The Portent

by Michael S. Heiser

  “What about the Admiral Byrd legend?” asked Ward. “The one about how he went to Antarctica to fight Nazis after the war. I’ve read some things online where people suggest it had something to do with UFOs.”

  “You’re referring to Operation Highjump,” Melissa replied. “Brian and I don’t think there’s anything to the story. It has significant problems in terms of sourcing.”

  “How so?”

  “There’s no doubt that Byrd went to Antarctica right after World War II ended, and it was serious. It’s still the largest expedition ever to go to that region. Byrd literally had a small army with him—4,700 men, thirty-three aircraft, thirteen ships, including an aircraft carrier, an ice-breaker, and a submarine.”

  “Certainly sounds like a military operation.”

  “We agree. Byrd was outfitted for a stay of eight months, but he stayed less than two. Rumor has it that his expedition ran into an outpost of Nazis with some exotic weapons, including UFOs.”

  “So what’s the official explanation?”

  “It was a mission to train the Navy in polar operations based on the assumption that they’d have to engage the Soviets there at some point. Published articles from the time suggest that the military suspected they’d have to operate polar bases as part of a strategy for that.”

  “Makes sense,” Ward offered, “at least for northern polar geography. But Highjump was aimed at the South Pole.”

  “True, but Highjump wasn’t a secret operation. There were eleven journalists along on the expedition, which would be unthinkable if the expedition was looking for a surviving Hitler and his fleet of UFOs. The official Navy report was also published. There were three volumes and twenty-four annexes, none of which was ever classified ‘Secret’ or ‘Top Secret.’ While the material was initially confidential, it was all later made public.”

  “Admiral Byrd wrote a paper about the operation a couple years later,” Brian added. “If you compare that to the now public reports, you won’t find any contradictions. The Navy report also has specific maps of where the planes flew. They touched almost none of the territory claimed by the Germans when they mapped the region in the late thirties. There’s no correlation when you compare the actual published material and what you’ll read on the Internet and in conspiracy books.”

  “But didn’t Byrd say something in an interview about flying saucers?” Malone asked. “I seem to have read that somewhere.”

  Melissa chuckled at the reference. “Byrd gave an interview to a Chilean newspaper called El Mercurio in 1947 where he supposedly said he was afraid the United States could be attacked by ‘flying objects which could fly from pole to pole at incredible speeds.’ That’s a blatant mistranslation of the actual article. It’s another of the items I asked Kamran to photocopy,” she added and began circulating a piece of paper.

  “What you have is the first paragraph of that article, in Spanish and English. The line about craft flying at fantastic speeds is a demonstrable distortion. The first highlighted portion clearly talks about planes flying over the poles—which is not at all unusual in terms of cutting flight distance. I’m sure Ward can confirm that, as well as the translation, since he knows Spanish. The context would be that the United States needed a presence in these regions to prevent or intercept such possible hostile acts.

  “The second underlined portion is the one that contains the phrase about ‘fantastic speed.’ It clearly does not refer to the planes or any other flying craft. It refers to the speed of the world shrinking—a thought anyone who experienced World War II would understand. In effect, air travel and communications make it a small world after all. That’s even truer today. The famous Byrd UFO quotation conflates the two separate lines; it’s a fabrication.”

  El Almirante Richard E. Byrd advirtió hoy que es imperativo para los Estados Unidos de America el iniciar medidas de defensa contra la posibilidad de una invasión del país de parte de aviones hostiles provenientes de las regiones polares. El Almirante explicó que no quiere asustar a nadie, pero es una verdad amarga que, en el caso de una nueva guerra, los Estados Unidos podrían ser atacados por aviones que pueden volar sobre uno o los dos polos. Esta declaración se hizo como parte de una recapitulación de su propia experiencia polar, en una entrevista exclusiva con International News Service. Refiriéndose a la expedición de reciente finalización, Byrd dijo que el resultado más importante de sus observaciones y descubrimientos es el efecto potencial que tienen con respecto a la seguridad de los Estados Unidos. La velocidad fantástica a la que el mundo se está reduciendo—recordó el Almirante—es una de las lecciones más importantes aprendidas en su reciente exploración antártica. Debo advertir a mis compatriotas que terminó aquel tiempo en el que podíamos refugiarnos en nuestro aislamiento y confiar en la certeza de que las distancias, los océanos, y los polos eran una garantía de seguridad.

