The disclosure paradox, p.23
The Disclosure Paradox, page 23
Robert and the team rose to exit the train and watched as the others in their car left quickly. He motioned the team to follow the mercenaries but not too closely. They moved toward a pair of doors that led to an elevator lobby. Like the lobby at Groom Lake, it was also under visual surveillance. Tara was still blindfolded, standard procedure for people that did not have the proper clearance when traveling through sensitive areas. The appearance of uniforms without insignias and name tags was common in the facility. The twelve men stood in front of the elevator doors. Robert’s team hung back by the lobby doors. When the elevator doors opened to a cargo elevator, the mercenaries walked to the back, facing the front. Robert and team noticed that even with twelve men and their backpacks, there was still more than enough room for them. They entered, staying close to the front of the cab. One of the mercenaries reached through to press the only button on the panel, and the doors closed.
The elevator began to rise and accelerated. Tara, still blindfolded, felt uneasy about going up again, but said nothing. The ascent was fast. Not a word was spoken among the seventeen passengers. The cab decelerated quickly until slowing down to a normal speed, then it stopped. As the doors opened, Robert and the team moved aside to let the mercenaries exit first. They blindly followed the uniformed group as they negotiated a dimly lit lobby. There were no cameras in sight. The mercenaries walked ahead through a pair of doors that opened into a stairwell. The team followed.
Robert’s team was on the bottom floor, facing consecutive flights of stairs going up. The stairwell was illuminated for safety. They stayed back, watching the mercenaries walk up the four flights leading to another pair of doors at the top landing. Having the blindfolded airman made a good excuse to walk up slowly as the last of the mercenaries exited. Reaching the top landing, they found themselves outside of what appeared to be a modern single-story administrative building. Louis spotted a sign just outside the building that indicated it was a flight test center. They watched as the group ahead was picked up by a blue Air Force bus. Once everyone was aboard, the door closed and the bus departed.
They watched the bus drive off toward an automated sliding gate and leave the fenced-in compound. It turned west and headed along the main airfield on a parallel road until it reached Lancaster Boulevard where it turned North for the main base. They lost sight of it as it continued north around the runway.
Robert reached for his phone, opening his GPS application. He discovered that his team was miles from the nearest base exit. They had exited on the southwest side of the large building, away from its main entrance. Another smaller building was facing them, about two hundred feet to the right. They were stranded in a secure compound at Edwards Air Force Base in California, and it was past 2200 hours. With the bus out of sight, Deborah took the liberty of lifting the blindfold off Tara.
“We are about six miles from the closest entry control point. Has anyone been here before?” Robert asked.
Everyone responded with either “no” or a head shake. Robert continued to look at the phone for a route to take to the Entry Control Point (ECP), on the southwest end of the base. He estimated they would need to walk two hundred yards to reach the southwest corner of the compound at the fence line. The compound was situated between the South Base on the south and the main runway to the north. It was well lit with poles spaced every hundred feet at the fence. South of the compound, there was a large, illuminated parking lot. Beyond the compound was the expanse of open field, dotted with small metal sheds, lighting vaults, and substations. Distances on airfields can be deceptive to the eye; the darkness and the lack of landmarks for scale made it even more difficult to gauge the vastness. Robert guessed it to be over two miles to the road that led to the ECP. After that, they would have to travel south along the road for a longer distance. He opted to avoid as much exposure along the road as possible, cutting across the desert tract of land. He figured the total distance of the preferred path would be three miles. At a six miles per hour constant jog, on uneven terrain, in the dark, they would get there in just over thirty minutes. That would get them a third of the way to the base exit.
While Robert was figuring the route, Louis placed a call to his friend, Trevor Hugo, who lived a few hours away in San Fernando. Trevor had been expecting a call since they talked just before Louis left Chicago. Louis was relieved to find his friend at home. Based on their prior conversation, Trevor had anticipated that Louis would call ahead to let him know he was in the area so they could arrange a visit. Trevor did not expect Louis to call and immediately ask to be picked up from a place about a hundred miles away.
“Louis, I just got home from work,” explained Trevor. “I need to work tomorrow too. I normally get up at six. By the time we would get home after I picked you up, it would be 1 a.m.”
“Trevor, I have no other options. I have four people here, and we will be stranded if you don’t come get us. I am sorry for putting you in this position. I’ll make it up to you.”
Trevor spent the entire day and most of the evening at his job. Being a loyal friend, though, he took a deep breath and replied, “Alright, alright. I understand. Where do I need to go get you?”
Louis instructed Trevor to meet him and his four companions outside the base. The entire jog to the base exit would take at least ninety minutes.
“Thanks so much, Trev. You are a savior. You will have your rewards. I’ll let you know when we are ready.”
“OK. I’ll text you when I get close. I will be in a Silver Toyota Previa. See you soon.”
Robert instructed the team to move quickly, as all fenced compounds were patrolled by security forces. He directed them to follow him to the southwest corner of the compound, to the fence. There he would cut the chain-link fence, and they would proceed on the path he recognized as being best.
