“At this point I’d have to say yes,” Lightfoot replied. “The sediment layer under the ice contained enough organic material to positively date it to at least 50 million years or so, which doesn’t leave room for any other explanation. And the writing we’ve discovered just doesn’t… I don’t know, it doesn’t feel human.”
“Yes, I saw your photos,” said Winston. He paused for a moment.
“Alright. We think this is an alien construction. But your scans detected no traces of radiation or electrical activity, and the site’s been buried for millions of years, so we can probably assume that it’s completely dormant. Even plutonium would have decayed to harmless slag in that amount of time. I think for now we can maintain the status quo. We have people ready to move on a moment’s notice if necessary, but for now I think we’ll keep a low profile and let the academic community continue.”
“Sounds fine to me,” said Lightfoot. “What about the general public? Do we try to keep this under wraps?”
“Dan, there are too many people down there, and too many ways for them to get word out to try to keep this a secret at this point. Conspiracy buffs may love to think that the government has been hiding evidence of alien contact for decades, but we both know that that’s nonsense.
“This is potentially the most exciting discovery in human history. I don’t think we could cover it up even if we had reason to want to.”
“I thought that’s what you’d say, Gordon, but I’m pleased to hear it nonetheless.”
“At the same time, Dan, there’s also the possibility that this could be the most dangerous discovery in human history. It’s possible — if not probable — that we’re dealing with an alien technology here. If so, their technology is without any doubt far more advanced than our own.”
“I’d say that’s a fair assumption,” Lightfoot agreed.
“Dan, I want to be optimistic about this discovery, but it’s my responsibility to take into account the possible threat to national security. Hell, for that matter, world security. A technology we don’t understand by its very nature brings the chance that there are hazards involved that we can’t even imagine. And it’s not just the potential for technological dangers that has me concerned. There’s the real possibility of biological danger. This thing appears to have been built at right around the same time the dinosaurs went extinct, and as we’ve discussed previously, this could be more than a coincidence.”
“So what are you leading up to, Gordon?” Lightfoot asked, although he had a queasy feeling he already knew.
“Now that we know the structures are definitely artificial, I want us to be prepared for every contingency.” He paused, as if for dramatic effect. “I’m sending you a package.”
“That’s what I figured,” Lightfoot replied.
“It’ll be contained in a spectrum analyzer which, by the way, is fully functional. It’s tactical, very clean, with a yield of 50 kilotons. Contact George Quincy by secure line once you receive it, and he’ll brief you on getting at the controls.”
“Right.”
“We managed to delay the next supply ship leaving from Tierra del Fuego, and it sails tomorrow, so you’ll have it in about four days. Also on board will be a fellow named Dr. Arnold Greissman from the CDC. He’s bringing in the gear you’ll need for a complete Level 3 containment when it comes time to open the structure. He’s been briefed, and he knows who you are and for whom you work.”
“Good,” replied Lightfoot. “I’ve felt a little lonely down here, surrounded by academics. They’ve been polite, but I’ve still felt like the odd man out.”
“Before this is over I expect your population at the site will close to double. You’ll soon have lots of company.”
“It’s gonna get cramped down here. It’ll be several months before any new construction will be possible. In case you hadn’t noticed, Winter’s coming on soon.”
“I’ve noticed, and frankly it gives me the heebie-jeebies that we have to wait for breaks in the weather to be able to land aircraft there for the next six months. If you end up having to evacuate, it could be quite a struggle getting everyone to McMurdo in bad weather.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. “
There was a pause as both men contemplated the reason for and difficulty of an evacuation.
“Alright, I can’t think of anything else at the moment. Keep me posted,” said Winston, signing off.
“Will do.”
Lightfoot finished up by copying the images onto a thumb drive for Reynolds.
Chapter 7
The Press
Dewey Manley sat in the main office, joking with Kelly Michaels, the pool cameraman from CNN, and Eric Jeffreys, the CNN reporter. Manley had been at the site for nine days, while the CNN crew had arrived only three days ago. So far, Manley had interviewed virtually the entire research team, but hadn’t yet been allowed to go downtown.
The discovery of what appeared to be a city under the ice in Antarctica had created quite a stir in the press. Both Time and Newsweek had run covers featuring the computer simulation of the echo soundings that had been displayed at the press conference, and all major newspapers had run stories. The tabloids had of course gone crazy. ABC’s “Nightline” had devoted two broadcasts to the story, interviewing Hal Reynolds before he had returned to Antarctica, followed on the second show by experts in geology, paleontology and exobiology, among others. The majority of the pundits were of the opinion that what lay beneath the ice in Antarctica was probably of alien origin, thought the more reputable among them characteristically hedged their bets.
Since the support resources at the site were limited, it had been decided to allow one print journalist and one television crew to take a limited role in the project. Access to both information and downtown itself was to be controlled by Hal Reynolds. Manley had gotten his assignment through personal connections; the CNN crew, who would share their footage with other broadcast organizations, won their spot by lottery.
