Scareforce (6 page)

After that the stories of the headless lieutenant quieted down, at least in number. But the revetment continued to cause troubles.
Numerous times a helmet bag was noticed sitting in the empty parking space. No one ever went to retrieve it, though. And many
supervisors of flying were sent out to turn off the lights in the revetment. No one had turned them on but they were burning
brightly. And usually the officer would drive all the way to the back wall, turn off the switch, and then see the lights come
on by themselves as he drove away.

Whatever the truth of the matter is, the Air Force still does not believe in ghosts. But it doesn’t believe in a revetment
called Charlie Fifty-four anymore either.

A
simulator is a great place to learn about flying and about the intricacies of modern aircraft. After twenty years of flying
on B-52s, I actually learned more about the old “Buff” by teaching in the simulator. But I never in my wildest imaginings
dreamed that I’d learn something about the supernatural from this electronic marvel.

Some environments are the exact opposite of what is usually required for a haunting. They are too modern, too sterile, too
new, for any self-respecting spirit to call home. Scientific and technical, they appear to be almost ghost-proof.

That is certainly the case with the Weapons System Trainer at Minot Air Force Base. It is a marvelously conceived flight simulator
for the training of B-52H crew members. Modern and advanced, it is the total antithesis of anything supernatural.

Many years ago the Air Force learned the value of demonstration in instruction. It’s much easier to get a lesson across by
showing than by telling. It was a lesson that applied especially to aviation. Showing was the best way to teach fledgling
pilots. But it was very costly and often impractical to try to demonstrate everything in an aircraft. There just weren’t enough
air frames or instructor pilots available.

To save money, and time, they came up with the idea of flight simulators. They could be flown and crashed without too great
a cost in machines and lives. The first machines were rudimentary, but as the technology of flight improved the simulators
improved accordingly.

The WST was a sterling example of the advances of modern technology. Over two hundred software engineers had labored for years
to write the reams of code necessary to give birth to the machine. The tasks of the simulator were so involved that fourteen
mainframe computers labored in perfect unison to make it operate. Eleven monster disk drives fed the computer the code that
took the place of jet fuel in the aircraft being simulated. More than two gigabytes of available memory were necessary to
make the imitation of flight seem real. Designers had pored over maps and charts and satellite photos, reducing mountains
and fields and streams and forests to ones and zeros arranged in particular computer language. When fed to the computers these
ones and zeros were translated into a remarkably accurate picture of the land that the simulator flew over.

Every system of the gigantic bomber was duplicated in the simulator. It had to be accurate; it had to feel right.

Perched on six hydraulically driven legs, the flight station looked like a cross between a robot and a huge metal spider.
The legs were articulated to allow for every twist and turn that the aircraft would make as it winged its way through the
simulated sky. Immense pressure lines fed hydraulic blood to the beast. Computer-driven actuators snapped the station left
and right, up and down in a frenzied mating dance that looked uncoordinated and strange to the outside observer.

But step inside the flight station and you have stepped onto the flight deck of the Boeing B-52H Super Strato-fortress. All
those computers and all those disks and all that hydraulic fluid and all that power combine to make the illusion real. Sit
in the ejection seat confronted by the rows and rows of glowing, moving, accurate dials and gauges. Look at the switches and
knobs that you know must control the craft Strap into the pilot’s position and run the multiple throttle levers slightly forward
to give more fuel to the eight powerful engines and hear them roar their hunger. The huge metal boxes that rested so awkwardly
on the forehead of the mechanical arachnid now provide a panoramic view out the cockpit windows of the earth rushing by hundreds
of feet below the racing bomber. Move the column to the side and feel the airplane bank and your world tilt into the turn.
The mirage is truly miraculous.

The building that houses the WST is as complete and modern as the facility it was built to house. The bay where the flight
station weaves and lurches and finally squats at rest on its silver legs is pristine. The walls shine with fresh earth tone
paint and glow in the shadow-killing glare of halogen arc lights set into the three-story-high ceiling. Even the floors shine
in their cleanliness. The miles of cable are hidden in tastefully appointed under-floor cable runs or wrapped neatly in bundles
that attach like an umbilical cord to the belly of the monster.

The control facility, full of computer keyboards, oversize glowing display terminals, and silently professional technicians,
is as subdued as the flight station bay is bright. It looks like the launching room of a space facility.

Even the offices of the technicians behind the control room are antiseptic and color coordinated.

