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Chapter 2: Explanations

5 August 1961

The date was August 5. It was exactly three weeks since that eventful evening in July, that night of nights when the Space People informed me of my sudden promotion that day from lone wolf Ufologist to the official Spokesman for the Korendians, the Terran Representative of the Alliance of Planets.

The time was now approaching c-hour, 2 AM. My equipment was in top condition, and was waiting silently for the momentous events that were to follow that evening.

The newly-constructed Subspace transmitter, its final stage tube glowing with a soft, cheery red luminescence, sat anticipatingly in the center of the table to my left. I had spent a full three hours the evening before carefully aligning its circuits according to the instructions received in the first contact, and in a few moments it would experience its moment of truth.

To my right the old reliable Hallicrafters S-38E receiver was hissing the contempt of space and time at me. It had been converted to SSR transmissions late in July, and it too was awaiting its test.

Before me the clock was finishing its round of that minute, and the second-hand swept past twelve on its way round the face, filing away the used seconds in the infinite drawer marked Time.

As it passed thirty, I grew tense, waiting for the first faint hum that would herald the signal from a million miles away. My fingers were wrapped like rubber bands around the microphone trying to compress it into oblivion. Fifteen seconds. There's the hum, growing louder by the moment. The noises of the universe released their grip on the antenna, and reluctantly stepped aside for the immense signal that came from somewhere beyond the night.

At 2 AM, the contact commenced.

"Kalo, brother Bob. If you are ready with your transmitter, please send a short transmission to allow us to align with your signal."

I flipped on the transmit switch. The NE-2 Monitor lit, and in the old tradition, I said, "Testing - testing - one two three - three two one." The receiver came again to life. "We are now aligned. Your signal is excellent. You get an 'A' for transmitter construction.

"What have you to say for the converter, and our transmission?" I replied, "30 over S9, and beautiful." She spoke off mike for a second to one of the other scientists. "What does that mean?" He laughed and answered, "It means that he's receiving us well."

"Good enough. On to business. We got the distinct impression via telepathic sensor that you were in a fog concerning our explanation of how we learned your language. Would you like to question us on this?"

"Yes. You mentioned that you had translated about three thousand English words from their root in the Galingua-Korendian languages. Then you more than doubled this number. Can you explain how you did this without the analyzer from Korendor?"

"This was through the conversion of one of our Datacoder consoles which we had in storage to function as a translator. This conversion was done by Jarren, our linguistics technician. It is with this apparatus that our total increased to the 7432 words."

"Could you explain the operation of the language analysis devices?" She was silent for a second, and I assumed that she was consulting with associates. She spoke. "One second while I connect you with Jarren."

An instant later came a male voice. "This is Jarren speaking. In peace, greetings. You wish an explanation of the Translingua.

"The machine is actually a special-purpose computer, with a mass-memory console, input/output, and the relevant circuits. The input consists of the impulses relayed by our remote sensors that we have planted in various places around your country.

"These impulses consist of two components, the spoken sound and the corresponding mental impression. They are separated in the analyzer's input discriminator, and fed to two circuits. The first receives the sound impulse, and stores it for the moment. The other, the mental impulse section, instantly begins breaking down the image into basic components, and these components of the received telepathic signal are then compared with those in the machine's memory banks.

"Within a few microseconds, the analyzer finds an impulse exactly or nearly exactly like the received impulse. The coincidence triggers another storage bank, in which are all the words in GK that correspond to the mental impulses in the first memory section. This releases the appropriate word and also the stored English word. Together they are recorded as the output, and are the translations of each other.

"The larger unit, received from Korendor, has no memory banks in itself, but is connected by direct SSR line to the Master Language Center's half-billion word memory network. With this device there is no word that cannot be translated.

"Once we had learned the words, it was a simple matter to study your transmissions for proper placement, inflection, pauses, etc. I assume that that has clarified any questions on this matter in your mind. Jarren now clearing to control."

Lin-Erri returned. "Now we should like some information from you. It concerns the various flying saucer research groups around your country, and indeed your world."

For the next hour, the topic was spaceships, spacemen, and saucer clubs.

Among other discussions was the policy of many saucer groups to discredit the contactees. To this she said, "It is very distressing to find so much doubt in the minds of your brothers, concerning the communications between yourselves and our Confedferation brothers on other planets.

"It is fact that many of these are exactly as they claim to be. We personally have seen taped records, both picture and sound, of the various contacts of such as Adamski, Fry, Van Tassel, Angelucci, and Green.

"Admittedly, the stories which they relate are fantastic to the average man. But who could expect otherwise? Does one expect to be told of a trip into outer space on a discoid ship powered by magnetic energy, and find it no more exciting than a drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco?

"My friend, if their stories did not seem incredible, they would not be true. A ride in a spaceship is not something that one can take for a few dollars any day of the year.

