The Apocalypse Calendar (9 page)

Miller picked up Dolores at Love
Field around noon. As usual, the Southwest Airlines flight was on time. He always felt at home at Love Field. It was a classy little airport with a world map embedded in the marble floor. As you came into the foyer, there was a magnificent bronze statue of a Texas Ranger that had a plaque that said, “One riot; one Ranger.” This said everything that Texas was about without wasting words.

Miller took Dolores to his house to drop off her luggage and to meet his wife, Jane. After spending some time chatting at the house, Miller, Jane, and Dolores went to his office to see the mysterious metal disk in the stone box. The disk was still doing its thing; it emitted pulses of green light at irregular intervals. Although Dolores Clark had seen pictures of the disk and its inscriptions, she had never examined it herself. She asked, “Is it okay to pick up the disk?”

Miller said, “I guess so; it has hasn’t bothered me any. It’s not hot; in fact, when you touch it, the disk is cold.” After Dolores had examined the disk, Miller said, “Let’s go to the blackboard in the classroom next to my office and summarize what we know about this thing so far. Then, maybe we can figure out what to do next.”

Miller said as he wrote:

“We know that there was an indication of where this object was buried when we visited the caves in the Sierra Cruillas and at Taman. In each cave, there were chips of green stone that emitted a green glow. These were embedded in white Chapulhuacan Limestone within a drawing of a pyramid.

“When we finally found the disk at a cave near Huayacocotla, we discovered the body of an Indian warrior draped over the box dressed in full battle regalia. You were able to identify him as an Aztec chieftain. Our veterinarian friend, Dr. Toa Vaca, told us that there is a legend among the local Indians about an Aztec chieftain who stands at the entrance of a cave at sunset blowing a horn made out of a conch shell. As he blows his horn, a green glow is emitted from the cave. All of this suggests to me the disk may actually be Moctezuma’s Treasure.

“Our analyses of the metal disk and the green stone indicate that both consist of substances that are totally unknown on earth. We still don’t know what sort of light rays are being emitted from the disk. It is possible that we are dealing with some sort of ultraviolet light.

“The ancient Mayan inscriptions still haven’t been properly translated. We absolutely need to find the leading expert in the world. One set of inscriptions on the disk is in a strange language that none of us have ever seen before.

“Arturo, Felipe, Gary, and I all had strange dreams after we visited Voodoo Hill at San Pedro del Gallo. Most of these dreams seemed to be related to the disk. For example, my dream was about the Aztec chieftain that we found in the cave and how he died trying to protect the disk. Arturo dreamed about Cortés invading Mexico. Gary dreamed about a spacecraft landing in Yucatán. Felipe dreamed about huge earthquakes, tidal waves, and volcanic eruptions that occurred throughout the world and killed millions of people.”

Miller said with a grim look, “Dolores, we have had nothing but bad luck since we found the disk. To start with, there were numerous mechanical problems with the van. Then, Arturo died of a heart attack in 2005 and Felipe disappeared while he was doing fieldwork in the Sierra Madre Occidental. The Federales think Felipe may have been bumped off by the drug lords. Only Gary Higgins and I are left. Gary is now an associate professor at the Institute.” “Didn’t Gary marry a girl from Mexico?”

“Actually, he married Dr. Toa Vaca’s daughter, Rosita. They fell madly in love when we stayed with Dr. Toa Vaca at Huayacocotla. I never thought that Gary would ever settle down. He chased every woman in sight.”

Dolores said, “Well, at least that’s some good news. It’s almost like you all have been cursed. Frank, I think we ought to add the possibility of a curse to your summary on the blackboard.”

Miller responded, “The alien aspect of all we have discovered seems to point us in the direction of NASA. I think I’d better talk to one of my friends in Space Sciences here at the Institute and see what he has to say. He might be able to suggest someone at NASA in Houston for us to visit.”

