1
The morning light gently coaxed his eyes to open. Beneath his waking breath, he uttered the words,
‘See you guys … I love you forever.’
They came to see him, again, in another dream. He remembered it with such clarity.
He relived the dream, over and over, while sitting in his kitchen sipping on a cup of black coffee and rolling his first joint of the day. He thought that Ben seemed older this time and that his hair was longer, and he thought that Libby had cut hers shorter.
It was another Saturday morning. Another day, of another week, of another month.
He thought to himself, ‘This crazy life of mine, I seem to be destined to spend most of it alone,’ then he philosophised, ‘but at least I’m used to it.’
He hadn’t flown for a year and was beginning to lose contact with his flying friends.
He occasionally thought about whether he had slid into a low-grade, chronic depression, but then he rationalised his mental state as either neutral, grey, or numb, but not depressed. Anyway, he still had the crazy thing with Doyle and Zeke. That kept him amused enough and he felt that he had enough social contact with his patients to prevent him from becoming too eccentric. He had absolutely no inclination to fall in love again.
He felt like he had enough of that game. Besides, he was still in love with Libby and he couldn’t see that changing anytime soon.
He began to drift back towards his parents. They were getting older now and were slowing down somewhat. His dad was still working in the same place, thirty-two years after he began there with a bucket and a kitchen chair. He had done well for his family over the years and he could have moved to a better location, but he said that he could never tear himself away from ‘his people’. That was one of the few traits that Adam shared with his dad. He harboured the same caring feelings for his own patients. On some weekends, he slept over on a Saturday night and helped out around the house. Slowly he rediscovered his joy of being with his mum and dad and was much more aware, now, that they were all the family he had. His mum fried up a pile of schnitzels and they all sat around the kitchen table enjoying their lunch with the radio permanently tuned to 2CH, the blue-rinse station. Adam now actually found the music soothing as it helped to calm
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his frayed nerves. Even his dad was going easy on him. He had substantially cut the sarcasm after the trauma of Libby’s disappearance. The house was generally more subdued these days compared to the past when lively family arguments raged within it like runaway hurricanes. Back in those days, his parents were younger and still full of the energy of life. Age calms us all, as does loss. The loss of Libby and Ben brought an ever-present sadness into the house. Adam’s mum expressed her grief the most.
‘That poor boy, I worry about him the most.’
They remembered all the visits and how their lives lit up every time Libby and Ben came around. Usually Libby helped Adam’s mum in the kitchen while Ben hung around his grandad.
Adam remembered discussions between Libby and his dad. He remembered everything in a new light now. His dad had been a UFO fanatic ever since they both saw what they agreed must have been a UFO way back in the early sixties, not long after they emigrated to Australia. It was the middle of the day and they were lying on the grass in the back of the house. He remembered how together they saw what looked like a bright star doing right angles in the sky. From that point on, his dad bought every UFO book he could get his hands on. He also began to read the Bible religiously, not in a search for spiritual salvation, but in a search for evidence of alien intervention. He used to lecture everyone around the table,
‘God was an alien! That’s as obvious as the nose on her face.’ He pointed at his wife’s nose.
‘Don’t start me, mister perfect. You know, Liberty, I have to open all the windows in the house every morning, doesn’t matter how cold it is outside. I only have two choices, freeze or die of gas poisoning.’
‘Listen here, I love how she fabricates these fantasies … and Jesus, either His father was an alien or Mary got artificially inseminated with an alien egg, pre-fertilised by an alien male, becoming a surrogate mother. In that scenario, Jesus was adopted before he was even born.’
Adam’s mum rolled her eyes and exclaimed,
‘It’s a wonder that God hasn’t struck you down with lightning yet!’
‘Have you ever read Ezekiel? Read that! Have you read about Elijah? I rest my case.’
Liberty listened intently to these conversations, occasionally offering a comment when asked.
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‘Everything can be seen from many points of view. From each point of view, it looks a little different. Each written testimony is always only one of these points of view and is therefore, at best, only a one-dimensional description of a multi-dimensional phenomenon.’
There was always a silent pause after Libby said something as everyone attempted to decipher her meaning. Adam’s dad was usually the first to say something like,
‘I couldn’t have put it more eloquently myself.’ When no one else spoke, he continued. ‘God was an alien and He is coming back after the great tribulation.’
