Tomy and the Planet of Lies (20 page)

“Don't think this is all over.” Leni reaffirmed. “It's a shame my husband is gone,” she said sadly, “he could have made contact with the Swiss secret services.”

…I hadn't even realized that we had a Swiss secret service. But even so, what could they have done for us? They would have just laughed at our story.

…“But Tomy is here!” she said excitedly, Elisabeth nodding in support. “You could present the living proof that you're not lying: two Erich von Dänikens right next to each other. One old and one young. That's pretty hard evidence to refute!”

…Tomy didn't think much of the idea of having to reveal his existence to any kind of ominous public servants. And what's more he didn't plan on staying for that long anyway. He would not be leaving the house, he insisted. The ladies sighed in resignation about so much male stubbornness.

…The next morning brought the next episode. It seemed as though it was impossible to get a good night's sleep in my house these days. Banging loudly and impatiently on my door, Edith roused me from my slumbers. Luckily, the Opus One is such a good wine that my head remained clear.

… “Come quickly, Mr. von Däniken, I think your younger brother is dead!” she cried in a high-pitched voice, barely managing to keep back her tears.

…I ran down the stairs. Tomy's room was open: Neptune lay next to his bed. We had forgotten to hang up the ‘Do not disturb' sign on the door! As I bent over Tomy to check his breathing and pulse, Neptune lifted his hulking head and began to growl. “It's all right, lad,” I assured him. Tomy was breathing very shallowly, but regularly, his pulse was also OK. I covered him up with a blanket and went to reassure Edith. My brother was subject to epileptic fits, I lied and hoped that she didn't know anything about epilepsy. Then I hung the ‘Do not disturb' sign from the door handle and admonished Edith not to bother my ailing brother. She nodded dutifully, but I had the feeling she didn't believe a word I was saying. I tried several tricks to try and tempt Neptune away from Tomy's bedside, but in vain. If I left him in there he would just open the door from the inside with his paws—a trick he had learnt when just a puppy. And if I tried to force him to lie outside the door, he would probably just open it and go back in again. So I decided to just leave him where he was and informed Ebet.

…“Leave him be,” she instructed me. “After all, what do we know about how dogs tick? Neptune knows why he's decided to protect Tomy—even if we don't.”

…Reluctantly, because it was still too early for me, I showered, dressed, and started going through the piles of correspondence that my secretary had laid on my desk during my absence.

…It's unbelievable what complete strangers will ask of me: “Mr. von Däniken, how did it all start?” (It started when I was at school), “Have you ever seen a UFO?” (No), “Do you believe in God?” (Yes), “Could you, perhaps, do a lecture for us, free of charge of course, it will be good publicity for you!” (Don't need it, thank you), or variation number two: “We will donate your fee to a charitable organization.” (I decide what happens with my money, if you please), “I would like to draw up your horoscope. Where exactly where you born?” (In Zofingen!), “How do you finance your research?” (With my books and lectures), “Are you a freemason?” (No!), “I know everything about the pyramids. We could produce a book together!” (Oh, really?), “I need to speak to you immediately!” (Don't they all?), and so on, and so on. From the time my first book was published in March 1968 to the middle of 1987 I had received somewhere in the region of 8000 such letters.

…I scribbled a few handwritten observations on the letters for my secretary. Thank God my office was in another building, or we would have never have gotten away with this game of hide-and-seek. My secretary had made several attempts to lure me into the office—she must have found out from Ebet that I was back. I wriggled out of it by telling her I had come back to Switzerland a few days earlier than planned because I needed the rest.

…Suddenly Tomy appeared behind me, peering over my shoulder; Neptune was close behind him, wagging his tail happily.

…“Any more unpleasant encounters?” I inquired.

…Tomy shrugged his shoulders. “More interesting than unpleasant, I would say. The two people that allowed me into their minds were wonderful and,”—he laughed—“only one of them lied.”

…“Is there such a thing on Earth?” I asked.

… “As I learnt, yes.”

…“Can you reveal any more?”