Manley and the CNN pair knew that something had been found the day before that had shaken up the research team, but everyone who knew what it was had been tight-lipped. The meeting that had been held after dinner had also been for team members only; Manley, Michaels and Jeffreys had spent the time playing poker and speculating on what was going on.
As Manley got to the punch line of the joke he was telling, the door opened, and Hal Reynolds came in, accompanied by Dan Lightfoot. The CNN crew were laughing so hard at the joke that Reynolds asked Manley to tell it to him and Lightfoot, so Manley complied.
“This guy goes into a little curio shop in Chinatown in San Francisco. He pokes around for a while, and he comes across this little brass rat. The workmanship’s incredible, like nothing he’s ever seen, and it almost seems to have an energy to it. He takes it over to the proprietor, an old Chinese man standing behind the counter. The proprietor says, ‘May I help you?’
” ‘How much do you want for this brass rat,’ the guy asks. The proprietor smiles and nods and says, ‘For rat alone, ten dollar. For rat and story behind rat, one hundred dollar.’
“The guy thinks this over for a minute, and then he says, ‘Tell you what, I’ll take the rat for ten bucks, and you can keep the story.’ The proprietor nods and says ‘Very well, sir.’ The guy pays the ten dollars, puts the rat in his pocket, and leaves.
“So he’s walking down the street, and all of a sudden, from every alley, from every sewer grate, rats start pouring out, heading straight for him. He starts running, and the rats keep coming. He sees a cab, and he jumps in and yells to the driver ‘Take me to Fisherman’s Wharf!’
“The driver takes a look in his rear-view mirror, says, ‘No problem,’ and floors it. They’re speeding down to the wharf, and as they go, rats keep pouring out of every nook and cranny, following them.
“They finally get to the wharf, and the guy jumps out of the cab and runs down to the end of the pier, with the rats right behind him. He takes the brass rat ou
t of his pocket and heaves it as far as he can into the Bay, and the rats go pouring off the end of the pier and into the water.
“After he catches his breath, he goes back up the pier, gets in the cab and says, ‘Take me back to Chinatown.’ He finds the shop, goes in, and the proprietor says, ‘May I help you?’
” ‘Yeah,’ the guy says…
” ‘Got any little brass lawyers?’ “
This cracked up everybody, even the CNN men who had already heard it.
After the laughter had died down, Reynolds brought the subject back to the business at hand.
“I apologize for the fact that we’ve been keeping our cards close to our vest, as it were. I think you know that we found something rather interesting yesterday, and we wanted to get a handle on it — and check with our bosses — before we went public.”
There was no need to whet the appetites of the three news men; they were ready for information.
“What we found was what appears to be writing on the wall of Town Hall.”
Manley was the first to speak up. “Is it in any known language?”
“No. It appears to be completely new, from the preliminary feedback we’ve gotten from our experts. We’ve sent digitized photos not only to Berkeley but to several other schools, and no one’s been able to match the writing to anything we’ve seen before. It’s new, and frankly, to my eye, it has an alien appearance to it.”
“When can we get copies of the photos?” asked Jeffreys .
“The photo lab’s already made copies of what we have so far, and there’s a copy for you guys to transmit to your offices waiting for you in the lab.”
Manley leaned forward in his chair. “More to the point,” he said, “when do we get to go down?”
Reynolds grinned at him. “How about right now?”
The three news men grabbed their parkas, zipped up and followed Reynolds out of the office. Ten minutes later the entire group was standing near the stairway up the side of Town Hall.
•
“This is Eric Jeffreys for CNN, on location in Antarctica at the site of a remarkable discovery.” The picture showed Jeffreys standing in front of the base of the pyramid. “Behind me you see the base of the largest of the pyramids located back in January under more than 500 feet of ice. As remarkable as the mere existence of these structures is, the findings of the past few days have taken everyone by surprise.”
The picture cut to a shot of Jeffreys standing directly next to the wall’s base. “What you see here is writing that runs along the wall of the pyramid. This writing is in no language known to man, and is presumed to be alien in origin.”
The picture cut to a slow pan of the markings, assembled from the digitized images Kelly Michaels had transmitted back to Atlanta. Jeffreys continued in voice-over.
“This writing has experts all over the world scratching their heads, trying to ascertain what it might mean. The best minds in linguistics are already at work trying to decipher and translate this obscure language in hopes of unlocking the secrets of this Antarctic pyramid.”
The picture cut back to Jeffreys.
“But that’s not all that’s been found.” He was now standing in front of the base of the stairway, and turned, waving his arm at it. “This stairway, just uncovered, leads from ground level up the side of the pyramid.” The picture cut to a slow tilt up the stairway. “Where it leads nobody knows, but it’s where this expedition is headed next.”
The picture cut to a shot of Stephanie Mitchell, with Jeffreys in voice-over.
“I spoke to Dr. Stephanie Mitchell, a paleontologist from the University of California at Berkeley who’s a member of the research team.”
