Flying Saucers

By Emil Venere

Journalist Jane Hale seeks the truth about UFOs in this science fiction suspense that revolves around a conspiracy: Flying saucers are a product of human -- not alien -- ingenuity.
The United States purloined the technology from the Germans at the end of the war and then began a clandestine program to produce a fleet of antigravity vehicles; Harry Truman secretly nurtured the program after the saucers' sensational showing in demonstrations the president himself ordered over Washington in 1952; influential engineer and technocrat Vannevar Bush aggressively enforced a secrecy doctrine reminiscent of the Manhattan Project.
Four decades later, physics wunderkind, fighter pilot and astronautics prodigy Tommy Swift is recruited into the military's clandestine space program. A Midwestern kid with a talent for math and science and a Ph.D. in physics, he is on a fast track to become a NASA astronaut until diverted to the shadow space program. He becomes commander of Big Black Delta, a mammoth triangular spacecraft.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491838983

Emil Venere

Emil Venere is a science writer who has worked for many years at research universities and at daily newspapers. He lives in the Midwest.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

T he newsroom was mostly deserted.

It was one of those perfect late-summer days. A day perhaps more fitting for Southern California than Midtown Manhattan, and the writers had taken to the streets; the family-friendly, well-policed streets of Rudy Giuliani’s New York.

Jane Hale had just returned from lunch when she noticed the manila envelope on her desk. Her name was handwritten on one side of the envelope with a bold, black marker.

Jane Hale was all it said. No stamp, no return address. She flipped over the envelope and saw the word PERSONAL, underlined three times to emphasize the upper case script. It had obviously been hand-delivered to the newsroom at Thompson’s Defense Weekly, an international publication reporting on the multi-billion-dollar business of war.

Inside the envelope she found a collection of papers, including what appeared to be old magazine articles, various memoranda and a series of letters penned by high-level aviation and aerospace executives from top American companies back in the 1950s. Jane recognized the names right away. These were the heaviest hitters, key players in the nascent military-industrial complex. Some of the documents were signed by the authors and printed under official company letterhead.

She studied the memos. One, dated May 31, 1954, was from a senior engineer by the name of Thomas England and was addressed to Glenn L. Moore, founder and CEO of the Moore Aircraft Company, a major military contractor. A blocky CONFIDENTIAL was stamped across the top of the communication. The nut graph of this communiqué contained the following incredible statement:

As you know, we achieved proof of concept with the anti-gravity flying disc platform several years ago and are now proceeding toward commercialization. The 12.5-meter disc has been shown to accelerate to mach 3, and we’ve taken her up to a ceiling of about 40000 feet. The next step is a full-scale 20-meter prototype. We are on schedule to meet the objectives of the timetable, and should have the airframe constructed by January. We will report back soon the results of further work on the propulsion system, and we should have an update ready for you in time for the next mid-month briefing.

England advised Moore in another memo dated September 13, 1954:

We are ahead of schedule on the full-scale project and should have it ready for military review by December. The power and propulsion hardware for the disc have been completed, and we are in the process of completing the airframe. All in all, integration should be finished in November and a first flight scheduled for early December.

Then, in a memo dated December 1955 and addressed to U.S. Air Force General Nathan Twining, Moore dropped this seemingly earth-shattering bit of news:

The Moore Aircraft Company has completed test flights of its 20-meter disc. This follows high-level demonstrations of earlier prototypes (e.g. Presidential Directive, 1952, Washington). Designs for the propulsion system, electrical controls, airframe and additional hardware are ready for production. As you know, flight tests over the past year have shown the overall platform capable of outperforming all U.S. and Soviet fighter interceptors. The current contract proposal calls for production of 2000 units, delivery date 1961."

How had this envelope suddenly materialized on her desk, and who had delivered it? She glanced around the newsroom furtively, but no one seemed to be the least bit interested in what was going on at her workstation. The managing editor was transfixed on his computer screen, laboring to make someone’s mediocre prose more readable. A few copy editors chatted casually while clacking away on their keyboards. The executive editor was out of the office, his door closed and shuttered, and his secretary was talking on the phone. CNN played on a wall-mounted television.

