Earth (18 page)

At one point in his memorable presentation, Ben Rich said, “If you can imagine it, Lockheed Skunk Works has done it,” a phrase he later repeated on two occasions. And in his concluding comments, he added, “We already have the means to travel among the stars. But these technologies are locked
up in black projects and it would take an Act of God to ever get them out to benefit humanity. Anything you can imagine, we already know how to do.”

He then showed his last slide—an artist's conception of a flying disc zipping off into the unknown—and announced, “We now have the technology to take ET home.” The reaction of the audience was nervous laughter, Tom recalls. “My interpretation was that this was Rich's way of saying, ‘We can do it now.' A few others in the room, including my friend Jan, also took this statement very seriously. All you had to do was read between the lines.

“The talk concluded with some questions and answers and the formal part of the program was over. As soon as it ended, about thirty of us crowded around Rich like rock fans around the Beatles at their last concert. I was beginning to wonder if anyone else (except Jan, as he and I think alike) in the audience was having the same thoughts: Could Skunk Works be working on some otherworldly craft as we spoke?

“One man spoke up and said that he was a new manager at Northrop [which built the B-2A Spirit stealth bomber] and wanted Rich's advice. Rich pointed his finger at the man and said, ‘Well, let me ask you a question: Is it possible to travel to the stars?' The man was taken aback a bit and then said, ‘Oh, sure. It would just take a long time.' Rich replied, ‘No, it won't take someone's lifetime to do it. There is an error in the equations and we know what it is, and we now have the capability to travel to the stars.'

“Rich went on to imply that various people at Skunk Works had been studying alternative propulsion technologies for interstellar travel [and] said they had, for example, determined that Einstein's equations dealing with relativity theory were incorrect. I asked him to clarify that. Did he mean that Skunk Works employed theoretical physicists, ‘Einstein types,' to look for alternative means of space travel? Rich said ‘Yes,' [then] went on to say that they had
proved
that Einstein was wrong. He made a mistake.

“I didn't know how that set with other people in the room, but to me that possibly meant that they had determined how it was possible to travel faster than the speed of light. It's important to keep in mind that Skunk Works is a fabrication outfit. They are not in business to be a theoretical think-tank. My take on this was that at Skunk Works they were looking for loopholes in Einstein's work that would give them a way of traveling at ultra-high, faster-than-light speeds, to the stars and back. I interpreted
Rich's comments to mean that the scientists at Skunk Works had found such a loophole—and they were building or had built a craft to do it.

“One woman in the small crowd apparently had similar thoughts. She asked, ‘Mr. Rich, when will the ETs go home?' Rich smiled, looked down at the floor, and said nothing. Some of us were left wondering what his response might have been had he been able to answer without fear of being sentenced to twenty years in Fort Leavenworth.

“As Rich was walking out of the door, Jan followed him and asked privately, ‘Ben, what equations are you talking about?' He just looked at Jan, who then explained that he was interested in propulsion and wanted to know how UFO propulsion worked. Rich said, ‘Let me ask you: How does ESP work?' Jan replied without thinking, ‘All points in time and space are connected?' Rich shot back, ‘
That's
how it works!'

“Jan did not know if Rich was referring to his question or his answer. Rich then turned around and abruptly left the room….”
12

The great pioneer died of cancer in January 1995, aged sixty-nine.

Gray Liaison

T
he summer of 2009 brought me a promising letter. “I have a true story
to tell [which] relates to my RAF Service, 1955–1957, and involves an alien situation at the camp where I was stationed,” the writer began. “I need some advice and wonder if you have time for a chat? I would add that my involvement, with five of my RAF/Fleet Air Arm pals, fills the gap relating to Britain.”
1

My informant—“Thomas”—spoke guardedly about the gist of the “alien situation” when I first conversed with him on the phone, stressing that he was still bound by the Official Secrets Act. However, he wished to include the story in a book he was currently engaged in writing about his Royal Air Force career and requested my guidance on how to proceed. I agreed to visit him for a couple of days at his home in the West Country. Much of the information presented in this chapter is taken from Thomas's remarkable manuscript,
2
and from my regular communications with him.

Thomas began by giving me details of his National Service record. In March 1955, at the age of eighteen, he had been posted to RAF Cardington, Bedfordshire. He then was posted as Airman Second Class (AC2) to Padgate, Lancashire, for “square-bashing,” consisting largely of .303 rifle/bayonet drill. Following that came trade training, in which Thomas and his colleagues were given a choice of five RAF trades. Thomas ticked o
ff five “admin” jobs, and was assigned to the Equipment Provisioning and Accounting Section (EPAS) at RAF Creddon Hill in Hereford for five weeks' training. In due course, he was posted to RAF Weston Zoyland, Somerset, and nearby RAF Merryfield.

