' Jackson solemnly announced.

Dale jerked his head back with incomprehension.

'Foo Fighters? They're a band, I have some of their CDs. What do they have to do with anything?'

Jackson shook his head wearily.

'During late 1944, allied aircrews began to report sightings of mysterious balls of light that often buzzed their aircraft, diving and circling bombers and even fighters with ease. Their flight characteristics demonstrated that they obeyed no normal aerodynamic laws of flight, basically, they could out manoeuvre anything and perform what we would consider as impossible acrobatics; there are tales of them flying in tight circles around the fuselage of bombers as they cruised at over three hundred miles per hour.

'Now, understandably, the crews were somewhat alarmed and considered these phenomena as evidence of some new German secret weapon, however, our intelligence investigations ascertained that German aircrews had also experienced the same kind of harassment, they didn't know what they were either!'

Dale jutted his bottom lip as he thought.

'So did they destroy many aircraft?'

'No,' said Jackson shaking his head, 'that is the strange thing. There is no evidence of any of these strange balls of light ever directly attacking an aircraft.'

Dale spoke slowly.

'So, what were they for?'

'Well, precisely, that is where we have to return to the secret archives. You see, although the public statements effectively indicated that both the allies and the axis didn't know what they were, the truth is somewhat different. In fact, they were part of a highly classified German project and even as events progressed in Europe, these things were also spotted in the Pacific theatre of operations.

'In one event in November of 1944, a Foo Fighter was shot down by a B29 and broke up, falling to the ground and setting fire to the buildings that it crashed into. Now, the remains were soon recovered and examined but were quickly commandeered by a team that arrived out of nowhere.

'With a stern warning to the recovery crew not to ever mention the incident again, the whole pile of debris was packed up and flown back to the US under complete secrecy, just like in the movies. The report I have found was prepared by the crew that initially arrived at the scene and who brought the remains back to their own base.

'Once news leaked back to headquarters there was an immediate security clampdown but this document managed to escape the net and was never properly classified, probably because it was just sitting in somebody's in-tray waiting to be read.'

'That all sounds vaguely familiar, so did they find any little green men?' Dale grinned.

Ignoring the jibe, Jackson continued.

'They found nothing that could be described as peculiar. The spherical body of the craft was simply a frame and shell constructed of standard aircraft metal struts and panels. Of course, most of the internal components were smashed and burned but they were able to identify simple devices for recording flight behaviour and atmospheric conditions, altitude and airspeed and such like.

'They also recognised the remains of some electro-magnetic emission equipment, basically a very primitive EMP device that you could build in your own garage, some batteries and a small incendiary circuit which is what had caused the building fires, possibly a self-destruct mechanism.'

'What about the engine?'

'Well, that is the point; it wasn't what they found that was strange, rather, what they didn't find. There was no engine. There was no propulsion unit in the machine at all. In fact, the whole thing would have been better suited to hang beneath a very large weather balloon!'

Dale looked at Jolene who noted his glance and quickly responded.

'Alright, so how did it fly?'

Jackson grinned and nodded.

'Well yes, exactly. The only conclusion that the recovery crew came to at the time was that the device was remotely propelled. In the very best traditions of science fiction, it was mooted that some kind of 'tractor beam' guided it, although later more highly classified reports from scientists dubbed the process as telekinetics, now more commonly associated with psycho-kinesis and a subject of study within the paranormal field.

'Of course, psycho-kinesis is more acutely involved with moving coins or small toys a couple of feet across a table using the power of the mind. The Foo Fighter was an object estimated to have weighed around fifty pounds and certainly was not held aloft simply by the concentration of the Luftwaffe staff.'

'What about now?' Jolene asked. 'What do you conclude?'

Jackson exhaled exaggeratedly.

'There are no reliable contemporary sources of analysis and information and I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a scientist, I can only guess and I could be way off the mark.'

'- but your best guess is what?'

'Vortices. Vortices in the Aether. Purely within the context of the evidence at hand, my guess is that the Germans had reached a significant but still experimental stage in the work originally started by the Vril Society. I think that these Foo Fighters were simply test flight prototypes controlled by ground based beams somehow utilising vortices to manoeuvre them, the glowing light given off by them was simply an effect of the beam or ray that guided them. Thing is, times were getting bad for Germany in late 1944 and so they may have tried to rush in some defensive counter measures into these devices and that would explain the primitive EMP equipment; allied aircrews did submit reports indicating that their engine ignition systems were sometimes interrupted.

'You must understand that this wasn't a fully fledged attempt to use Foo Fighters in combat, just a rush job to try to make the prototypes useful when the opportunity arose. The kind of engineering necessary to install heavy machine guns or air burst explosives would have required more time and resources, both of which the Germans were short of.'

Jolene looked down at the table and concentrated for a moment.

'Any other evidence?'

Jackson harrumphed.

'Quite possibly, you see, in April of 1998 the FBI eventually declassified a couple of documents that pertain to extraordinary flying craft deployed by the Germans during 1944 and 1945, significantly, there is an report of something strange that occurred in the middle of September 1944 and well away from where the action was really about to happen, as Operation Market Garden was due to begin in earnest at around that time.

'A German prisoner of war gave an account of an event that he had witnessed one evening in France near a small village called Reinange, located about twenty-five miles south of Luxembourg. He says that he saw an allied bomber flight of around thirty aircraft flying in close formation toward Germany, however, a small but incredibly fast plane appeared from below them, climbing up into the midst of the formation whereupon it suddenly exploded. The explosion grew into a rapidly expanding fiery ball before it flattened out, glowing red and appearing rather like the rings of Saturn, a circle parallel to the ground that kept growing with an empty space in the centre of the shimmering shock wave. As the allied bombers were enshrouded in the strange blast, they simply disappeared, no debris, no further explosions, just vaporised.'