She continued leafing through the sheaf of papers. The package contained a series of blueprints and schematics for what appeared to be electronic components. Not being an engineer, she had no idea whether these were technically correct. She unfolded one of the documents, which covered the top of her desk when completely unfurled. It contained a diagram of something that looked exactly like a flying saucer. The plans showed various views depicting portions of the craft, with detailed breakout cross-sections of specific features. One cutaway was entitled gas-turbine power plant, and another, zero-point gravitator, and one other view dealt with hydraulic controls for the landing gear.

Jane left the document sprawled over her desk and went on to the next item in the stack of papers. Included were three pulp-magazine articles from the same period as the memos. One, dated March 1955, featured an artist’s concept of the classic flying saucer. It was silvery and had U.S. Air Force inscribed on its upper surface. The article quoted Moore and other aviation insiders who said an antigravity propulsion system was within reach and that jet-engine technology would soon be obsolete.

Illustrations accompanying the articles reflected the angst of the era, a time when people were increasingly jittery about the emerging super science of nuclear physics, microelectronics, modern astronomy and cosmology. Strange hovering discs and rocket ships limned against backdrops of ghastly greens, eerie mist, star fields and the planet Saturn, that obligatory symbol of cosmic mystery.

She continued perusing the material and came across an item she had written herself a few years ago. It was just a three-paragraph tidbit in the News Briefly section of Thompson’s. If not for the impeccable credentials of the source, Thompson’s wouldn’t have considered publishing such a dubious story. It read:

From The X-Files or a U.S. Black Project?

Robert Marsden has seen every type of military aircraft that ever took to the skies during his nearly 50 years with Britain’s now-defunct Royal Observer Corps, but he spied an apparent U.S. plane he couldn’t identify one day last month. Marsden was on a cruise ship in the North Sea when he spotted a huge triangular craft being escorted by three F-111 bombers. He watched the planes traverse the sky in an easterly direction for nearly 10 minutes, using a pair of binoculars to get a good look at the craft.

They were flying no higher than 10,000 feet, Marsden said. I have been observing aircraft for many years, and I can tell you without a doubt that this was unlike any plane I’d ever seen before. I would describe it as an equilateral triangle with very sharp edges, much larger than the B-2 stealth bomber and without the distinctive flying-wing profile of the stealth plane.

Marsden was a bona fide expert, a living encyclopedia of modern military aircraft. The Royal Observer Corps had been the twentieth century’s preeminent organization dedicated to identifying enemy airborne threats and played a huge role in helping the Allies intercept Luftwaffe planes during World War II. For his part, Marsden had identified everything from early German jet aircraft in the final days of the war to the latest Soviet MIG fighters flown during the waning years of the Cold War.

In his retirement, the aged Marsden had become somewhat of an aviation historian, penning two books on military aircraft, one exclusively focusing on World War II and the second concentrating on postwar innovations in the United States and the Soviet Union. Jane first met him during a conference of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. It was one of those two-day affairs of technical, jargon-filled sessions dealing with such matters as novel designs for liquid-fuel rocket nozzles and clean-burning hydrogen-peroxide fuels and oxidizer-rich stage-combustion cycle engines.

After it was all over, she was able to eke out several short pieces based on these highly technical talks. Far more entertaining was Marsden’s plenary lecture about the history of military aircraft in the Western world. His presentation included an overview of likely future advances in aviation, and then diverged into some highly speculative ideas about possible top-secret designs.

These concepts are based on certain things that have been observed by people hanging out in places like the Mojave Desert, he said at one point during his presentation. They are seeing things that are definitely not stealth fighters, I’ll tell you that. So, unless you are prepared to accept the very unlikely possibility that we’re being visited by ET on a regular basis, there is only one logical conclusion: Uncle Sam’s flying some pretty nifty prototypes these days.

His talk drew some polite applause, but mostly cynical whisperings. Afterward, Jane had exchanged business cards with Marsden, and she mentioned his talk in a feature article about the conference. He appreciated the favor. The article gave him some good exposure, which resulted in a few clients.