Ben and Libby glanced at each other.
‘Boy, ah, dad, that’s very Biblical.’
‘That’s because it is, Adam, and whoever God was, He was trying to tell us something, something about a big catastrophe and how He will return after it.’
‘What kind of catastrophe do you envisage, dad?’ queried Liberty.
‘My guess, judging by the stuff in the Bible, nuclear Armageddon. The good guys versus the bad guys, but the idiots all end up dead guys, and they take the rest of the world with them.’
‘Hello, it’s mister cheerful,’ said Adam’s mum sarcastically. ‘You must remind us to book you for our next party.’
‘How could aliens predict something like that?’ Liberty asked. ‘There will always be a chance that nuclear war will be averted. They could never predict a nuclear war with certainty. Only God could do that. But you say they were aliens … unless they planned to trigger the war off themselves?’
There was another one of those long pauses while everybody mulled over Liberty’s question. Finally, Adam’s mum opened up.
‘Why don’t you answer her, mister genius Einstein?’
‘You make a very good point, Liberty, a revolutionary point. You have changed my thinking. Bravo! So, what do you think the great tribulation should be?’
‘If God was an alien?’
‘Yes, if God was an alien.’
‘If God was an alien, the great tribulation could only be something that could be predicted with mathematical certainty, thousands of years before it happened.’
‘And what would you suggest that could be?’
‘Well, for example, the orbit of a comet … or something like that.’
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There was another stunned silence. Everyone, except Ben, marvelled at Liberty’s incisive intellect.
‘That narrows it down a bit,’ declared Adam’s dad. ‘So, we can scratch the nuclear holocaust. That’s a relief.’
Everyone laughed, then Ben threw in his little bit.
‘And then they’re coming back.’
Everyone stopped talking and looked at Ben. His nana asked him,
‘Who is coming back, darling?’
‘The aliens, nana, in the Bible. Grandad said that they were coming back.’
‘He’s right! That’s what it’s all about. It’s about a total destruction, in fire, and then a new beginning. I doubt that we will be around when that happens, though. Thankfully, it’s going to be somebody else’s problem.’
‘Will anyone survive?’ Libby enquired.
‘Ahm, yes. The Bible talks about the chosen ones, in Revelation. The ones with the mark will be taken away and spared the suffering. It says that they were chosen before even time began. Go figure that.’
‘They can put a mark on you!’ exclaimed Adam’s mum. ‘They can have you with my compliments.’
‘There are some things that I bet even aliens don’t understand,’ commented Libby.
‘Would you like more cake, Ben? One more piece?’
‘Thank you, nana.’
2
It had been three weeks since anyone heard from Doyle. Adam occasionally thought about dropping into his place on the way back home from visiting his parents, but he always changed his mind at the last minute. He thought that everything about Doyle was so surreal. ‘I feel like I’m in one of those Dali paintings, and Doyle is Dali painting his anarchic reality all around me.’ Then on one return trip from his parents’ house, he thought, ‘What the hell, I might as well see if he’s home.’
It was a pleasant, warm, sunny afternoon with enough northeast sea breeze blowing to keep things reasonably cool. Adam drove by Doyle’s house and saw his car parked in the driveway. He pulled up behind it and got out of his car. The small, well-maintained, red-brick cottage seemed a little friendlier this time around. He knocked on the door.
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After a brief moment, he heard the sound of footsteps and Doyle’s voice grumbling, ‘Keep your shirt on.’ The door opened. Doyle’s face cracked a rare smile.
‘Bloody hell, the world is full of surprises. Come in, Adam, come in.’
‘Did I drop in at a bad time, Doyle? I was driving by and I thought, jees, I haven’t seen Doyle for a while, so I thought I’d drop around and see if you were home.’
‘Good, mate, good, come in. I’ve been meaning to call you.’
The inside of Doyle’s house was pleasantly cool with the sea breeze wafting in through all the open windows.
‘Coffee?’
‘Coffee’d be nice, thanks, Doyle.’
Adam followed Doyle into his kitchen and watched him make the coffees. They chatted about this and that and finally retired into Doyle’s ‘office’. Doyle had the TV on with the sound down, Willie Nelson was playing through a small set of speakers and his computer was switched on.