Located some four miles from Bridgwater, Weston Zoyland was originally a World War II airfield, opened in 1944 and used jointly by the Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Forces, primarily for transport aircraft. It was also used, I learned, as a secret base in that period by Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE). After the end of war in the European theater, four fighter squadrons occupied the station briefly. The station was then used as a reserve RAF Fighter Command airfield, but little flying took place there until the summer of 1952, when Meteor and Vampire jets operated there in a training role. Canberra bomber/photo reconnaissance and training aircraft were present during the mid-1950s. By 1958, no more aircraft used Weston Zoyland. During the relevant period, the commanding officer was Group Captain H. E. Hopkins. Today, several derelict buildings remain, excluding the hangars but including the control tower, which I explored in September 2010. Part of the airfield is used nowadays for microlights, and it is also a base for the Sky Watch Civil Air Patrol.

At the time of Thomas's posting there, Weston Zoyland had been taken over by the Fleet Air Arm (FAA). EPAS included a squadron leader in charge, plus a flight lieutenant, a couple of corporals, and the six airmen, including Thomas, who became firm friends with his colleagues.

One morning, the flight sergeant (“Flight”) came over to the EPAS office and whispered to Thomas that he was to present himself in the squadron leader's office at 10:00, to say nothing to anyone, and to join his colleagues. The flight sergeant ordered the men to be on parade outside No. 1 hangar at 08:30 the following morning, dressed in their “best blues.” At the appointed hour, the EPAS team assembled outside the hangar, followed by the squadron leader with three others, one in naval uniform. The team snapped to attention.

“Airmen,” began the squadron leader, “you will all recall signing the Official Secrets Act. You will be here until the end of your service, by which time the matter you will be dealing with will have been resolved. Or should
be…. Your duties will be extraordinary, to say the least.”

No badges of any sort were to be worn. “To anyone in camp you will be rank-less and anonymous,” continued the squadron leader. “On the left epaulette of both your new working blues you will find an orange band already in place. You will not remove them at any time.

“You will have no status whatsoever as far as any other personnel can see. Only yourselves and others involved on the project will know who you are, and from time to time that will include civilians as well as members of the armed forces.

“You will all receive a small pay increase and will deserve it. However, you will say nothing about it to anyone, even at home, if you go on leave. The increase will be on a scale higher than your actual rank. Simply follow orders quietly and responsibly and all will go well and smoothly…. You cannot go off camp in uniform, nor take your orange flashes off camp, nor will you say one single word about today for the remainder of your service, not even to your nearest and dearest. Is that perfectly understood?”

The team confirmed that it was. “Now, of course, you are all curious as to what the hell this all about. You will return to your billet, then change into your new shirt-sleeve order, with orange flashes worn as instructed. Be here at No. 1 hangar at 14:30 hours for a further briefing. Stay together and not a word to anyone, no matter who….”

Code Orange

Thoroughly bemused, Thomas and his colleagues—now effectively attached to the Fleet Air Arm—presented themselves outside hangar No. 1 at the appointed time. The squadron leader summoned the men into the hangar and ordered them to sit down on a row of six chairs—individually assigned with the mens' initials. Opposite stood a table with four chairs. A car drew up outside and the three men from earlier that day came and sat down, dressed this time in civilian suits. “One was tall and hawkish,” Thomas reported, “and the other strongly built with a head of white hair. The naval officer sat away from them, allowing our squadron leader to sit beside him, but between him and the two civilians.”

“You are now attired as you will be for the remainder of your service,”
began the squadron leader. “You each have certain things in common. For example, you passed your RAF entrance exams at the top of your classes, though of course you did not know that about each other. Equally, at your respective training camps you were recorded as best airmen in your Flight…. I shall not introduce you to the three gentlemen with me today. If any of you feel you know any or all of them by sight, forget it and say nothing.

“The task you are going to undertake may be quite easy, but it could become extremely difficult. We have known about it for some years and have made certain preparations at this airfield during the past six months. You may have observed activity at and near this hangar which appeared to be a building project. It is a secret project and all works have been carried out by military experts, some flown in from the United States and Canada. The men and women involved are no longer in camp.”

The project henceforth was to be referred to as “Code Orange.” “All personnel in camp have been told the airmen with orange flashes are on sensitive RAF work,” continued the squadron leader, “and you are not to be interrupted, questioned as to your work or whatever. If you are questioned, then treat it as a breach of security, reporting the incident on the phone in your new quarters.”

Thomas and another colleague, Alan, were assigned overall charge of Code Orange, within the camp perimeter. Next, one of the “suits”—the man with white hair—addressed the new team, after thanking the squadron leader for his briefing. “I work for the government as a scientist and feel satisfied that all has gone as it should here today,” he began. “So, what is Code Orange about? It is about an incident that occurred in the American state of New Mexico during 1947, a most unfortunate incident that involved living beings from another world crashing to Earth, for reasons I will not go into here, and of deaths and casualties,” claimed the man. “Code Orange is about ordinary country people on the spot at the time and of military personnel becoming involved under orders from their superiors within the military and within the government. Code Orange is about putting right, as best we can, a mess….

“I am here to explain your part, and perhaps then we can learn more about how to take advantage of the alien technology as a priority over alien life. Whatever the outcome, Code Orange is about a strange craft and
its occupants who did not complete their journey in New Mexico after all—well, two of them did not, and who knows if others got away? [There were] three craft on the 1947 situation, each with seating areas for three. Two dead bodies were recovered, two alive and still held by the military.

