Don't Mess With Earth (11 page)

The Secretary of Defense met with
Kerim Kerimov, because he knew Kerimov was told by Khrushchev,
through defectors and spies, to investigate the means for the
Soviets to conduct moon missions before the Americans were able to.
They met in secret at the United Nations while their leaders were
yelling at each other in the General Assembly Hall. McNamara was
sitting in a small conference room, waiting for the Russian, when
Kerimov finally walked in. McNamara said, “Greetings, Mr. Kerimov.
Do you know why I asked for you to meet me?”

“No. Why do you need to talk to
me?”

“I need to talk to you about a
matter that will eventually put our countries in another face-off
that I’d like to avoid. You know about President Kennedy’s
declaration that the United States will be going to the moon by the
end of this decade, do you not?”

“Yes, of course. Everyone on Earth
knows by now. What does that have to do with me?”

“Well, you’re one of the founders
of the Soviet Space Program, so I would assume that your leaders
want their country to be committed to beating the United States to
the moon. Am I wrong?”

“
No, you aren’t wrong.
Khrushchev was quite upset when he watched your President declare
your countries’ intentions on television. He ordered me to find out
what it would take to get our cosmonauts to the moon. He wants it
by any means necessary,” Kerimov said, with a heavy
sigh.

“You must know that we have more
resources than you, and our space program is being helped
considerably by that crash landing back in 1947. Would that
surprise you?”

“Of course you have more resources
than us, but, if I were to mention that to my leaders, I would be
either sent to Siberia or given a bullet to the head. As for the
alien spacecraft we shot down, our space program has had more
failures as a result of trying to incorporate mostly damaged
technology from that craft. I fear the Soviet Unions’ efforts to
put men on the moon will end in absolute failure, and I will get my
reward in the end. How do you propose that I tell my leaders that a
moon mission is out of the question?”

“It’s simple, really. Tell them the
cost of going to the moon will be more than it costs to keep your
military running, and if they want to be defenseless against the
United States, then go right on ahead and build spacecraft for moon
missions. Besides, we have the means to make anything your space
program tries to do, end in absolute failure, thanks to the alien
we still have alive and his technology.” boasted McNamara.

“I suppose that will work. Does the
esteemed Secretary of Defense also think the Soviets ought to just
give up our space program too or can we continue going into orbit?”
asked Kerimov, rather sarcastically.

“You can continue to go into space,
but, I warn you, if your government decides to go ahead and try to
send people to the moon, it will end in failure. Are we clear, Mr.
Kerimov?”

“Oh, very clear, Mr. McNamara.”

“Good. Then, I bid you good day.”
McNamara got up and walked out of the room, while Kerimov stayed
where he was for a few minutes trying to do decide what to do
next.

Kerimov’s boss was making a
show out of being angry about the Americans and their spy planes
over Cuba, the missiles, and everything in general having to do
with the United States to the General Assembly of the United
Nations. Pounding one of his shoes on the desk he was sitting
behind and just being a bombastic annoyance. Once Khrushchev was
through with his ranting and raving, he appeared to be laughing
about it, so Kerimov waited until the session was through before he
went to talk to Khrushchev. “Sir, would you like to hear about what
it may cost to conduct moon missions, or would you rather hear it
later?”

“Go ahead and tell me, Kerim,
because the look on your face tells me it’s not good news,”

“Well, sir, I’m afraid that one
manned mission to the moon will cost as much as our yearly budget
for the military. I don’t think I need to remind you, sir, that
some on the Central Committee don’t think we spend enough on the
military as it is. You push this with them and they’ll certainly
replace you, sir.”

“
You’re right about that,
Kerim. This little adventure we had in dealing with the Americans
and the Cubans is costing me with my backers in the Committee. I’m
supposed to shape up, and go back to the ideals of Lenin and
Stalin; you know, the two murderers who killed more Russians than
the Germans in two wars ever did. Remember, I didn’t say that, KGB
could be listening, you know. Let’s go home and see what more
trouble I can find myself in.”