After his unusual encounter about a year later, he gave her a call to see whether she had ever heard of the triangular plane he had observed. Marsden was pretty sure the United States had its hands on some sophisticated new hardware that was years ahead of anything else. He was drawn to this conclusion, he said, after reviewing estimates for the American military’s black budget over the past few decades. Any way you sliced it, Marsden figured, the budget for ultra-secret research and development was thriving, probably a figure that outstripped the gross domestic products of many sovereign nations and surpassed annual combined spending for NASA and the departments of Justice, Energy, Interior and Housing and Urban Development. And, if history was any indication, he argued, there was no telling what sorts of secrets were being maintained in the name of national security.

Witness the SR-71 Blackbird. It was developed in complete secrecy during the 50s and 60s by the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, and it remained largely unknown despite its incredible performance record. The plane was capable of exceeding Mach 3, a speed unmatched by any other spy planes of the time. And the same atmosphere of hyper-secrecy surrounded the stealth fighter. Its development involved hundreds of people, yet it remained entirely shrouded from the public until it was unveiled in 1988. No one had written about the stealth fighter in large-circulation newspapers like USA Today, the New York Times or the Washington Post. Sure, there were rumors in some small niche publications, but no photos had been published. No insiders had leaked any detailed information. It was the journalistic equivalent of a black hole.

Marsden had always thought that the stealth fighter and bomber programs were, in fact, very successful conspiracies. He preferred Webster’s secondary definition of the verb to conspire: to act, or work together toward the same result or goal. A conspiracy wasn’t necessarily evil. As far as Marsden was concerned, the stealth programs were the perfect argument against the naïve but commonly held assumption that there were no longer any secrets in America, that everything was an open book.

The SR-71 was the world’s best high-speed, high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft. Therefore, since it had been decommissioned in 1989, Marsden thought it only reasonable that the United States had replaced it with some other extremely fast airplane. He simply could not believe that the last remaining superpower would leave a gaping hole like that in its military repertoire. There just had to be something new, something capable of flying at least as fast as the Blackbird, something that could be launched into the heavens at a moment’s notice and reach its far-flung destinations anywhere in the world within a matter of hours. Satellites were not nearly as versatile. It wouldn’t make sense for America to retire the nation’s most capable reconnaissance aircraft without first fielding its successor. Such inaction just didn’t mesh with past behavior.

The Pentagon, after all, always had a new secret weapon.

Marsden’s observation that afternoon in the North Sea should have served as evidence that there was, indeed, something dark and mysterious roaming the skies, something unique and fearsome. Yes, it all made perfect sense, but exactly what kind of technology was this? What sort of plane could fly without wings? How could anything shaped like an overgrown kite keep up with F-111 bombers?

These and other questions led Marsden to pick up the phone and consult with Jane. Alas, she had nothing for him, as none of her sources had ever suggested that a replacement existed for the SR-71. As far as she knew, the aircraft had simply become too expensive to operate and expendable after the Soviet Union’s disintegration. Anyway, robotic drones were all the rage. Although they were not capable of supersonic flight, officials insisted the unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, when combined with satellites and the aging U-2 spy plane, satisfied all of the military’s reconnaissance needs.

Jane dwelled on Marsden’s sighting as she kept looking through the envelope’s contents. She came across several articles from British tabloids regarding something she had never heard of before called the silent Vulcans. The tabloids had apparently had endless fun with a series of UFO sightings dealing with triangular objects that resembled the 1950s-era, V-shaped Avro Vulcan bombers. The enormous triangular UFOs had invaded British airspace, according to one article. Another piece retold how pilots landing a British Airways 737 at England’s busy Manchester Airport were startled by the sudden appearance of the huge craft flying directly at their plane. The object came so close to the commercial airliner that one of the pilots instinctively ducked.

A lengthy investigation by Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority eventually concluded the pilots had, in fact, seen a real aircraft, but it never was identified. The silent Vulcan articles segued nicely into some news clips detailing similar sightings in New York’s Hudson Valley. Hundreds of citizens and local police had seen the large ship cruising overhead at very low altitude.

Jane had scanned most of the items by the time coworkers began trickling back into the newsroom after lunch. She hastily returned the documents to the manila envelope.

Later, though, she pondered flying saucers, prompting a spontaneous shiver of the spine.