…Tomy told me that he had been in the mind of a rich Swiss gentleman who had sweated profusely from fear during the takeover, but had then opened up and treated the whole experience as some kind of crazy adventure. The man was intelligent and adaptable. He had played along and the questions and answers had flown back and forth like a ball in a tennis match. It had been fun for both of them and now Tomy felt he understood the global finance system.

…“Usually, these high-finance types are no angels,” I interjected, “and they lie like there's no tomorrow. What was he called?”

…Tomy told me the name, which I won't reveal here, and insisted that Mr. X had inherited much of his fortune and built it up using morally acceptable methods. He used his riches to support schools and orphanages, as well as scientific research in the field of biology. He had an insatiable appetite for knowledge and for that reason he had categorized Tomy's visit as a scientific phenomenon. “What's more, Mr. X considers your capitalist system to be completely corrupt.”

…“I am hearing you right? A rich capitalist who disapproves of capitalism? Why's he playing the game then?”

…“Because at the moment—so I found out—no other system works. Mr. X believes in a worldwide currency, but doesn't think he will live to see it. Maybe he will call you.”

…“What!” I yelped in shock.

… “Since my visit, Mr. X knows who you are and where I am staying. It would only be human, if he were to try and contact you.”

…Tomy pulled up a chair and sat down next to me. He explained that everyone that allowed him to take them over would know about me afterwards. It was unavoidable, he claimed, because they asked many questions and he was incapable of lying. And later, when Tomy was no longer among us, I did indeed receive letters from people who Tomy had “inhabited.” There were even a few friendships that started that way. All of them kept the secret of Tomy to themselves otherwise—although a few of them only from a sense of self- protection. And not one of them ever lied to me, or me to them.

…The second person that Tomy had taken over that morning was a high-ranking church dignitary in Germany. Grinning, Tomy told how the churchman had been afraid at first that the devil had possessed him. It had required a great deal of effort to persuade him otherwise and to calm him down enough to start a civilized dialog.

…“Will he call me too?”

…“I doubt it,” said Tomy shaking his head, “He is too ashamed of his lies and will probably take good care not to reveal our encounter to anyone.” Tomy explained that we are trapped within a society that doesn't allow us to reveal anything which doesn't conform to accepted reasoning. I countered that he was talking about the zeitgeist, a phenomenon that I had been struggling against for years with little success. Tomy nodded silently.

…“There is no zeitgeist, really, and yet it exists. You are right: all mankind is a prisoner of this nonexistent zeitgeist. We may be allowed to write or say what we think, but if the time isn't right, it is simply ignored. And should you have the power or motivation to trumpet your knowledge into the world, you will quickly end up on the garbage heap of ridicule. You will be excluded from the society of ‘reason.'”

…Tomy grinned in agreement. But, seeing as the readers of this unbelievable story can't know what I'm talking about, perhaps a bit more explanation of what I mean by zeitgeist is necessary.

…A journalist, for example, is a person who collects facts to reveal them to the public. If the word UFO is currently an emotive subject among the dominant figures in society, then he will not write any positive articles about UFOs. His bosses won't allow it. They need to be “sensible.” But what happens when the journalist himself, or herself as the case may be, becomes the chief editor. Of course, he will only make it that far, if he has played the game and remained “sensible.” As the editor—and I'm talking about the serious press here—he still could never allow a positive article about UFOs onto the title page. UFOs have no right to exist and anyone who claims they do must
a priori
be an idiot. In the eyes of the “sensible” any UFO sighting must relate to a light aircraft, a kite, a hot-air balloon, reflections, hallucinations, invention, fantasy, swarms of mosquitoes, high-flying weather balloons or even unusually bright planets passing by the Earth at exceptional speed.

…The “sensible” mantle themselves in the respectability of science, and even pseudoscience when it suits them; they use the methods of denigration and exclusion and never miss an opportunity to profess their objectivity. This society won't even accept “non-sensible” statements even if they come from people who have made it to a position high up the hierarchical ladder. Just imagine if the Pope or president XY suddenly announced he had spoken with aliens. He would be out of office quicker than you could blink. Aliens? Here? You must have a screw loose, my friend! As
Chariots of the Gods?
—the English edition of my first book—climbed to the top of the U.S. bestseller list in February 1969, many famous and not so famous critics were keen to write their appraisals of my work. So far, so good.

