Dulce Truths

34 — Fire on the Moon

Earth Orbit

Friday, May 25, 1979

6:38 PM

After seeing Stu and Bobbie off — the former to earlier that morning to take care of the soul catcher, the latter to a time in the afternoon to get Charlie and the Blue Lake team together — it was Walter and Bennewitz’s turn. They take the teleporter to Blue Lake, arriving at their current time. Walter heads off to find to find Eddie and Stan and convince them to commandeer a craft and take it to Russia in the near future, while Bennewitz goes to find Heather.

For his part, Mark stays back at the base in Montana with Turn, going to the deeper levels to find the ship he’s looking for. It’s a standard Pleiadian vessel, typically called a “Nordic disc,” both because the Pleiadians were also known as the Nordic race of aliens and because the ship looked like the classic ‘flying saucer’ of the 1950s, although much more futuristic as well. It looks to be one solid chunk of chromium steel, though Mark knows it’s actually hundreds if not thousands of parts welded together with advanced technology that humans can only dream of. The Nordic disc stretches over 100 feet across though comes in at just 20 feet wide. Mark also knows that those dimensions aren’t quite accurate, and that when he gets into the craft it’ll seem no bigger than a living room, and also that it could morph and shift and even skip dimensions. There’d be no need for the latter — Mark hopes — but he will need to get the appropriate landing bay doors of the Montana base open if he wants to get the disc airborne. A short time later he and Turn have done so, and just in time to see both Bennewitz and Heather come back via the teleporter. At that point the four of them are ready to go.

That’d been nearly an hour ago, and now the three of them are racing out of Earth’s orbit, the moon in the Nordic disc’s large front window and getting closer by the second. As they travel thousands of miles per hour, their conversation drifts to the motherships they’ll soon encounter, as well as those scattered around the solar system.

“I’m telling you,” Bennewitz was saying, “it’s not just a base, but dozens of ‘em, all underground.”

Mark cocks his head to one side at the words. “Yeah, that theory’d hold water too… if it wasn’t for what those monks saw back in the 12th Century.”

“That was a long time ago,” Heather says with an eye roll, “things change.”

“Twelfth Century?” Turn says. He looks from Mark to Heather to Bennewitz and back again. Finally Mark sighs and begins to speak.

“Back on June 18th, in the year 1178, a group of five monks at an abbey in Canterbury reported seeing flames shooting out from the backside of the moon, reporting later that the upper horn of the moon split in two.”

“My God,” Heather says, “I haven’t heard this one before.”

Mark nods. “Most haven’t. Reports tell us that the monks saw a flaming torch spring up and then spew out fire and hot coals and sparks over a considerable distance. They said the moon was throbbing like a wounded snake before returning to normal… though just for a short time. The monks saw dozens of fiery shows like the first that night, and when it was all said and done the moon had taken on a blackish appearance.”

“Today we call the area the Giordano Bruno crater,” Bennewitz says, taking up the tale. “When the area was studied three years ago it was determined that it’s 22 kilometers in width and that when it was created it kicked up 10 million tons of debris.”

“That much debris would have created a week-long, blizzard-like meteor storm here on Earth, however,” Mark says, shaking his head. “Nothing like that is recorded as happening anywhere on the Earth back in 1178.”

“That’s why it’s figured that crater was actually formed about three hundred and fifty million years ago, not eight hundred,” Bennewitz says.

“And what’s the real truth?” Turn asks.

Mark and Bennewitz look at one another before answering, as if they want to get their stories straight and some unspoken eye communication would ensure that’d happen. Mark nods to Turn’s question.

“The real truth is that we haven’t been alone on this planet, ever. Worse, we’re being controlled and manipulated and the leaders of our government aren’t working for us, but for the aliens. It’s always been this way, for hundreds of years.

“Hundreds of years?” Turn says. “Oh, please!”

“Believe it or not,” Mark says, “but it’s the truth. The main problem were the Grays and their time-traveling motherships,” Bennewitz says. “In 1645, it was reported that ‘a large moon’ was seen near Venus, and was seen coming and going until 1767. The same craft were seen near Venus in 1787, 1788 and 1789… and if you think they didn’t play a role in starting the French Revolution, think again.”

“Yeah, but what does this all have to do with us now, and with this base you say exists on the moon?” Turn asks.

“Keep listening, it’ll come… I hope,” Heather says with a smile.