Robert realized the challenge of jogging unnoticed and getting past the fence. He sent a text to Katrina. He waited for a response, but there was none. In Taos, eight hundred miles away, Katrina lay on the floor on her right side, her eyes closed. Her breathing was shallow as she held her circuit. She was in a place between the third dimension and spiritual realm. She was alive, not asleep. Aware, but not awake. Like every other near-death experience, she got closer to leaving the planet completely, at the same time gaining more strength in her abilities. She had been tracking Robert and the team. She sensed Robert wanting to contact her. Her spirit sent a message of love to his.
Robert felt something—something he could not explain, yet whatever it was made him more at ease. Mary Ellen felt it too. She looked at Robert.
“Did you feel that?”
The sensation made him turn to Mary Ellen. For all the years he had known Katrina, just now was he beginning to understand. The energy that touched him was real in the sense that his mind actually felt something.
“Yeah. Yeah. I get it now. It’s starting to make sense.” Robert’s self-imposed limitations of reality were beginning to be dismantled. His universe had just gotten bigger.
Deborah was concerned and watched Tara closely, giving her some water from her backpack. Tara was silent, but she sensed that whatever was going on had not been planned.
“We’ll get you to safety,” the vet said to the young airman.
Tara took a long drink. “I’m officially AWOL now,” she said, almost breathlessly. “My handlers are bound and gagged in a closet. A Grey that monitored my torture was killed.”
“How long were they going to keep you in that room?” Robert asked.
“I don’t know. I . . . feel confused. It feels like I had been in that situation before. But I don’t remember anything specifically.”
“I promise you, once we get out of here, we are going to get help for you.” Robert recognized trauma and understood that Airman Everly was in a fragile state now. “I recorded the assault with my cell phone.”
Robert took out his phone and sent a quick message to two veterans now working in key positions in the nation’s Capital. One was an investigative reporter with The Washington Post, and the other was a Congressman from California that served on the House’s Armed Services Committee. He attached the video of the assault and purposefully omitted details so they would respond, if only to get more information.
The team was about ready to move when Louis recognized Mary Ellen was motionless and staring into space at nothing in particular. She had fallen into a trance similar to the one in the lab at Dulce base. This time, in her trance state, she spoke: “You have done well. Look up. We are here to help you get out safely.”
A dozen orange orbs appeared overhead, hovering at about one thousand feet. Robert, Deborah, and Louis were in awe of the sight of the glowing orange objects. Mary Ellen came out of the trance to witness the light show. She had established a connection with the Arcturians once again.
Tara was bewildered. The sights frightened her, though she felt a dark familiarity with them. “I think I’ve seen those lights before . . . I just . . . don’t know why I can’t remember where . . .”
“These beings above us are not the ones you saw, Tara,” Mary Ellen said. “These are Arcturians. They are benevolent and work with the angelic realm. They have no agreements with any Earth nation. They have been watching over us. The ones you saw in Tonopah and Groom Lake are malevolent reptilians.”
The craft stopped over critical facilities. One was directly over a substation located west of the South Base. Others were directly over the main runway, the airfield, and a lighting vault also west of the South Base, along a major roadway. Still others drifted south toward the ECP to which the team was headed. In succession, lights around the compound, including streetlights, lights mounted on buildings, and high mast lights were shut down. The entire airfield was also shut down. This was followed by more outages west and south, where the team was heading. Lights on the main base were still on. There were no explosions, not even an arc. Just sudden darkness. The team was able to hear alarms set off by the outage in the adjacent buildings. Aside from the main base, the only sources of light were vehicles seen well off in the distance on the main roads.
Robert recognized the cue to move. “Louis, you don’t need that lab coat anymore. Get your blacks on.”
Louis got into his black tactical gear as the team waited. Robert commanded the team to put on the night vision goggles. Mary Ellen held Tara’s hand as they left. He led the team to the southwest corner of the compound. They rushed, running across the access road that the bus had used, and found a paved walk that provided about three hundred feet of even footing. They veered toward the southwest corner for another four hundred feet. Arriving at the corner, Robert reached in his backpack and took out wire cutters. He quickly cut an access hole in the chain-link fence. The team crawled through it efficiently, with Robert going last. He stopped to bend the section back to make it look whole again, then pointed in the direction the team was to proceed, under cover of darkness.
It was 2210 hours when the lights temporarily went out in the Airfield Operations Center. Although it was part of the outage, the critical facility was furnished with a UPS. The airmen in the building looked out over the airfield and noticed only darkness—and something else: orange lights in the sky over the airfield. One of the airmen in the Base Operations office placed a call to the Command Post to report the outage and the strange lights in the sky.
The senior airman at the Command Post noticed a brief interruption in the power, causing the fluorescent lights and his computer screen to flicker. Then the phone rang. The airman answered; it was Base Ops. The caller informed the airman of the events.
“Say again?” He wanted be sure he had heard correctly. “Orange lights? Hovering over the airfield? And the airfield lights are all out? Roger, copy. There was an outage here too, but we have the back-up now. I know there is a procedure in case of lost power.” The phone indicated another call on the line. “I have another call, Command Post out.”