After a brief telephone conversation with his friend in Space Sciences, Miller said, “I found out that the best person to contact at NASA is a guy called Herman Swartz. He handles everything dealing with UFOs for NASA. Apparently, most of this UFO stuff is hush-hush and the American public knows virtually nothing about it. I suggest that you, Gary, Rosita, Jane, and I drive down to Houston tomorrow and show Dr. Swartz our toy from the Río Vinasco. I’ll get my friend in Space Sciences to set us up with an appointment for two p.m.”

The drive to NASA was enjoyable.
The countryside south of Dallas was covered with a sea of Texas wildflowers. It was late spring and the blue-bonnets were still blooming in the area near Palmer along Interstate 45.

It took about four hours to drive to Houston. The alien device sat with the luggage in the back of the minivan emitting pulses of green light. God knows what would have happened if they had driven at night—every local sheriff and every Texas Highway Patrol unit would have freaked out if they had seen this strange sight.

When they arrived at the Johnson Space Center, Miller said to his wife, “Why don’t you and Rosita take a tour? There is not as much to see here as at the Kennedy Space Center, but it is still worth looking at.”

Jane responded, “I think Rosita and I would prefer to go with you. What you guys have discovered is intriguing; besides, I want to take up for my grandson.”

Miller said with a grin, “Well, okay. I’m sure that Dr. Swartz won’t care.” With alien device in hand, they tried to find Herman Swartz’s office. At a place like the Space Center, nobody was particularly surprised to see a group of people walking down the hall carrying a box with green flashing light. It came with the territory. Dr. Swartz’s secretary dealt with nutcase scientists all the time. She didn’t bat an eye when the group entered the office bearing their strange cargo, and she promptly informed her boss that his guests from Dallas had arrived.

Herman Swartz was a tall, gawky man about seven feet in height. In spite of the fact that he was close to retirement age, his red hair, beard, and mustache showed no evidence of gray. Swartz bounded forward to greet his guests, exuding an air of youthful enthusiasm for the task at hand.

After Miller introduced himself and those traveling with him, he told Swartz everything they knew about the strange disk. Swartz carefully examined the disk and the stone box containing it and immediately said, “I can’t make much of the Mayan writing. You’ll have to get someone else to translate this. However, I’ve seen the other type of writing before, in material that we collected from New Mexico and California, but I haven’t been able to get anyone to translate it.” Miller gasped as he tried to digest what Swartz had to say. He looked like he had swallowed a large piece of steak and was about to choke to death.

“To date, we’ve only had partial inscriptions on bits and scraps of metal from UFO crash sites. At least the inscription on your disk is complete. The metal making up the disk appears to be the same that we encountered at UFO crash sites. Our previous analyses determined that the metal is a combination of titanium, as well as some other elements that simply don’t occur on earth. I’m not sure what sort of light is being emitted from the disk; it could be some form of ultraviolet light. We’ve also seen the green translucent stone before. Our analyses indicate that it consists of some sort of substance that also does not occur on earth.”

Miller, looking like the cat that swallowed the canary, said, “It looks like we’re really on to something here. The disk is even more important than we originally thought it was! Maybe they can give us some more information. All of this might take a while. When the analyses are complete, I will send you the data. I’ll return the disk to you in Dallas by special courier. When you get the Mayan inscriptions translated properly, send me the results; they maybe a clue to translating the alien inscriptions. If you’re spending the night in Houston, check back with me in the morning. I may have some preliminary results. It would be a good idea for us to keep in touch by e-mail. There is one thing that I want to have our technicians look at first: we need to compare the alien inscriptions on your disk with what we have in our database. Perhaps we can find a common denominator. The techs may also be able to do something with the Mayan inscriptions. This is, admittedly, a fishing expedition, but you never know what we might come up with using the NASA mainframe computers.”

Miller said, “It’s worth noting that the pulsating green light wasn’t emitted from the disk until my grandson turned the stone knob in the center. It’s like he turned the knob on an egg timer. Hopefully this doesn’t foreshadow some terrible event.”