"These people who give accounts of tremendous ships, rides to the planets, and talks with the Masters are not average people. Each has been screened carefully as were you, and chosen for their particular task on the basis of their abilities and belief in the cause of Universal Brotherhood. These people are the modern-day prophets, the media between you and us. They give to you information that we feel that you must have.

"There are also those people, like yourself, Who, while never having seen us or been in a saucer, are nevertheless channels of information. Some are telepathic. Others, as you, use radio communications. When they speak of such beings as Monka, Merku, Ashtar and Kla-La, and the fact that these beings have been speaking to them or through them, they are doing no less than telling the truth, which is as much as one can expect of anyone.

"We feel that this antagonism toward contactees shown by the various groups that do so is a result of two factors. The first is the unfortunate fact that there are some of these who have been contacted who are relating their story to their personal aggrandizement, rather than to the constructive quest for world peace.

"The second is the 'If we did not see it, it is not so' philosophy that is shown by so many of your people. On this note we feel that a little jealousy may be responsible for some attacks.

"Also there is the inability of many minds to cope with something contrary to everything they hold sacrosanct, everything they believe in, everything with which they have been indoctrinated during their lives, by the misguided souls who would have every little thing comfortable and free of doubt, and who as a result fill the people under them with all varieties of false, misleading, or foolish dogma.

"Then of course there is the religious belief that Terran man is a unique creation of God, and since that impression not only appeals to man's mysterious nature but to his ego as well, such an impression is extremely hard to counter and dispel.

"Of course, we can also give the contactees, some of them at any rate, their just dues. There are a few who as a result of their contacts with extraterrestrial brothers have become haughty and arrogant, rather than peace-loving and humble in their service of humanity. There are also a few who are outright liars, if I may be that strong-worded. These harm our cause immensely. We spoke of this in the last contact, and we will mention it again because we cannot impress to strongly that for peace movements such as the Flying Saucer Movement to succeed, there must be truth, above all.

"The other necessary attributes are devotion to the cause, love of men, desire for peace, and an unfailing drive despite obstacles. We have detected these characteristics in you, and thus have chosen you for our voice to your people."

When informed of the government policy of retaining information on flying saucers, she responded this way: "If that be fact, then it is completely mad.

"The public must be prepared for us, because eventually we are going to land and the last thing in our minds is to cause panic. This preparation must be undertaken by responsible people, and authorities in high positions whose words are revered by the multitudes.

"Any policy of any group that would try to conceal information vital to public needs, and that would tend to dispel what is obvious to the masses, is both illogical and harmful.

"If in truth your government is withholding information on our existence and presence about your planet, then we can only say that it is an extremely dangerous and precarious state of affairs. Do not the men who are responsible for this deliberate affront to the intelligence of their fellows realize that by holding out on information that by rights should be public, since in fact most of it came from the public, they are not only opposing the preparedness of the populace for the inevitable but are also losing whatever esteem they might have by turning intelligent people against them through their falsehoods and deceptions, and their continued secrecy?

"It would be best if they were to reveal all information on us and our crafts at once. They need not worry over panic that might arise from such a revelation -- the people of your planet are conditioned to great shocks by now. Two world wars and the nuclear bomb will prepare a race for practically anything.

"We know through probes of their files that they possess data that could change the course of life right in its tracks. They know for example that the leader of the United Nations, Dag Hammerskjold, was contacted three times by Confederation agents.

"They know that President Kennedy, during his time in the Pacific, was contacted. They know that the Soviet leader, Nikita Khruschev was contacted twice. While on the topic of Russian leaders, Lenin was a passenger four times in a Confederation craft.

"Their files contain information relating to meetings of UN officials with ambassadors from the Confederation.

"Finally, they have information concerning many thousands of sightings, and hundreds of photographs.

"There is of course much that they do not know. When they have released their information, we will add substantially to it. Until that time nothing could be gained by our giving you that information, since a great deal of it bases on what they have locked away in their security files.

"We therefore feel that this security can bring only peril and harm to you, and should be abandoned in favor of a free, fast means of spreading saucer data around the world. Your people cannot be prepared otherwise."

The rest of our discussion on saucer research groups was mostly information on their operations, plans and methods, which would be unnecessary to print here, since you know this already.

After a few moments of informal story-telling concerning each other's histories we turned to the question all men are asking: what can be done about atomic weapons, what can these weapons do, and how can they be made unnecessary.

Her voice grew serious, losing its usual merry quality. "Let me first tell you what you face if you engage in atomic warfare.

"Over ninety-five percent of your population will be wiped out in the first few days. The rest will survive the war itself, if a condition to be spoken of later does not occur.

"These few survivors will degenerate to unreasoning savages, and live the lives of prowling scavengers, hunting incessantly for what little food is available, and if finding nothing else, indulging in a meal of human flesh. The survival instinct is very strong indeed, even to the extent of destroying what principles one possesses.