  Admiral Richard E. Byrd warned today that the United States should adopt measures of protection against the possibility of an invasion of the country by hostile planes coming from the polar regions. The Admiral explained that he was not trying to scare anyone, but the cruel reality is that in case of a new war, the United States could be attacked by planes flying over one or both poles. This statement was made as part of a recapitulation of his own polar experience, in an exclusive interview with International News Service. Talking about the recently completed expedition, Byrd said that the most important result of his observations and discoveries is the potential effect that they have in relation to the security of the United States. The fantastic speed with which the world is shrinking—recalled the Admiral—is one of the most important lessons learned during his recent Antarctic exploration. I have to warn my compatriots that the time has ended when we were able to take refuge in our isolation and rely on the certainty that the distances, the oceans, and the poles were a guarantee of safety.

  “Well, that answers that question,” Ward said, looking up from the paper. “The Byrd quote I’m thinking of is terribly misleading.”

  “For sure, strange things have happened down that way,” Brian said, “but there’s no proof they concerned Nazi bases or UFOs.”

  “What strange things?” Fern asked.

  “Well, in 1958 the US detonated three nuclear bombs in the Southern Hemisphere.”

  “What?” she gasped.

  “It’s true. And, like Highjump, that operation wasn’t secret, either. Notice, however, that I said ‘Southern Hemisphere,’ not Antarctica. The Byrd UFO conspiracy crowd says the bombs were detonated over Antarctica to wipe out the Nazi base’s communications or something like that. It isn’t true. You can read about the detonations—though I wouldn’t recommend it unless you understand the science. I did it just to say I’d done it, and barely got through the thing.”

  “What was the point of that exercise?” Madison asked in dubious tone.

  “The project was called Operation Argus. The bombs were detonated 1,100 miles southwest of Cape Town, South Africa. They were testing the effects of nuclear explosions outside the atmosphere—whether charged particles and radioactive isotopes would affect the earth’s magnetic field. That was important for answering whether such things would interfere with radar, ballistic missiles, and satellite tracking.”

  “In 2006,” Melissa continued, “the British tested Antarctica for evidence of an atomic bomb explosion to see if there was any fallout in the atmosphere. There wasn’t. That would basically be impossible had the bombs been detonated directly over the alleged Nazi base.”

  “The Colonel could use the fragments Becky turned over to prop up whatever story he writes to legitimize Nazi occult ideas, since their mythology includes extraterrestrial threads courtesy of theosophy and occultists like Serrano. Like he said,” Brian added with a tone of resignation, “it’s not about what’s real, only what’s believed. Honestly, there’s more evidence for Nazi activity closer to the North Pole than the South Pole, though that trail ends quickly. But the north would make more sense given the
SS mythology about the northern Aryan homeland.”

  “What evidence is there for that?” Neff asked.

  “It’s all circumstantial. The Nazis had outposts in Norway, Greenland, and Arctic Canada, mostly for the purposes of communications and monitoring weather. People in Greenland said they knew of other secret bases, though none were ever found. After the war, a handful of Germans said the same thing.”

  “Doesn’t sound like much for evidence.”

  “It isn’t. The only thing that I’ve found suggesting these postwar reports might have been correct is an article that appeared in a Vienna newspaper, the Wiener Montag, on December 29, 1947. Some Eskimos reported to American authorities that they encountered an SS battle group of about 150 men. That’s it.”

  “I think we need to stay focused on the threads we know for sure, things the Colonel could exploit,” Melissa said.