“Other craft have been sighted over many years and many have landed. They are not all from the same place, and are therefore of different races. The two aliens still held by the military are having, shall we say, an English holiday. It is too hot for them where they were and the wrong people are getting close.

“The aliens are vastly more intelligent than we are as a race. So despite considerable arguments, they themselves have forced a move, and months of talks and time-wasting have at last resulted in Code Orange…. The two aliens went silent, refusing to communicate unless they were moved. They do not speak and voice their words aloud as we do, but they converse with each other and us in silence. For want of a better expression, the term ‘thought transference' will do, but they communicate mood too…. Your task is to look after them here—until they decide to communicate again, or not. You will be shown how.”

“That was it, really,” reflected Thomas. “The other two did not have anything to say to us. I remember sitting quietly, trying to take it all in. Then we were told to sort out our new billet at the side of No. 1 hangar and settle in immediately….”

Sunrise and Sunset

The office at Weston Zoyland was reached by the team directly from their billet, and another door led into the hangar. “A long desk with three chairs was along one wall, with two telephones, piles of notepads, pens, pencils, and a radio set and typewriter,” Thomas reported. “Filing cabinets were ready for use and a screen ‘looked into' the hangar, but was not ‘on' at first. Fire buckets and extinguishers, tea and coffee facilities and water were laid on to a sink basin. A fairly ordinary situation then, but extraordinary was a metal cupboard with revolvers and ammunition and a set of white overalls for all of us.”

Thomas's team had the use of other amenities nearby and were permitted access to the NAAFI (Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes) shop and the
Mess at mealtimes, though only two at a time. The team received orders to man the office from 08:00 to 16:00 each day, until further notice. “At that time we organized two four-hour shifts, always with Alan or myself leading these in turn,” Thomas explained. “We received phone calls on a regular basis to verify that all was well, from an anonymous female voice, the origin of which we were never told. We were given a password—‘Sunrise'—and had to use it in reply to the woman's password—‘Sunset'—which I will never forget.”

Special Delivery

The team looked after the office and kept themselves fit by running or walking outside the hangar and in the large field adjoining it. Nothing relevant occurred until well into the second week, when a phone call came from a man advising Thomas that a Code Orange delivery was due on the Saturday of the following week. Early on the next Monday morning, the team was advised that their password would change to that of the project name. The usual female contact advised them that on Wednesday at 08:00 a special consignment would be arriving (at Merryfield).

Thomas told me that the special consignment, originating in the U.S., was delivered from somewhere in the U.K.—Scotland, he believes—by train, ending its rail journey at Ilton Halt, thence by a huge vehicle to Merryfield.

Like Weston Zoyland, Merryfield had been used in World War II by the USAAF and RAF, and then by the latter as an advanced pilot and training establishment with Meteor and Vampire jets until the end of 1954. During the following two years—which involved Code Orange—a detachment from an operational conversion unit, with Canberra jets, was often present. Then came the Royal Navy with Sea Venoms, until 1958. By 1961, it was abandoned until 1971 when, as Royal Naval Air Station Merryfield (HMS
Heron II
) it was used for assault helicopter training and exercises. Today, it remains an operational airfield and a restricted area, with security on the gate.
3

About twenty feet high and eight to ten feet deep, the wooden crate was hauled on to the back of a large wide-load vehicle, secured with steel cable hawsers on its narrow end. “It didn't cause a lot of problems along
those Somerset roads on its short journey to Merryfield, as one might imagine,” Thomas explained to me. “However, some traffic problems delayed delivery.”

“It was 11:00 when the two motorcycle MPs (Military Police) roared up to the doors of No. 1 hangar followed by the huge wide-load vehicle, all noise and flashing lights, then two more motorcycles with a staff car following,” Thomas reports. “The hangar door slid smoothly shut on it.” An hour or so later, the presence of a group captain in the hangar was announced to the team via phone. On being admitted to the office, he introduced himself, explaining first that a viewing screen in the office was now operational, enabling the men to see into the hangar. “The hangar had a pitch roof with rows of skylights and a pair of very large hangar sliding doors to the front,” Thomas continues. “There were rows of strip lighting for night use. Our billet-cum-office was on one side abutting the west hall of the hangar with the one door between us. An orange six-inch-diameter circle was painted on it [and] the viewing screen had a small red light above it, no doubt showing it was ‘on.' From within the hangar there was no way of knowing what was behind our door.”

A large red-brick room had been built at the back of the hangar, within which was another room mainly made of glass or similar material. “Its rear wall, really a gigantic window, looked out across the Somerset countryside to a distant perimeter fence we were told was electrified,” Thomas revealed. “We later learned that the electrified fence was only fixed about No. 1 hangar at Merryfield and that the fencing around the remainder of the camp remained normal. Just beyond this fence was another, some eight feet high but not electrified, and beyond it were fields and a river. Due to the slope from the rear of the hangar down to the river, the view was not despoiled by the fencing, nor could anyone else see in.”