The world was later caught
off guard on November 22, 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was
assassinated in Dallas, Texas going through Dealey Plaza.
Officially, Lee Harvey Oswald was accused of killing the President,
which made it even more plausible when Jack Ruby shot Oswald in
front of the Dallas Police. Certain members of the CIA and FBI, who
worked for Area 51, knew better. With alien-human hybrid
technology, they investigated the grassy knoll, the Dallas Book
Depository where Oswald had shot at the President, Dealey Plaza,
and the entire route the President took through Dallas, which had
been diverted to Dealey Plaza, and found DNA markers on one weapon
they found near the grassy knoll matching Vice President Lyndon
Johnson.

Johnson himself was waiting
on
Air Force One
so that he could be sworn in as the new President
of the United States, so someone else would have done the dirty
work for him. The vice president hated the Kennedy’s, so Johnson
organizing a hit on John Kennedy in Texas didn’t seem like much of
a stretch to the investigators. Unfortunately for the investigative
team, none of this could be on the official record, how would they
explain all this advanced technology to a population who was
beginning to become increasingly cynical? What was important to
everyone at Area 51 and its associate programs was that NASA and
the space program would still continue. After all, Houston Space
Center was in Texas and employed a lot of people, so Johnson let
the space program go on, and the Space Center was named after him.
In the meantime though, he dragged the United States into an
undeclared war in Vietnam.

Almost a year later, in
October of 1964, Premier of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev was
removed from power in a bloodless coup and replaced by Leonid
Brezhnev. The Committee was upset and embarrassed with Khrushchev’s
policies and cantankerous behavior, and believed he mishandled the
Cuban Missile Crisis, relations with China, and made a disaster out
the Soviet economy. Brezhnev wanted the space program to attempt a
moon mission anyway, but, on the four official tests conducted on
the rocket that was going to be used, the rockets malfunctioned and
exploded, making at least one of the tests the worst rocket failure
in the history of the Soviet space program, by killing more than
four dozen people. Brezhnev had those responsible for the disaster
that hadn’t died, sent to Siberia or killed. Finally, in 1974, the
Soviets abandoned their moon program altogether.

Project Gemini was the next
phase in manned spaceflight for the United States. NASA realized
they were skipping a step between
Mercury
and
Apollo
, they hadn’t conducted
long-term duration flights in orbit, hadn’t tested the equipment
for anything longer than a day or two in orbit, and needed to test
docking procedures for the landing module and the command module
for the trip to the moon. The United States Air Force, through some
of Area 51’s scientists and engineers, wanted to observe the ground
from space, also wanted to intercept suspicious satellites while in
orbit, and really didn’t want the Navy to recover the vehicle. The
vehicle would paraglide to solid ground instead of splash-landing
in the Atlantic. The USAF was calling it
Blue Gemini
, but NASA refused to
let the Air Force do this, so Area 51 decided to conduct the
mission themselves in secret, mostly to see if it could be
done.

A launch pad for the secret
spacecraft was set up in the middle of White Sands Missile Range in
New Mexico for the one and only launch of
Blue Gemini
that Area 51 decided
they would do. Scott Carpenter, who was in trouble and grounded by
NASA over the re-entry of another spacecraft, was chosen by Yeager
to fly the mission. The mission was to fly over the Soviet Union
and photograph as many of their missile sites as possible in less
than a fifteen minute period and then re-enter the atmosphere
before NASA or the Soviets detected the rogue spacecraft. The
capsule would then glide to a landing at the Area 51 airfield, then
the flight crew would make the spacecraft disappear within seconds,
and the whole airfield itself would appear inactive.

Carpenter suited up, went
outside in the hot New Mexican desert, and went on the launch pad
elevator, going up the side of the massive Titan 3 rocket launcher
to the capsule named
Zeus
that he was going to fly in. The flight engineers
helped him into the craft, and the first thing he did was turn on
the radio, and asked, “Command, this is Carpenter. Are we still a
go for launch?”