  “Sure, but does the average person even know about any of this stuff?” asked Clarise.

  “Not in an academic sense, but the public has unconsciously absorbed a lot of it through UFO books, TV, and film,” Melissa replied.

  “Kamran wants to add something,” Madison interrupted, watching him signing. “He says comic books are filled with these ideas, especially aliens—and, of course, many of them have been getting made into movies, like The Avengers and Superman.”

  “He’s right,” Melissa agreed. “Comic books from the mid-twentieth century—the time of the UFO-contactee wave—follow the occult trajectories pretty closely. For example, Blavatsky taught that there were spiritual masters living on other planets who periodically came to earth to seek a human pupil. In her Book of Dzyan, they were called the Lords of the Flame. The spiritual guides of Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine specifically came from Venus. Later theosophical writers took that thread and turned it into a more detailed ancient-astronaut theory.”

  “Hmm,” Malone mused, “that does sound familiar. That’s George Adamski, the famous UFO contactee. We were all into his books in the sixties.”

  “Adamaski completely ripped off theosophy’s Venusians,” Brian noted. “But, aside from people from Venus, do you remember who else Adamski said contacted him?”

  “Yeah … oh … a Nordic …” Malone shook his head. “Good grief. I just didn’t have the framework to make simple connections like that.”

  Clarise’s phone went off, startling her. She looked at it curiously. “Who would be calling?” She picked it up, then looked at Madison with a wry smile. “It’s Cal. You answer it—and don’t say I never did anything for you.”

  Madison eagerly took the phone. “Hi, Cal!” she said enthusiastically. “How—”

  The abrupt cut-off caught everyone by surprise. In seconds, the girl’s warm, cheerful face drained of color, her features transformed into confused horror. She listened for a few more seconds. “Okay …” Her trembling voice cracked.

  She held out her phone toward Brian, her hand shaking. She swallowed hard and caught her breath. “Cal’s in trouble.… He says he needs you to pick up. The Colonel will only talk to you.”

  65

  Courage is fear that has said its prayers.

  —Dorothy Bernard

  Brian took the phone. “Hello?” he answered tentatively. “Cal?”

  “Dr. Scott?”

  “Yes, are you all right?”

  “Yeah. Look, I don’t know who this guy is or what he wants, but he showed up here with an FBI agent and threatened to shut me down and turn me in to Homeland Security.”

  “Did he say why? If not, I hope you didn’t say anything.”

  “No, and I didn’t. All he said was that if I wanted the matter cleared up, I’d call the people who brought the priest’s body to me—and I’d ask for you. There was no bargaining, trust me.”

  “Be very careful,” Brian warned. “This is the guy who’s responsible for killing Father Fitzgerald. Don’t be fooled by the uniform.”

  “Understood.”

  “What phone are you using?”

  “My cell.”

  “Is it secure?”

  “Same as the ones you all use.”

  “Good. Put him on,” Brian said, anger welling inside him. He quickly motioned to Melissa for her laptop. The others stared at each other in stunned disbelief, dumbstruck at the Colonel’s success in finding their colleague. Brian put his phone on speaker and tapped madly on the laptop, his ear trained in dreadful expectation.

  “It has to be the body,” Clarise said in a low voice.

  “It couldn’t be,” whispered Nili in a frantic voice. “We swept it. There was nothing.”

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense,” she came back. Neff motioned for silence, reading Brian’s expression. The Colonel was on the line.

  “Hello, professor.” His voice dripped with arrogant self-assurance. “I’m so pleased to have found a way to stay in touch.”

  “Let him go, Colonel, and anyone else working there. Then we can talk.”

  “Are you worried about your friend?”

  “I don’t even know the guy, but yeah, I know what you’re capable of.”

  “And so you know that you’re going to do what I tell you to, don’t you?”

  “And what’s that?”