‘What do you do in here, Doyle?’
‘This is where I live and work. It’s my sanctuary and my mission-control room.’
Adam looked around the cluttered room. He noticed Doyle’s overflowing ashtray sitting on his desk next to a half-empty plastic bag of dope, a packet of Tally-Hos, a lighter and a carton of B&H. Lying open on his desk, next to the computer, were two paperbacks, which on closer inspection turned out to be collections of UFO eyewitness accounts. They both sat down and relaxed. Doyle lit a cigarette and Adam had a sip of his coffee. He couldn’t help himself, so he asked,
‘What got you so interested in UFOs, Doyle?’
‘Oh, you wouldn’t want to know.’
‘Why not? Is it a secret?’
‘No no, nothing like that.’ Doyle sighed deeply. ‘It’s just a painful memory, that’s all.’
‘You don’t have to tell me if it’s painful.’
‘No, it’s OK. I guess if anybody ought to know it’s you.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘You’ll figure that out when I tell you the story. Do you want to roll one?’
‘Yeah, OK. So, what got you into UFOs then?’
Doyle stretched his body, had a sip of his coffee and lit another cigarette. Adam could see that he was psyching himself up to tell his story.
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‘It happened twelve years ago. Actually, over twelve years ago. It was Saturday 25
August, 1979, on the Sturt highway, just south of Hay. I’ll never forget that day.’
‘Hey, I know that place.’
‘Jules, I mean Julie, my wife, was driving back from Adelaide, from a conference.
They reckon that it happened not long after sunset. They found her car in a paddock off the side of the road. They said that the car must have rolled at least a dozen times. It was all smashed up. They found her dead inside the wreck. She was a mess. The Hay boys called up and told me the news. I got straight into my car and took off. When I got down there, she was in the fridge at the morgue in the local hospital and the car was still in the paddock by the road. The accident report estimated that she was doing at least 140kph when she lost control. She went off the road on an open stretch of clear, straight highway.
The police couldn’t determine the cause of the accident. They checked the vehicle for faults, but they couldn’t find any. After all, it was a Volvo. In the end they thought that she may have gone to sleep at the wheel, or maybe she had to veer suddenly to avoid an oncoming car or kangaroo. They said that they would probably never know the true cause.’
‘So, you lost your wife as well. Jees, sorry, Doyle.’
‘After I did a positive ID for the Hay boys, I drove out to the wreck and had a close look at it. By this time, I was feeling worse than shit.’
‘Been there, Doyle.’
‘I know. I walked around the Volvo. It was totalled. All the windows were smashed, every panel was crumpled and all the wheels were hanging off it. It was a horrible sight I’ve got to tell you.’
Adam lit the joint he had just rolled and handed it to Doyle. Doyle took a drag and continued,
‘I tried to open the driver’s door but it was jammed shut. I then had a go at the passenger door. It opened OK. They must have got her out through the passenger door.
When I looked inside, it was not a pretty picture.’
Doyle took a couple of long drags on the joint and continued,
‘When I looked inside, there was dried blood everywhere. You’d think that I’d be used to all that shit, but when it’s your own wife’s blood,’ Doyle shook his head, ‘you can never get used to that, mate.’
Adam sighed, ‘You poor bastard.’
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‘Ahh, I’m OK … anyway … I looked around inside the car. Most of the windscreen was smashed in but there was a bit of it intact on the lower, left-hand side. And there, on the cracked remnants of the windscreen, written in her own blood, was her last message to the world. With the last bit of life left in her, she dipped her finger in her own blood and wrote out the letters U F O. Can you believe it, Adam? That’s the last message she leaves me. Not I love you or anything, just U F O.’
‘I’m sure she loved you.’
‘Yeah, and I loved her.’
‘Jees, Doyle, are you going to Bogart that joint all day?’
‘I think you better roll another one.’
‘So, you figure that she might have seen a UFO, got distracted and crashed.’
‘Well, there’s no way of knowing for sure, but if you knew Jules, you’d know that she wouldn’t have written that down for no reason. She saw something alright, and that was when I made a decision to take an interest in flying saucers.’
‘When did you say she crashed?’