He punched the button for the other line. It was another caller with the same information. The airman politely told the caller that he knew about the events and ended the call. He picked out a black binder, looked up the type of base emergency, and initiated the recall. The recall worked like a pyramid. On this occasion, the Vice Wing Commander was at the top of the pyramid since the Wing Commander was off-base on assignment. The airman at the Command Post informed the Vice Wing Commander of the outages and the orange lights, as relayed by Base Operations.
The Vice Wing Commander lived in a part of the housing area that was adjacent to the base golf course, closest to the airfield. The Vice Commander acknowledged by telling the airman that he was seeing the lights over the airfield from his house as he was speaking. There was no official procedure, in any operations manual, that addressed the phenomenon. The Joint-Based Expeditionary Connectivity Center, which would have been used to scramble fighters to the lights, was ineffective because the objects did not appear on any radar. Normally, an offending aircraft identified on the radar would have been first advised by the Federal Aviation Administration’s local controller to turn back, then a US Coast Guard helicopter—dispatched for a visual identification before a pair of fighters already on alert—would do a fly-by before giving a final warning. The air base community would, normally, not have to be involved. In this case, the Vice Wing Commander had to improvise.
He first notified the Mission Support Group Commander of the outage, then called the California Air National Guard’s 144th Fighter Wing Command Post at Fresno, requesting a direct line to their Wing Commander. The 144th FW was assigned the Combat Air Patrol or CAP to that region. He informed the Commander of the orange lights and requested fighters to do a fly-by over Edwards. The ANG Wing Commander had never been put in this situation. There were two F-15s on alert, similar to the ones used for CAP during the Super Bowl at Santa Clara in 2016. As Commander, he had the unique authority to authorize a scramble not initiated by the FAA or local radar. He placed a call to the 194th Fighter Squadron’s Commander and ordered a scramble to Edwards AFB. The F-15Cs would arrive at their destination in less than twenty minutes, or at about 2225 hours.
At Edwards, the Group Commander, in-turn, called on the units that had a direct role in the operations after an outage. He called the 412th Security Forces Squadron Commander and the Base Civil Engineer, who also was the Fire Marshall. All Commanders lived on base for this reason: rapid response time in case of a contingency. The Commanders called their own organization’s night desk after getting off the call with the Group Commander.
The Base Civil Engineer’s Emergency Desk was already getting calls about the outage. The airman politely answered every call as the phone continued to ring. He got a call from his Chief of Operations that a recall was in progress. Branches would be reporting to their shops, as ordered, for further instructions.
The night desk at the Security Force Facility also got busy, as residents in the housing area called about the orange lights. Squad cars were dispatched to investigate. While on the phone with another concerned resident, the desk sergeant received a call from his Commander. The Squadron Commander instructed him to recall four more squads to patrol the South Base and the compound, and to be sent to other sensitive areas affected by the outage that did not have backup power. The Commander informed the airman he was inbound and gave the airman a description of the orange lights.
By the time the first call went to the Command Post, Robert was already past the fence. “Try and keep the pace. Stay about one hundred yards off the side of any road. Make sure you have nothing exposed that reflects light,” Robert said.
He took the lead, running, but not sprinting, on the desert-like open field. There were no bushes to hide behind, no ravines to lie in. He looked back across the airfield and saw two emergency vehicles coming from the main base, cutting through the airfield, using a taxiway that linked the main runway with the South Base. The lights in the sky did not engage with the emergency vehicles. Conversely, the men in the vehicles were mindful of the visitors in the sky and continued with the hope that they would not be harmed. It was either a demonstration of courage or foolishness. Robert and the team were about a mile away from one of the squad cars that arrived at the Access Control Point to the fenced compound. The other squad quickly drove to the Munitions Storage Area located a half mile south of South Base, due East.
***
The 144th Fighter Wing was based at Fresno Yosemite International Airport. Its mission included Combat Air Patrol over much of California. At 2205 the Vice Wing Commander at Edwards was on call with the Wing Commander at Fresno. Afterward, the Wing Commander notified the Command Post to initiate an F-15 fighter scramble with detailed instructions provided in flight. Scrambles were not a rarity in the business. There were typically about three thousand per year, mostly in the Washington, DC, area.
The pilots and the flight line crew were at the ready in the alert facility near their fighters. Dressed in their flight suits, they ran out to their jets, climbed in quickly, donned their helmets, and closed the canopies as the turbine blades rotated. The tower gave them instructions on the mission to Edwards: a subsonic fifteen-minute flight. Having priority, they taxied and took off rapidly, with afterburners on, from alternate runway 29L/11R. By 2213, they were in the air, heading south-southwest to intercept the aggressors.
***
The Civil Engineering shops that were called out to assist in the recovery were varied. The Exterior Electric shop was sent to check out the transformers, substations, and set up RALs (Remote Area Lighting) trailers where the outage affected the perimeter lighting. The Plumbing shop dispatched teams to check out the pump houses and the waste-water treatment plant. The Fire Department sent technicians to check out suppression systems and annunciator panels once they came back online. As the trucks rolled out of the maintenance compound and headed south, the drivers all noticed the orange lights. Additional security force units were dispatched for patrols of the flight line and incidental facilities. It was a light show of emergency vehicles and trucks approaching the South Base and main airfield.