"These that are left will, because of lack of hospital treatment, shelter from radiation, sickness, or by the hand of their brother, die out within a few years.

"The remaining living creatures will slowly perish, and within twenty years, the planet Earth will be a barren hell, unfit for habitation. As such, it will be sterilized to erase a gruesome memory from the pages of the diary of the universe.

"As to what can be done about them, they must be completely dismantled. All countries possessing them must do so. In a later contact, in which we will discuss the United Nations, we shall advise you on how to strengthen the group to become the world's true leader.

"For now, until this dismantling is completed, all nuclear ability should be turned over to the UN, and must not be under the control of any one country or group of countries. The UN must not under any circumstances use this atomic power on other than constructive purposes, such as the generation of steam for electricity. [Note: commercial nuclear power was in its infancy, but even today there are no plans to use fuel from N-weapons for power plants.]

"Concerning the elimination of the need for them, that too will be discussed in the UN contact. Also, the system called Prior Choice Economics [Note: later renamed "Universal Economics"], which has been proposed by leaders of your movement, is a good means to insure that no nation will want war. We shall consider this prior choice economy in a future contact.

"We must now speak of you, the laymen, the people who are affected by the policies of your governments.

"In a free society, relatively speaking, such as the United States supports, all men are entitled to express their opinions publicly. It is most unfortunate that so few take seriously this privilege with which they are endowed.

"The government of the US is, we are informed, elected by the people to serve the people. That is the democracy of your system. Why, then, do not the people let the members representing them in the government know what their desires are?

"You are often invited to write to your congressman, or write to your representative, or such things. With such in opportunity given to you, why are you not using it to its fullest extent? You have a say in the running of your country, since you put those people in office. They must listen to the people if the people will speak out loud enough to be heard through the din of confusion that surrounds any government trying to keep itself and its country safe and secure.

"You, the public, must make your desires known. You must tell them that you are opposed to nuclear war, that you are against arms races. You must inform then of your wish for peaceful existence in brotherhood. This you must do in such numbers that you cannot be ignored.

"When your government is finally convinced that arms, even controlled, are futile, then you must besiege the other governments with this same expression of peace and humanitarianism. You must stir up the people of those countries to do likewise.

"It will take concerted effort -- a great deal of it -- to achieve world peace, but IT CAN BE DONE. It is NOT impossible.

"You of the Western bloc of countries should be glad that you have some control over your government, that you are free to express your feelings on matters of world policy, that you are able to let the leaders slow that you want action toward peace, not preparation for war.

"The governments under dictatorial control are not so affected by their underlings. They have no say in their countries' affairs. What the government does is strictly the business of the government, and the people cannot oppose the leaders' policies, nor can they tell theft leaders how they feel that situations should be handled. They are mere pawns in a political chess game.

"You, my friends, are not so controlled. Make use of your freedom to speak out, Let the world know that there is no longer any place for warfare in a civilized society.

"Of course, there are many who forget their rights to voice their opinions, saying, 'What can I do as one man in a world of people?' One grain of sand is insignificant, but put them together and they form a mighty desert. One cell is of no importance. If that cell, however, divides and increases in numbers, the whole organism comes into being.

"By that same reasoning, although one man by himself can do little, many man of the same motivations and purpose can work miracles. Although one's lone voice is lost in the hugeness of the world, many voices can create a resounding cry that will rock the world to its core, and will not be ignored as ineffectual.

"We of other planets have come to Earth in order to stir you from your apathetic slumber into an awareness of the world about you. We are trying to arouse you to action while you can still be aroused.

"We have given you many messages of peace and hope. With these you should arm yourselves, and advance en masse to the fortresses of hatred and fear that are all around you. You must storm in and bring their trembling occupants to the side of the brotherhood. Then with your numbers mounting into millions, you can deliver your weapons of peace to the governments of the world. Together you can shout loudly enough to overcome any deafness that might be residual in the political ears of your leaders.

"On that note we must end this transmission, as always, with regret. Our next contact will be on August 19 at 0200 Eastern Standard Time. We will turn it over to you for any final comments."

I could think of nothing else, so I thanked them for this great honor and for the wisdom I had been given. Then I returned the regrets, and signed off.

She sounded a bit more jovial than she had been a moment before, and they evidently did not dwell on unpleasantness too long. "Lin-Erri Elani for Korendian Research Craft of the Alliance of Planets, is now clearing this channel for two weeks. Good morning, Bob. "

I whispered goodbye, and shut down the transmitter. As the light from its tubes faded, I thought how also was the light of brotherhood fading from my fellow man, and vowed again to work unto demise for universal peace.


Text proofread and edited for typographical errors and improved wording 20080906.



© 2008 Robert P. Renaud -- all rights reserved