‘Saturday 25 August, 1979.’
‘I think that I was out there around that time. I’ve only ever been there once. That’s right, I remember now, I literally ran away from the city for a week. I had to get away. The place was stressing me stupid. Let me think. I sold the surgery in September, ’79. I met Libby on Christmas day, ’79. I was out there in August. I wonder if it was the same weekend?’
‘Since then I’ve been chasing up as much information about UFOs as I could get my hands on, and then your case came along and all of a sudden I’m closer to them than I’ve ever been before.’
‘But what do you hope to achieve?’
‘I don’t know. I know that I can never bring Jules back, but I can’t control myself. It’s become an obsession, like a psychosis, and the more I meddle, the more obsessive it gets.
But look, it’s not like I haven’t made any progress. We now know for sure that they have been here.’
‘I couldn’t let go of it either if I were you, Doyle.’
‘How about Zeke and the guard? I wonder what he intends to do now?’
‘Zeke is in his element. I’ve never seen him so excited.’
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Doyle had it in his mind to ask Adam some very penetrating questions. He had been holding off for months waiting for an opportune moment. He knew that the information he wanted might not exist because Adam had never spoken about it, but there was a common thread of evidence running through most of the plausible, UFO accounts in his books. Doyle’s suspicions that Adam’s memory held the answer to the big question never waned and he played him like a fish, taking his time to reel him in, being careful not to lose him in the process. He was contemplating whether he should begin the new line of questioning right there and then, when his phone rang. He answered it,
‘It’s your money.’
‘Doyle, it’s Zeke. Have you seen Adam recently?’
‘I’m looking at him right now.’
‘Oh great! I was starting to go nuts lookin for him.’
‘Starting?’
‘You should talk, Doyle.’
‘So, what’s up?’
‘I found somethin in the guard.’
‘Is this information just for Adam?’
‘Of course not, you’re in this too. We’re all in this together. You ought to come down an tell Adam to come down as well.’
‘Do you want to give us a hint?’
‘OK. I did a precise measurement of the guard an did some detailed drawins. I got the surprise of me life.’
‘A surprise? I like surprises.’
Adam butted in, ‘Is anybody going to let me in on this?’
Zeke continued, ‘Did you ever get into the pyramids, Doyle, you know, in Egypt?’
‘I might have had a dabble, why?’
‘I’d rather show you, or better still, let you find it yourself.’
‘Oh, come on, Zeke, give me something to make me get into my car.’
‘OK, let’s see how much you know. I measured the diameter of the guard.’
‘Yeah?’
‘I got exactly 524 millimetres.’
‘Bull … shit! That’s the bloody Royal Cubit!’
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‘You surprise me, Doyle. That’s not all, but it’d be easier to go through it with you if you came down.’
‘How sure are you?’
‘Come on, Doyle, how hard is it to measure the diameter of a circle? Hey…’
‘Yeah?
‘You got any books that might help?’
‘Might do.’
‘Can you bring them?’
‘If you’re lucky. We’ll be on our way in about half an hour. I’ll tell Adam what you told me. It’ll be dinner time by the time we get there so how about I pick up a couple of pizzas on the way.’
‘Sounds good.’
‘See you in about one and a half hours then.’
‘OK, see you then.’
As Doyle hung up the phone, Adam asked him,
‘What was all that about?’
‘How much do you know about the pyramids in Egypt?’
‘Absolutely nothing. Why?’
‘Zeke might have found a link between the guard and ancient Egypt.’
‘Really?’
‘He found that the diameter of the guard measured exactly one Royal Cubit, 524
millimetres.’
‘What’s a Royal Cubit?’
‘It was the standard unit of measurement in ancient Egypt. Amongst other things, the Egyptians used it in the construction of the pyramids, that’s assuming that the Egyptians even built the pyramids.’
‘I fail to see the significance of all this, Doyle.’
‘There may be none, but two of the oldest mysteries on this planet are, why the pyramids were built in the first place, and who were the real architects.’
‘Weren’t they tombs for the Pharaohs, or something?’
‘Mainstream scholars hold fast to that assertion despite the fact that there has never been a body found in any of them, mummified or otherwise.’
‘So, you think that if Ben used the … what was it called again?’
