by Gordon Ryan
Almost as soon as the ride had started, Anderson trimmed his tanks and the Squid came to a slow stop, suspended in the depths of the ocean. On this first dive, they had arbitrarily picked 12,000 feet.
“Here we are,” said Anderson.
As the Squid sat motionless, Anderson and Carver ran through the test sequence so carefully worded by Mike and the test engineers at MacAlear so many months ago. They turned on the strobe lights.
“Wait, did you see that?” exclaimed Carver. He thought he saw something big - really big - and dark move quickly through the water in the shadowy background.
“May have been a blue whale,” said Anderson, “or, maybe a giant squid.”
“I didn’t think there was anything that large at this depth,” replied an uncharacteristically nervous Carver. He wasn’t so sure of what he saw, but it did not look natural.
Almost as soon as they had begun this dive, it was over. Anderson dropped his ballast and the Squid began its slow upward spiral toward the surface.
“There she is!” shouted Mike from the deck of the R/V Falling Star. Everyone else hurried to the stern of the mother vessel excited to see the Squid return from its first deep mission. Already, Navy divers had launched two Zodiacs with their 200 Horsepower Mercury outboard motors and were speeding to the white speck bobbing in the distance.
Anderson and Carver emerged from the pressure vessel and stood in the conning tower, both were dripping wet not from the sea but from their sweat. They were both glad to have some fresh air and to bask in warmth of the afternoon sun. Anderson took the hand held controller and plugged it into the outlet in the conning tower. Carver took pains to lock the hatch to the pressure vessel, ever mindful that was how the submersible Alvin was swamped and temporarily lost a short while ago.
With his hand held controller, Jim was able to steer the Squid toward the R/V Falling Star. However, he did not complain when the Navy divers offered him a tow.
After all, thought Anderson, the Squid was not intended to be a surface tug.
With the help of the Navy divers and their Zodiacs, Anderson was able to maneuver the Squid on to its mounting cradle. Once secured, the elevator of the Falling Star began its slow ascent, sea water pouring out of the crevices of the Squid as it rose above the water. When the elevator platform reached its maximum height, Jim Anderson jumped down from the conning tower. Waiting for him on the now dry platform were Robison, Sevson, Mike, and McHugh.
“How did it go?” asked Robison.
“Like a charm, I think we’re ready for the first bottom dive tomorrow morning,” said Anderson, with a big grin on his face. Carver remained silent.
Later that evening, Carver quietly approached McHugh. “Commander, I don’t want to be an alarmist, but I saw something big move in the shadows when we leveled out.”
“What do you think it was, Chief?”
“I don’t know, sir,” replied Carver, “but it was big and fast.”
“What did Anderson think?”
“He didn’t see it, but he thinks it might have been a blue whale.”
“Interesting, I don’t think blue whales could dive that deep,” replied McHugh. “Did you note it in the log?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thanks for telling me Chief,” replied McHugh. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
What McHugh did not tell Carver about was the incident involving the SSBN - 620, the John Adams. He made a note in his small notebook that he kept for these events.
That night, McHugh tossed and turned in a fitful sleep. He chastised himself for acting like a school boy. During the time he slept, his dreams were filled with all manner of images, some beautiful, some scary, and some downright monstrous. In one sequence, he was chased by a mysterious shadow, a monstrous unspoken shadow. What, who, how…. dreamed McHugh. At dawn he would know soon enough.
“God, I hope it’s something explainable,” McHugh muttered under his breath.
0630 Hours: Saturday, March 16, 1969, Aboard the R/V Falling Star
In the small mess on board the R/V Falling Star, McHugh sat with his usual crew. His hands clasping the ceramic mug of steaming hot coffee with the MacAlear logo, McHugh was deep in thought. Sevson sat picking at his scrambled eggs and sausage. Robison kept going over the checklist and the “Incident Sheet” which detailed the numerous nits encountered during the last twenty four hours of operation.
Robison wanted to make sure that this dive went smoothly; he was extremely pleased that the Incident Sheet was mercifully short and was comprised of mainly minor items. The three old friends had already fallen back to the unspoken routine that only time and seasoned friendships can long endure.
Robison had smuggled on board a reel to reel tape player and had Sevson, the electronics wizard, jury rig a direct current to alternating current inverter so that they could play some of their favorite music during the cruise.
As the three friends sat drinking their coffee, the old familiar beat of music played on and Gogi Grant sang, “…The Wayward Wind…Is a Rest-Less Wind…A Rest-Less Wind…That Yearns to Wan-Der…And He Was Born…The Next of Kin…The Next of Kin…To the Wayward Wind….”
Gogi’s voice and the lyrics evoked halcyon memories of cruises on the R/V Wayward Wind, the Fifties, and a happier, friendlier time.
“What do you think, Bob?” asked Sevson.
“I think if this turns out to be a dud, we’re in a heap of trouble. If it turns out to be something big, we’re in a heap of trouble,” replied Lieutenant Commander Robert McHugh, U.S.N.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” replied Sevson.
“Com’on guys, we’ve got work to do!” urged Robison, trying to get his old friends out of their funk and motivated.