The audio edit that followed picked Mitchell up in mid-sentence. “… we’re extremely excited by this discovery. We’ve been presented with something we’ve never before encountered, which is what appears to be a non-human language, which also implies a non-human culture.”
“By non-human, Dr. Mitchell, do you mean that this is an alien artifact?” Jeffreys asked.
“Well, of course, it’s too early to say for sure, but that’s the direction most of us are leaning at the moment.”
The picture cut to Jeffreys, back at his original position. “Five hundred feet below the ice of Antarctica lies a mystery that is only now starting to unravel. Are the structures here the work of alien forces, or is there another explanation? Only further exploration will tell.
“This is Eric Jeffreys for CNN in Antarctica.”
•
Writing Found on Antarctic Pyramid
Alien Origin Possible
by Dewey Manley
Times Science Editor
Antarctica — Researchers excavating a pyramidal structure located under more than 500 feet of Antarctic ice today announced the discovery of what appears to be writing of an unknown style and origin on a wall of the structure. Also found was a stairway starting at the base of the pyramid, presumably leading up to its second level, on which a smaller pyramid sits. The writing, made up of thousands of symbols neatly raised from the surface of the wall, does not appear to match any known human language.
The writing appears in a band roughly two feet high running along the side of the pyramid, and extending the full length of the exposed portion of the wall. Roughly one twentieth of the Southern base of the pyramid has been exposed to date, to a height of up to eight feet. Researchers here expect to find that the band of symbols extends around all three faces of the structure.
Dr. Stephanie Mitchell of the Department of Geology at the University of California at Berkeley, the research team’s resident paleontologist, offered her reaction to the discovery.
“It’s a tremendous find, with stunning implications regardless of who or what created these symbols. The mere existence of the structures we’re exploring had already challenged our understanding of Earth’s history, but there was always the small chance that these structures might have somehow been natural formations. The existence of what is clearly writing on the structure means first of all that these are artificial constructs, created by sentient beings, and second, that through their writing we may be able to learn who and what they were.
“We’re extremely excited by this discovery. We’ve been presented with something we’ve never before encountered, which is what appears to be a non-human language, which also implies a non-human culture.”
Asked if she thought the writing indicated that it and the structure on which it was found represents an alien artifact, Mitchell said, “Well, of course, it’s too early to say for sure, but that’s the direction most of us are leaning at the moment. The age of the layer of dirt, ash and organic matter found covering the area surrounding the structure and under the ice, and dating of the material used in its construction dates its construction to at least 65 million years ago. That predates the start of human evolution by 60 million years or more. As we look for explanations, alien origin seems to be the one that makes the most sense.”
Preliminary comparisons of the symbols with human writing have revealed no matches. Dr. Andrew Stasny of the Department of Linguistics at Berkeley was one of the first experts to receive copies of the symbols for analysis. In a telephone interview, he stressed the tentative nature of the results so far obtained.
“I can’t say with absolute certainty that this isn’t human writing, but the examples we’ve seen don’t match any known language, either contemporary or historic. The closest match we’ve found is with ancient Sumerian, but there are significant differences that make us all but certain that this isn’t Sumerian or any of its offshoots.”
Samples of the writing have been distributed to numerous universities around the world, and an Internet teleconference will be held on Monday, April 14th to allow the various teams working on deciphering the writing to exchange information.
Meanwhile, as linguistics experts work on the writing, the research team plans to tunnel through the ice up the stairway on the side of the pyramid,
on the assumption that an entrance will be located either along the way, or more likely, at the second level of the pyramid. Additional crew members and equipment, gathered from several universities, will be joining the effort over the next several weeks.
Unfortunately, with the Fall season well under way, the very act of getting to the excavation site becomes more difficult every day. Most personnel and equipment must be brought in by boat to McMurdo Station, which has served as a staging area. During increasingly rare breaks in the weather, fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters are being used to ferry people and gear to the excavation site, more than 100 miles from McMurdo Station. Ground transportation via heavy Snowcats is risky during the Fall and Winter months and well into Spring.
Dr. Harold Reynolds of U. C. Berkeley’s Department of Geology, who led the team that discovered the structures that are collectively called the “Town,” spoke of the difficulties that lie ahead during a recent interview.
“We’re now faced with the job of digging our way up the side of the pyramid at just under a 45-degree angle for roughly 80 feet until we reach the second level. Digging down or horizontally is hard enough, but digging up is really difficult.”
Asked what he thought the research team might find inside the structure, Reynolds spoke speculatively. “Until we either find an entrance or drill our way into the pyramid, I can only guess, the same as everybody else. Everyone seems convinced that this was built by aliens, and I think that’s probably the most likely explanation, but it still remains a theory. If that is the case, then there’s every chance that this largest of more than 30 structures was something like a central headquarters. We call it ‘Town Hall’ because of its prominence. If we’re lucky, we’ll find more written records and other artifacts that will let us determine who built it.”
The excavation of the “Town” began with the drilling of a vertical shaft from the surface of the ice to ground level more than 500 feet below. There, an open space was dug out, creating an artificial cavern that now measures more than 20 feet square.
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