  “You’re going to introduce me to your friends.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Then I won’t have any use for poor Dr. Olesen. What a pity. Frankly, you should find more intelligent friends, professor. It was easy to locate the body—as planned, of course. A simple injection of nano-particles that form an antenna for tracking did the trick. But I got tired of waiting for something to happen. Pardon my impatience.”

  “Congratulations. Now let him go.”

  “Apparently you weren’t listening, doctor.”

  “It’s your turn to listen, Colonel. Pay close attention.”

  Brian clicked a file on the laptop and held the phone’s receiver close to the microphone. Shortly after their return to Miqlat, Madison had produced a transcript of the audio Brian had recorded in the restaurant, complete with segment breaks. Brian knew exactly what he wanted his enemy to hear. The table listened in rapt concentration as Brian played back the recording of his meeting with the Colonel, pausing it after the Colonel’s confession of killing Andrew had played.

  “Now let me tell you what you’re going to do,” Brian said through gritted teeth. “You’re going to hand the phone back to Dr. Olesen, and it’s going to leave the office with him. If I so much as hear he’s caught a cold after this conversation, I’m going to send that file to every law enforcement agency in Nevada, every congressman and senator in Washington, every national news network, and every administrator at the Pentagon and the Air Force. I can’t stop your plans, but I can cut you off from your position and your toys. Understand?”

  Brian’s heart pounded in his chest. There was no reply. He was trembling, both with rage and fear for the man he knew the Colonel would kill without remorse if he chose to do so.

  Still no answer. Brian looked breathlessly at the startled faces around the table, each of them as uncertain as he was. Madison was crying, her hand covering her mouth. Brian glanced at Sabi. His eyes were closed in concentration, his hand clutching his prayer rope.

  “Very well, professor.” Brian started at the sound of the Colonel’s voice. “Your friend is free to go, but understand this: threatening me was a very, very poor decision.”

  Brian heard the sounds of the phone being handed off. He quickly motioned to Neff to come to his side.

  “Dr. Scott?”

  “Cal, the Colonel is going to let you go. I’ll explain why some other time.”

  “Are you sure? He looks pissed.”

  “Yes. I’m giving the phone to Neff, who can give you directions.” He handed the phone to Neff.

  “Cal, this is Graham. Don’t take anything with you from the office. Just get out and use the network—Lewis and Clark. We’ll pick you up in five days at the last stop. We’ll tak
e care of you. Now move.”

  ***

  The Colonel watched as the young pathologist ended the call and slipped his phone into his pocket. He glanced out the window at the idling car where the FBI agent had been waiting since emptying the office of onlookers. The Colonel had ordered Cal to lock the front doors and turn off all the lights, save for the office.

  Cal quickly shut the briefcase resting atop his desk. He pulled his coat from the rack and put it on, grabbed the briefcase, and turned to leave. The Colonel blocked his path. A chill ran through him as he saw the officer’s hand. He was holding a scalpel. Cal started to retrace the day’s steps. How did the scalpel get into his office? Was the drawer unlocked? But that was pointless now.

  The Colonel noticed his expression and smiled menacingly as the young man looked up into his piercing blue eyes, now narrowed in focus. “Before you leave, doctor, I have a message for your friends. You’re going to deliver it.”

  66

  Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his faithful ones.

  —Psalm 116:15

  “Sabi, it’s me,” Clarise whispered as she touched the prone figure’s warm, wet cheek. It was a familiar scene by now, but she couldn’t get used to it. She watched anxiously as Sabi jerked his head from side to side, eyes still closed. The sweat ran off his face, drenching his pillow and the collar of his shirt. She spoke soothingly to him, to ease his consciousness into awakening. After another minute or two, the thrashing subsided. He began to breathe evenly.

  He opened his eyes, unsurprised at her presence. “Again,” he gasped.

  “You’re safe,” she said, patting his brow with a clean towel. “We’re all here.”

  “Yes … for now.”

  She stopped and locked onto his eyes.

  “What do you mean? You’ve never said anything like that after your dream.”

  “It was the same, but different.”

  “Tell me.”