Swartz reflected on this, pacing back and forth in front of his desk, and said, “Perhaps there is something to your egg timer analogy. We should all keep this in mind. After all, we are definitely dealing with an alien object. Let’s plan to meet tomorrow morning before you guys return to Dallas. What would be a good time for you all?”

Miller said, “Let’s meet here around ten o'clock, if this is okay with everyone.”

After a hearty breakfast, everyone went
back to Dr. Swartz’s office at NASA. The gangly Dr. Swartz again nearly leapt across the room to greet his visitors. It was obvious that he was quite excited.

Swartz said, “My techs have made some significant breakthroughs with both the alien and Mayan inscriptions. Although they could only make partial translations, the results give us some valuable clues. The mainframe computer’s data-crunching seems to indicate that some of the Mayan inscriptions refer to the Mayan Calendar. The alien inscriptions show diagrams of what appear to be pyramids with beams of light focused upwards from their apexes. Diagrams of this sort are also on alien hardware that we have in our possession. We’re not sure what all of this means. We can only speculate. For example, one wonders why the Egyptians, Mayans, Aztecs, and Incas all built pyramids. Maybe the aliens taught these people how to build the pyramids to serve their own needs. Many people have suggested that the strange symbols on the ground at Machu Picchu in Peru
were
designed to be seen in space and may be markers for some sort of landing site.”

Miller said, “Well, maybe the rays being emitted from the tops of the pyramids represent some sort of radio waves. Perhaps the aliens had the natives build the pyramids to serve their own purposes for space travel. The pyramid symbols that we saw in the caves display a picture of our disk inside the diagram. In each case, the disk was shown emitting rays upwards.”

“That’s quite interesting, Dr. Miller. It is entirely possible that the aliens implanted some sort of instruments in the pyramids that emitted radio waves. This is the kind of thing that most archaeologists would overlook. However, maybe there is a way for us to determine whether some of the pyramids possess such instruments. Perhaps the radio waves are still active. If this is the case, I will see if they can be picked up at the International Space Station. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

Miller said, “Thanks for meeting with us. We’d better get back to Dallas. We are looking forward to getting more results from you.”

Dolores Clark said, “I will push the Mayan language experts that I know to finish translating the inscriptions. I’ll tell them to look for any mention of the Mayan Calendar.”

The alien device had been returned
from NASA after it had been thoroughly examined by Herman Swartz and his colleagues at the Johnson Space Center. It now sat in a dusty corner of Miller’s office covered with bags full of rock samples that he had collected several months ago but never analyzed. In spite of the fact that Herman Swartz returned the disk housed in a five-inch-thick lead box, it still emitted pulsating green light.

The latest report from NASA indicated that many of the pyramids throughout the world
were
still emitting strange radio-like signals, which NASA managed to pick up from the International Space Station. Swartz indicated that the NASA mainframe computers could not make any sense of the signals. However, they probably represented some sort of beacons for landing purposes. Herman found it surprising that these hadn’t been picked up by NASA before.

There was nothing new to report on the metal comprising the disk or the green crystal in the center of the disk. Both the metal and the crystal were harder than diamonds. The light rays being emitted from the disk were also enigmatic. Miller found it curious that they even penetrated the thick walls of the lead box. Swartz said the rays were probably harmless.

Dolores Clark informed Miller that the archaeologists she had contacted were still having problems with the inscriptions on the box and the disk. The Mayan hieroglyphs were of a type that no one was familiar with. However, they were able to translate the bit about the Mayan Calendar that Swartz’s NASA mainframes had noted. Apparently, there was mention of a Mayan Calendar date corresponding to either December 21, 2012 or December 21, 2013. Most Mayan Calendar experts indicated that the first of these dates was the one picked by the Mayans for the world to come to an end. A minority of experts believed that this interpretation of the Mayan Calendar was a year off and that the world would instead come to an end on December 21, 2013.