“Roger, Carpenter. We have a thirty
minute window where we can conduct this little mission. Nobody
should be the wiser. Get strapped in and we’ll start the countdown
as soon as you’re ready. Copy that?”

“10-4, I copy. I’ll be ready in
less than five minutes, go ahead and start the countdown for
fifteen. Over,”

“
Ok,
Zeus
we are starting the countdown
for fifteen minutes. Everyone, we need pre-flight checks now, so
get through it quickly.”

As mission control was
conducting hurried pre-flight checks, Carpenter was getting
strapped in, and getting his pre-flight list finished. Fifteen
minutes later, the countdown ended, the rockets fired, and the
Titan 3 rocket launched with lots of fire and smoke trailing
behind. Carpenter reached orbit and fired his guidance rockets to
take him over Russia. Five minutes later, he was over the Soviet
Union, activated the camera that would take detailed, clear, and in
color photographs of missile sites on the ground. He also activated
the hybrid sensors he was told about to see what was out there in
near Earth orbit, but all he saw was space junk left behind by all
the previous space flights. So, to test just how far these new
fangled sensors could detect anything, Carpenter powered up the
sensors to the furthest detection it could do, and discovered
something suprising to him. The sensors could scan past Mars to the
asteroid belt, but what surprised him was detecting a spaceship, at
least that’s what he thought it was, since it was leaving Mars,
heading away from the solar system at a higher speed than his
sensors could keep up with. Since he was supposed to keep radio
silence, he made sure all of this was recorded, since he figured
nobody would believe him, at least not in the normal space program
channels. Fifteen minutes later, Carpenter re-entered the
atmosphere and glided to a landing at the Area 51 airfield.
Everything worked out as planned and nothing seemed to have gone
wrong.

Carpenter made his way to the
de-briefing room and walked in, where he was greeted by Yeager, a
pair of black suited men, and some engineers he didn’t recognize.
He was motioned to sit down, where Yeager asked, “How did the
mission go?”

“The mission went very well, sir.
The data recorder has all the photos I took, and I also recorded a
sensor reading I made where I extended the sensors to see how far
the sensors could detect. I detected what appeared to be a
spaceship leaving the vicinty of Mars headed towards the outer
solar system, but, it went far too fast for my instruments to keep
up with. That’s pretty much my report.”

“Good work, Carpenter. You
accomplished more than we expected and confirmed a suspicion we had
about Mars and alien spacecraft. You must be wondering why you’re
at a top secret location and didn’t return to White Sands.
Correct?” asked Yeager.

“Well, yes, sir. May I ask what’s
going on? I am strongly curious, sir.”

“What we are about to tell you, Mr.
Carpenter, is considered the highest level of classified that the
United States has, so much so that the President knows nothing
about what we’re about to reveal to you. If we find out you have
revealed anything of this meeting or details of what we’re about to
tell you, you will be visited by someone high up in either the CIA
or FBI, and you might just disappear. Do you understand,
Carpenter?” asked one of the men in black.

“Clear as a bell,”

“
Area 51 is where we test new
technologies and put to use technology we have gained from a crash
landed alien spacecraft that was shot down in July of 1947. We
think Mars is used as a base for advanced humans who have been
watching and manipulating Earth for more than two thousand years.
The surviving alien from the crash told us that his species has
been at war with those humans and other humanoids for well over a
thousand years. We plan on introducing advanced technology to the
rest of the world when the
Apollo
missions go up and when we have
other space missions, cover our butts to keep people from wondering
how come we’ve advanced so far so fast. One of these days, the
advanced humans and the aliens will get what’s coming to them.”
said Yeager.

“I find all of this a little hard
to believe, sir.”

“Understandable, Mr. Carpenter.
Imagine what kind of reaction we’d get from the American people if
they found out about all of this, some would believe, others would
say it was the end times, or it was all some kind of Soviet mind
trick. Would you like to see the alien and what’s left of his
spacecraft?”