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‘The Royal Cubit.’
‘If Ben used the Royal Cubit as a basis for measuring the guard, that would connect an alien intelligence with the construction of the pyramids?’
‘Something like that. We should start thinking about taking off. You go, I’ve got to find some books for Zeke. I’ll get a couple of pizzas and meet you down there.’
‘OK, Doyle, I’ll see you there, but I’ve got to say that this just keeps getting weirder and weirder. Where is it all going to end?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine, matey.’
3
Adam had already been at Zeke’s for about half an hour when Doyle arrived. The aroma of the hot pizzas filled the tiny hut. The three men all smiled at each other as they gorged themselves on their delicious meal. As they ate, they watched the guard, hanging by a piece of string from the ceiling, centred between the three of them, swinging around spontaneously, silently announcing to anyone who could see it that a new age had indeed dawned.
After they ate their dinner, Zeke brought out his drawings and spread them out over the coffee table. He untied the swinging guard and put it away to one side. He then took a small reading light off a side shelf, plugged it into a power socket and placed it onto the coffee table. Switching it on, he bathed the drawings in a circle of soft light. The three men leaned over the plans as Zeke began to speak.
‘OK, I’ve already told you that the diameter of the guard is 524 millimetres. Do you want to measure it, Doyle?’
‘Ah, no, it’s OK, I’ll take your word for it.’
‘As you can see, I drew the plans to scale, one to one. The next thing I measured was the length of the angled rods.’
Ben’s prop guard was shaped like a cage. It was designed to be bolted to a small, 35cc, two-stroke motor. It was shaped to surround an 18-inch propeller, its chief function being to protect people from the spinning prop. The rear of the guard was made up of two metal rings, each exactly 524 millimetres in diameter. These were separated by four, 100-millimetre-long rods. When the guard was bolted to the engine, the propeller was situated between the two rings. The front part of the guard was shaped like a pyramid with a square, flat top. The flat top was the mounting plate, which had four holes in it, for bolting to the engine, and a large hole in the middle for the prop shaft to pass through.
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The mounting plate was connected to the anterior ring by four rods. They ran at an angle from each corner of the square mounting plate to each of the four junctions of the rings and separating rods, making it look like a flat-topped pyramid resting on a circular base.
Zeke continued his explanation.
‘Each angled rod measured out to, as close as I could make it, 200 millimetres. On the surface of it, this measurement seemed pretty meaningless, but I decided to have a muck around with me calculator anyway.’
His two friends watched in silence as Zeke turned around and grabbed his calculator off a shelf. When he saw the complex instrument, Adam made a comment.
‘Jees, Zeke, that’s a pretty fancy calculator. You actually know how to use one of those things?’
Zeke’s mangled face broke into a poker player’s smile.
‘There are still a few things you don’t know about me, buddy.’
Doyle lit a new cigarette off the one that was still burning in his mouth and zealously focussed all his attention on Zeke. He was enjoying this moment immensely. Zeke switched on his advanced calculator, placed it on the coffee table and continued his analysis.
‘I juggled the numbers around a bit until I found this. I subtracted 200 from 524 an got 324. Then I divided 324 by 524 an got 0.618321. Does that number mean anythin to either of you?’
Adam and Doyle looked at each other, then looked at Zeke shaking their heads.
‘You poor bastards, don’t you know anythin? O.618321 is very close to 0.618034, which is a numerical expression of the golden ratio.’
Adam protested in frustration,
‘What are you talking about, Zeke?’
Doyle calmed Adam, saying,
‘Take it easy, Adam, I think Zeke is trying to find evidence of what is generally described as sacred geometry. I’ve read about the golden ratio, or the golden section. It occurs everywhere in nature, like in the insides of sea shells and such.’
Zeke continued,
‘Well, I wanted to figure out what number would give me the correct answer, and it turns out that if the angled uprights are exactly 200.15 millimetres long,’ he entered these numbers into his calculator, ‘524 minus 200.15 equals 323.85 millimetres. Now divide
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323.85 by 524 and presto, 0.618034. The angled uprights are actually 200.15 millimetres long. I was out by 0.15 of a mill.’