Miller reflected on what could be going on inside the alien disk. It was hard to believe that the disk had anything to do with the end of the world. However, why should he worry; he had almost two years before the event predicted by the Mayan Calendar occurred. His reflections were rudely interrupted when Gary burst into Miller’s office saying, “Frank, let’s do lunch. We can talk about what we are going to do in the geology workshop tomorrow afternoon over a beer. Let’s go to that Mexican restaurant called Mesa Real. It’s supposed to have pretty good food.”

“Okay, I’m game; it’s better than sitting in my office and staring at that damn green flashing light. I think it’s about to hypnotize me. Let’s go.”

After ordering a beer, the two geologists started discussing how to handle the workshop on Tuesday.

Gary said, “We need to pick a theme for the workshop course this semester. My idea is to make it ‘Current Tectonic Events.’ So far, we’ve had some big tectonic events already, what with volcanic eruptions of the Eyjafjallajökul volcano in Iceland and the terrible earthquake in Haiti last Tuesday. If we can get the students to think about these events—focusing on speedup of convection in the core and mantle—we should have a good show.”

Miller responded, “This sounds great. I think I remember hearing some idiot geophysicist from Sonora Tech saying that there was no relationship between the Iceland eruption and the Haiti earthquake. This sort of view is extremely myopic. To me, it’s obvious that events such as these are related and reflect speedup in mantle convection, and they could foreshadow serious problems to mankind throughout the world. If I am right, we should have quite an interesting workshop course this semester and perhaps the next several semesters.”

Gary said with something of a grimace, “Yeah, it’s amazing how nearsighted some geoscientists are. You always taught us to look at the big picture. You know, if you think about the Iceland eruption, it is worth noting that Iceland really represents nothing more than a mountain peak on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Because most mid-ocean ridges represent belts of mantle upwelling and the formation of new oceanic crust, we probably are actually looking at a speedup in mantle convection. After the eruption, Rosita and I looked at a globe that shows the topography of the sea floor in all of the ocean basins. She pointed out that north of Iceland, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge extends beneath the polar ice cap. She wondered whether some of the melting of the ice cap mentioned by various politicians might really be due to heat from the ridge.

“This whetted my curiosity a bit. I began looking for reports in the literature about this topic and discovered that the extension of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge beneath the Arctic ice cap between Eurasia and Siberia is called the Gakkel Ridge. In 1999, a group of scientists from Woods Hole and other oceanographic institutions aboard an American atomic submarine discovered that the Gakkel Ridge was dotted with numerous active volcanoes. Apparently, in 2007, a Woods Hole expedition aboard two icebreakers collected samples from the Gakkel Ridge and discovered that volcanic ash and other explosive volcanic debris covered an axial valley of the ridge for a distance of over six square miles. This was the first time that anyone had discovered pyroclastic deposits of this sort along an oceanic ridge. Until this point in time, we all believed that it was impossible to get explosive volcanic activity at oceanic depths of over seven miles because of the great water pressure. I also found out that two other ridges parallel the Gakkel Ridge to the west: the Lomonosov Ridge and the Alpha Ridge. Like the Gakkel Ridge, they trend in a southwest– northeast direction. No one has reported explosive volcanic activity along the other two ridges. However, I suspect that they have been unstudied because of the greater thickness of the Arctic ice cap in this area.”

Miller said, “We definitely need to get the students to look into all of this in the workshop. This is really pretty exciting stuff. It suggests that some politicians are barking up the wrong tree with global warming. With this sort of volcanic activity going on beneath the ice cap, it is no wonder that melting occurs periodically. Another question is what happens to all the CO
₂
that’s generated by these explosive eruptions. This makes it clear that mankind’s contribution to global warming may be insignificant and Mother Earth is at the controls.”

Gary said, “It’s worth putting all of this into historical perspective. I think we need to point out that the discovery of mid-ocean ridges in the 1950s by a group of oceanographers at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory led to the Hess plate tectonic hypothesis in the 1960s.”