“Yeah, let’s go,” agreed McHugh, downing the last of his coffee and briefly shaking as the caffeine hit his system.
The three friends walked out to the elevator platform where Mike, Anderson, and Carver were busy putting finishing touches on the various instrumentation systems.
On this first bottom dive, McHugh had made the decision that he and Robison would be the two observers to join Anderson and Carver. Dressed in blue coveralls and long johns, McHugh looked more like an automobile mechanic than someone soon to touch the bottom of one of the deepest parts of the Atlantic Ocean. Robison had a brown paper bag with him, the kind of brown bag you might get in a department store. Liu was already dressed in his wet suit.
The Squid looked glorious. It was hard not to fall in love with this sleek machine. As the crew stood around the Squid, Robison brought out his brown paper bag and with a flourish demanded everyone’s attention.
“On this solemn occasion, I think that it is appropriate to celebrate the maiden voyage of the Squid. Therefore, as the mother, father, progenitor and care-taker of the creature we call the Squid, I hereby declare her operational. As a small memento of this moment, I had some shoulder patches and hats embroidered with the Squid insignia for each of you and the other members of this mission.”
Someone produced a Polaroid camera and shot some photos of the momentous occasion.
The patch was beautiful. The royal blue patch was ringed with gold edging, the gold MacAlear logo was intertwined with the tentacles of a white Squid. Robison started to pass out the hats and the patches. Sevson stopped him, “Don’t you think it would mean more if the whole kit ‘n caboodle went to the bottom and then up?”
“Hey that’s a good idea, why didn’t I think of that?” said Robison.
“Because you’re a dumb shit, Robison.” explained Sevson with a grin.
Standing off to one side, in a loud stage whisper to Mike, McHugh growled, “Make sure none of that is charged to the United States Navy, Lieutenant Liu.”
Having said that, McHugh made sure he got his patch which he put into the left breast pocket of his coveralls and his hat which he put on his head with a broad grin.
The brief ceremony completed, the men fell to the tasks at hand. The crew of the Squid c
limbed on board the submersible and disappeared one by one through the conning tower and into the pressure sphere. Carver, the last of the four man crew to board the Squid, pulled the hatch closed and locked the hatch. Having donned his SCUBA tank and face mask, Mike plugged the cable for the intercom into the receptacle on the Squid.
“How do you read me?” inquired Mike.
“Loud and clear, champ!”
The launching sequence went flawlessly and quickly. Within what seemed only minutes, the Squid was committed to the deep, Mike and the two MacAlear technicians watched as the white color of the submersible gently disappeared into the darkness.
The pinging of the depth sonar increased in frequency as the Squid spiraled toward the bottom. The Squid settled gently on the soft bottom, stirring up a cloud of silt, undisturbed for centuries in the quietness of the Hatteras Abyssal Plain. Until the silt settled, there was nothing that the crew could do but wait. Anderson switched on the outside lights for a second, but all they saw was the reflection of the dust cloud.
The time gave McHugh and Robison an opportunity to revisit the topographical maps drawn by McHugh’s oceanographic team at Port Hueneme, California, from data collected by Nematode and the USS Marysville. The plan was for this team to reconnoiter the northern sector of the mysterious object. Liu and Sevson in a subsequent dive would explore the southern sector.
“From this map, it appears that we have landed about one half mile to the northeast of the object,” said Robison making some rough calculations based on the Squid’s descent time and current meter readings.
After the silt cloud had dissipated, Anderson adjusted his buoyancy and ever so slowly lifted off the bottom so as to not kick up any more silt. Taking his magnetic bearings, adjusted for the magnetic anomaly, Anderson headed the Squid southwest, toward the mysterious object that had long tantalized everyone on this mission.
Twenty minutes past and the forward scanning sonar picked up a signal that was unmistakably the object. As the object drew closer, Anderson turned on the outside flood lamps. McHugh and Robison reclined on the mats that served as cushions and looked out the forward portholes.
What they saw was a smooth, almost polished black curved surface that extended to the limits of illumination, as far as the eye could see. Anderson steered the Squid on a path that first ran along the edge of the object, it was like walking along a curved wall of black glass. He then steered the Squid up and over the object, again nothing but the same black glassy surface. There were no cracks, no seams, no doors, no windows, nothing. Walt conducted temperature, current, salinity, background radiation, and sonar tests - nothing.
The Squid stood off of the object and tried to measure changes in or fall off from any of the readings - nothing. Only the metastable helium magnetometer showed any indication of the presence of the object, the readings correlated with the earlier surface and over-flight data. Anderson and Carver used the depth sounding sonar to construct a profile of the object. The shape was that of a gigantic oval object, no seams, no bumps, no doors, no windows, no anything.
“Damn, that thing is just not real. Nothing real could be that smooth,” exclaimed a mystified McHugh.
“You know what you said topside, Bob?” said Robison.
“Yeah?”
“I think we’re in deep shit,” replied Robison.
Using the strobe lights and television camera, Robison took multiple shots of the smooth, grayish-black curved structure, the size of a football field. The height of the object was about fifty feet from the silt bottom; there was no way to determine how deep the object sat in the silt. Bathymetric readings from the USS Marysville suggested that the object sat in the center of what might have been an impact crater but the centuries had softened even that conclusion.