CHAPTER 2

T ommy Swift was raised in rural Indiana, where kids sprouted up tall and Teutonic and loyal to god and country.

He began flying as a teenager, working as a line boy at the local airport, pumping gas, washing and waxing and towing airplanes, supervising the office cash register while saving his pennies for flight training.

Tommy received his pilot’s license at sixteen. He had inherited his passion for airplanes from his maternal grandmother, Bessie Shoemaker, she herself a pilot who learned to fly with her husband back in 1955. Waiting until the harvest was in, they took their first lesson in a Piper Cub over Labor Day weekend and became lifelong members of the Flying Farmers of Indiana.

The barnstorming breed of general-aviation devotees frequently took wing over the nation’s heartland, following air charts that showed the precise meanderings of roads, rivers and railroad tracks below.

Many a night old Bessie would sit her grandchildren on her knee and recall various flying adventures, albeit slightly dramatized for the benefit of her audience. There was the time grandpa Shoemaker suffered a gallstone attack in Edmonton, Canada, and Bessie had to save the day, flying home for emergency surgery. In the northwest corner of Illinois she hit a hazy wall of fog, a perilous predicament for pilots like Bessie who flew strictly under visual flight rules.

We was flying blind for ten minutes or more but got home just in time to operate on your grandpaw, she recited. Doctor said his gallbladder was dang-near ready to burst with gangrene.

Bessie told and retold a seemingly endless assortment of riveting bedtime stories. A favorite involved the time gramps made an emergency landing in a pasture, threading a narrow passage defined by rocky terrain, trees and hedges. They rolled right up to a farmhouse, and the people, complete strangers, put them up for the night.

Even mundane experiences she embellished with tantalizing tidbits to make the stories entertaining.

Tommy’s parents weren’t sure what to make of grandma’s influence, but they encouraged their son’s obsession with flying, even if they hadn’t shared his passion for airplanes. His father was a utility company lineman. His mother was a stay-at-home mom who spent her days administering her own sort of wholesome brainwashing. She was no rocket scientist, but she did understand some things about child rearing that many failed to grasp before it was too late.

There would be no latchkey kids in her home. She dutifully attended all of their academic and sporting competitions, providing emotional support and bolstering their nascent competitive drives. Her fundamental formula was to raise her kids from the very beginning to have confidence and self-esteem, and everything else would follow. Encourage them and provide positive reinforcement, but don’t dole out gratuitous praise. Challenge them, but don’t push them too hard.

Try to go easy on the corporal punishment, but by no means spare the rod entirely, especially for the boys.

I’m not raising any sissies, she’d say.

Deal an impromptu swat to the butt, a smack to the cheek, a show of force when warranted. Not so much out of anger but of purpose. This measured use of violence would hard-wire a latent aggression into their malleable nervous systems. Make sure they have some compassion, but not too much. The necessary quantum of empathy, but that’s all.

Impressionable neural connections in the brain formed indelible associations between love and pain, authority and consequence. Laying the foundation, installing the basic software for a restrained rage, waiting to be unleashed. This would serve him well as an alpha male.

The old man also fulfilled his fatherly duties, performing the requisite male-bonding exercises: the sports; the Boy Scouts; the fishing; the stupid fucking bowling.

These parental efforts weren’t lost on Tommy. The eldest of four children, he emerged as one of those kids who just seemed to have his bearings right from the start. A model high school student, he excelled academically and in sports and became the first member of his extended family to earn a college degree.

He’d been memorizing mathematical theorems since the seventh grade and solving quadratic equations for at least that long, so he tested out of the first year of calculus while studying freshman engineering at a Midwestern university famous for its technical programs. The curriculum was difficult for most of the students, but not for Tommy, who felt right at home with his Texas Instruments scientific calculator and head full of nonlinear algebra. It was obvious that he could run with the best and brightest, even those computational whiz kids from abroad, who made up a full quarter of the engineering student body. The university had the largest number of international students of any school in the United States, and nearly all of them were pursuing careers in the sciences. These were the cream of the crop, the best foreign minds, people who came to America for diplomas in electrical engineering, computer science, physics and mathematics.

The university was a wellspring of talent for NASA: Numerous alumni would go on to become pilots and astronauts. Some would walk on the