Criticism is an intrinsic part of both science and democracy, but alongside legitimate criticism came barefaced lies, cooked up in the kitchen of disinformation and smuggled into the mass operations of the media. An increasingly negative image developed which was, of course, taken on board by other journalists. The well-known phenomenon:
Catch 22
. Soon it was taboo in “sensible” circles to say anything positive about my books at all. Curiously, my ideas cropped up in all sorts of publications and even TV series—but my name was never mentioned in connection with them. Media and science have let themselves be monopolized; they have lost their innocence and there is no longer anyone left who has the courage to correct the mistake.

…Zeitgeist is a collective suppression of those things that we, in our epoch, find too disagreeable to accept. This ominous spirit reminds me of the story of the man whose house was overrun with rats and who assured every visitor: “Rats? There are no rats here, my friend!” and didn't even admit the truth when his children were bitten by the rats and ran around screaming, or when the half-eaten body of the long-missed mother-in-law was found in the cellar. The zeitgeist insists that it is sensible, clever, morally defensible and, of course, all- knowing. But it is killing progress.

…Do you understand now, dear reader, what Tomy and I meant by zeitgeist?

…As we were eating our lunch on the veranda, Ebet noticed a vintage green Citroën, one of those old cars which had a hood that opened from the side. The car, which bore a French license plate, was parked by the sidewalk, some 100 meters away from the house. Two men sat inside, one of them, armed with a Nikon, was constantly taking photos of our villa. I could recognize the camera, even from a distance, because I had used one myself for years. It was specially developed for sports photographers. The car moved off and took another position around 200 meters further along on the other side of the street. I ran out and tried to stop them from driving away, but the Citroën was quicker than I was.

…“So it begins,” said Tomy wryly. Ebet suggested that we call the police, but we didn't bother. What would have been the use? I called Marc and asked him if he had told anyone about Tomy. He assured us that he had told no one apart from his mother and his sisters, and he had never mentioned the fact that Tomy was an extraterrestrial. He asked if he should come over to our place for a while, after all we had enough room. I told him we should perhaps wait a while.

…Our awakening on the third night at home might have ended badly if it hadn't been for Neptune. He suddenly started barking loudly and the other two dogs quickly joined in. Neptune ran wildly up and down the stairs jumping up at the door handles to every room that was occupied. We ran downstairs, Ebet armed with a flashlight and I with the pistol, which I had grabbed from my nightstand without even thinking about it. Downstairs, Neptune leapt up at the door handle to the veranda, barking ferociously as if he was ready for action. I wasn't sure, but I thought I saw a figure in the darkness loping off across the grass and disappearing into the trees. I opened the door and the dogs shot out. We heard a car engine start, but didn't see any headlights. By the time we caught up with the dogs, they were still barking furiously and were attempting to climb over the garden wall.

…Out of breath and extremely agitated, we returned to the veranda. The dogs didn't seem to want to calm down at all. I saw a packet of my cigarettes and a lighter on the rustic table. I was about to light one up, but Tomy grasped my arm.

…“Can't you smell it? It stinks of gasoline here!”

…I put the lighter back down carefully; Ebet opened the veranda doors wide and the dogs shot back out into the frosty winter's night. Neptune suddenly halted, sniffing at the ground, his long front legs slightly splayed. He trampled around in a circle, investigating something. Where he was standing, just by the wall, where the plants climbed the side of the house almost up to the roof, lay a rag soaked in gasoline. Bravely, I picked up the stinking lump and threw it out onto the garden. Just a single burning match would have been enough to set the entire wall ablaze, right up to the roof.

…“They wanted to burn us in our beds!” Ebet stated, steaming with fury. “Now we have to call the police—no matter what you two say!” Then she hugged Neptune and the other two animals in gratitude.