The time went too quickly, and soon Carver announced that they had overstayed their welcome and would have to leave. Anderson dumped his ballast and the Squid began its upward spiral home.
The R/V Falling Star stayed on station for about a week and multiple visits were made to the mysterious object. Eventually, Mike was also given a chance to see the mysterious object first hand. The profound impact of this perfectly smooth massive object lying on the ocean bottom would send shock waves through the intelligence establishment. Unfortunately for Sevson and Robison, their scientific reports were cloaked in the highest levels of secrecy and would never be published. However, both Sevson and Robison asked for and got funding to conduct similar research in non sensitive regions thereby giving them cover for reporting on these tremendous engineering advances in ocean exploration. The curtain of state secrets fell quickly on the mysterious object in the Hatteras Abyssal Plain. Mike and McHugh continued to work on the project from their offices in Port Hueneme.
1000 Hours: Monday, September 16, 1969: Port Hueneme, California
“Come in, Mike,” said McHugh.
Mike entered McHugh’s office. With McHugh were two men dressed in civilian suits. The three seemed to have been engaged in discussion about something but ceased when Mike knocked on McHugh’s door. The three men were seated, McHugh behind his desk and his two visitors on the side chairs.
“Have a seat, Mike,” said McHugh. “These two men are from Naval Intelligence. They would like to talk to us. Seems we blundered into something much bigger than we thought. Mike, this is Commander Richard Thompson and Lieutenant Robert Cohen. Gentlemen, Lieutenant Mike Liu.”
“Mister Liu,” spoke the older of the two. “The object located on the Hatteras Abyssal Plain, appears to be one of several located around the continental United States. After your work with Commander McHugh, we went back to our magnetometer surveys and found the same anomaly in three other locations, they escaped detection simply because their magnetic signature is only noticeably detectable during low altitude flights and no one understood their significance like that fellow Evans did here. Despite his hot rod flying, Buck Morrow’s flying antics have enabled us to stumble on to something of mind boggling consequence.
“While we are now satisfied that they are not of Russian origin, we quite frankly do not know how or when they were placed in their locations. The work that you and Bob McHugh have done has contributed to our knowledge immensely. However, in order to integrate the data in the most expeditious fashion possible, we need your expertise.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” asked a puzzled Mike.
“Lieutenant Liu, both Lieutenant Cohen and I are actually from an interagency group called CSAC whose charter is to conduct investigations no other agency can or on its own could conduct,” said Thompson. “We have been instructed to invite you and Commander McHugh to join our efforts.”
“What does CSAC stand for?”
“That is classified, as is its very existence.”
“What do we have to do?”
“Normally, CSAC agents come from one or another of the service intelligence agencies, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service, the Federal Alcohol and Firearms Department, or the Central Intelligence Agency. As a result, those agents can assimilate quickly into the structure. However, in your case coming from regular navy duty and all, we will have to train you in forensics, criminal investigation, technical knowhow, firearms etc. When your duty permits it you will be sent TDY to the FBI training academy in Quantico, Virginia, for the basics.
“Your cover will be that you have joined the Office of Naval Intelligence. Oh, by the way, how do you feel about carrying a gun?”
1100 Hours: Tuesday, May 24, 1970: Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico
Edward McIntyre got out of his jeep and walked over to the military policeman standing near the parking lot to the detention barracks.
“Who’s that?” asked McIntyre, a Captain in the Air Force.
“Some Navajo shepherd,” replied the Airman, “one of the investigators thinks he might have some information of interest.”
“Doesn’t look very happy,” commented McIntyre as he went into the detention barracks to
pick up some files.
The Navajo was taken into the detention barracks by the Air Force investigator through the back entrance.
1970-1993: The Intervening Years
The existence of the mysterious objects had been uncovered during an ordinary geomagnetic profiling flight over the western Atlantic Ocean in the late Sixties. The flights were commissioned by the Oceanographer of the Navy for ostensibly scientific purposes and called, “Project Magnet.”
Project Magnet’s true purpose had been to profile the background magnetic signature of the waters adjoining the continental United States to facilitate anti-submarine warfare. The nuclear submarine force of the United Socialist Soviet Republics prowled the seas off the coast of America waiting for orders to launch ballistic missiles aimed at strategic targets onshore. Knowing the magnetic background allowed the U.S. Navy to detect and monitor these forces and to deploy submarine, surface and airborne deterrents. The P-3B Orions were a principal component of the Navy’s ASW capability.
Some cowboy Orion pilot flying the deck had stumbled onto something unimaginable. That something was called the Morrow Affair before the federal government was able to hush it forever. Certain key participants in the Morrow Affair were suddenly transferred to parts unknown. Navy Lieutenant Commander Thomas Morrow, considered by many to be too unreliable to keep the secret, was sent to Vietnam, where he performed as a fighter pilot outstandingly, but with tragic result.
This discovery and later verification of four mysterious objects located in the waters around the United States initiated an urgent agenda to determine what and why they were there. Although attempts were made to try to determine if similar objects existed in other parts of the world, none were ever found.