Zeke sat back with a look of total satisfaction on his face. Adam scratched his head looking at the numbers on Zeke’s calculator and said,
‘Mate, you have so lost me, you might as well be talking Chinese. What has all this got to do with anything? Do we really need to know this stuff?’
‘He’s trying to tie the mathematics in Ben’s guard with the mathematics in the Khufu pyramid, Adam.’
‘The who foo pyramid?’
‘Cheops, the great pyramid of Giza.’
‘What?’ said Adam with his voice breaking into falsetto. ‘Oh, you mean the big one?’
‘Yeah, the big one, Adam!’ answered the other two in unison. Zeke continued,
‘Just to give you a miniscule insight into the golden section, Adam,’ he placed the calculator in front of Adam, ‘I’ll try to demonstrate what the golden section is. First, I’ll describe it in words. On every straight line there is a point that divides that line into two parts, such that the ratio of the short part to the long part is equal to the ratio of the long part to the whole line. Get it?’
‘No.’
‘OK, take the calculator.’ Adam took the calculator in his hands. ‘Now punch in the number one. That represents the whole line.’ Adam did that. ‘Now subtract the number 0.618034 … that’s it. Now press equals. What do you get?’
Adam did as he was told and answered,
‘0.381966.’
‘Do you know what that number represents?’
‘I think it’s the short part of the divided line.’
‘That’s the one. Now, divide the short part of the line by the long part of the line an see what you get.’
Adam called out the numbers as he entered them into the calculator, with Doyle looking over his shoulder, while Zeke got up to get his bowl and pipe.
‘So, 0.381966 divided by 0.618034, is that right?’
‘Yeah, that’s right. Now strap yourself in an press equals.’
Adam pressed equals and cried out in astonishment,
‘It’s the same number! 0.618034, bloody hell!’
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‘I think,’ Zeke announced proudly, ‘that we can safely deduce that young Ben incorporated the golden section into his prop guard, an there’s more.’
Zeke continued his analysis of the geometry of the guard as he proceeded to cut his homegrown tobacco and marijuana. Doyle stood up for a moment, had a stretch, then a rummage amongst Zeke’s extensive record collection. He pulled an album out of the stack and exclaimed,
‘ Abbey Road, how appropriate.’
As the music saturated the dimly-lit room, Zeke explained how he found the angle of the angled rods, relative to the horizontal plane of the circles, to be exactly 38 degrees 10 minutes, which, he declared, was precisely half the angle of the apex of the Khufu pyramid. He also demonstrated geometrically how the design of the guard successfully squared the circle, both for circumference and area. This last piece of information left both Adam and Doyle completely confused. It became obvious to them that Zeke’s mathematical competence was on a level neither of them could even imagine. Zeke could see that he had expected too much from his friends, so he made his summary as simple as possible.
‘The main thing to know here is that Ben cleverly concealed the true function of this guard behind its apparent function. He made two things in one. He made a rollerblading toy, and he also made a simple gravity sail, as far as I know, the first one that has ever existed on this planet.’
Doyle complemented Zeke,
‘That’s a pretty impressive bit of work, Zeke.’
Adam spoke out proudly,
‘That’s my boy that did that. You know, I’m not going to let him down. I’m going to buy a pair of skates and I’m going to learn how to skate. Then, when I’m good enough, I’m going to bolt the guard to the rest of the machine and take it for a run. I think that’s what he wanted me to do. Why else would he have left it for me?’
Zeke nodded his head in agreement.
‘I think you should, mate. It should be a blast. You should have seen him skatin the gale. It was insane!’
‘This is all very warm and cosy, boys, but I must remind you that we must not take our focus off the main game.’
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‘Aggh, you and your main game, Doyle. What if there is no main game? Have you ever considered that? Why do you always have to be so suspicious?’
‘It’s my job to be suspicious, Adam, and there is a main game, you can trust me on that one. There are dozens of missing hybrids that attest to that. Rest assured that there was more to you and Liberty than a perfect, interplanetary love affair.’
After a few puffs of the pipe, Adam checked out the Abbey Road album cover, Zeke scratched an itch behind his eye patch and Doyle kicked off his shoes and put his feet on the coffee table. He took a long drag of his cigarette, blew out the smoke and quipped,
‘I wonder what those poor sons of bitches at NASA are doing right now?’
…….
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