The technicians who service this modern marvel expect things to go as planned. That doesn’t mean that everything will work
all the time. They expect things to weaken, circuits to short, diodes to die, chips to flare, and binary coupling to come
uncoupled. And they expect this to take place according to the mean-time-between-failure charts and graphs generated by other
computers that understand these computers. They expect to be able to fix these failures with the parts ordered and maintained
by still other computers.

Late in the night, when the last bomb run has been completed and the last missile has been launched and the last fighter has
been avoided; when the last emergency has been solved and the last landing accomplished in spite of grievous battle damage
and the last crew member has gone home, the technicians run their diagnostic programs and hunt for the expected problems.
All the intelligence and scientific thought that went into this machine gives them the right to expect these things.

What they didn’t expect to find was a ghost in the machine. But that is what happened.

It started slowly and was not recognized for what it was for some time.

The earliest occurrence took place after midnight in the console operations room. The room, and in fact the whole building,
is entirely divorced from the outside. The total absence of windows prevents the occupants from determining the time or type
of day. The carefully controlled temperature and humidity prevent any hint of what mother nature is brewing up outside. The
hum of the machines is at first the most insistent sound and then, after acclimatization, an unnoticed background of white
noise.

Donaley, the mid-shift supervisor of the technician team, was seated in front of the console screen in a computer-induced
trance. His eyes followed the random-appearing dance of alphanumerics across the screen. He was concentrating on the pattern,
looking for the single bit that was not in step with the rest. The technician on the other side of the console squatted behind
the open doors to the insides of the machine. He had been pulling and reseating the many computer boards to attempt to isolate
the one that was causing the problem. He was totally hidden from Donaley’s view.

Donaley’s concentration was interrupted by the bang of first one then the next equipment door slamming shut.

“What’s the matter? You giving up?” He didn’t look up from the screen as he asked the question. The only answer he got was
the third and final cabinet door slamming shut.

“Did you pull all the boards?” asked Donaley. He rolled his chair back from the console and stretched. He had been locked
into an uncomfortable position by his concentration. There was no answer from behind the console.

“Hey, Ted, I asked if you pulled all the boards.” This time he raised his voice to be sure his counterpart heard him clearly.
Still there was no reply.

“Ted, what the hell’s the matter with you?”

“I don’t know. What the hell’s the matter with you?”

Donaley swung around violently in his chair. The voice came not from behind the console but from the door to the control room.
Ted had apparently exited the room sometime earlier while Donaley was immersed in his inspection of the computer screen.

Ted laughed at his boss’s stare and swung around the end of the console.

“Hey, who closed all the cabinet doors?”

Good question,
thought Donaley. He was too shaken to speak.

On another night not too long after the first, Donaley was seated at the same console, this time wearing a communications
headset. Another technician had drawn the midnight shift and was ensconced in the flight station going through the radio circuits
to try and track down a reported problem.

“Pilot, radio one check.”

“Rog, one checks.”

“Pilot, radio two check.”

“Rog, two checks.”

“Pilot, HF check.”

“Rog, HF checks.”

The litany was monotonous and boring, but necessary. Donaley was in the midst of what must have been the nine millionth check
when he was interrupted by a light tap on his shoulder.

“Just a minute,” he waved the interruption off. “Let me finish this last check.”

He heard a cross between a mutter and a whisper from behind his left shoulder but he couldn’t make out the words. Removing
his headset, he swung around to face the person. There was no one in the room.

Of course there was no one there. Donaley suddenly remembered that he and the technician were the only ones in the locked
building that night.

Donaley felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as he tried to think who had touched him and whispered in his ear.

Stories about the ghostly visitors started to circulate among the technicians. They found that several had had unexplained
things happen to them individually. Most had been afraid to say anything. To paraphrase the poet, it’s better to say nothing
and appear to be a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

But now that the shift super had let them know about his brushes with the supernatural, other happenings started to be told.

A tech related his experience on the graveyard shift while he was working alone in the console room. The doors to the study
and briefing rooms are held open by electromagnets as a fire safety precaution. If a fire breaks out, the power is removed
from the building and the doors shut automatically to prevent the spread of fire. As he worked alone on the computer, suddenly
one by one the doors to the rooms slammed shut. If power had been lost from the building, the doors should have shut all at
once. But the power stayed on. He watched in shock as each door slammed in turn, right down the row. He then left the console
room for a more brightly lit and heavily populated maintenance room.

A stranger happening took place in the flight station itself. Dennis, one of the day technicians, was helping out the night
crew with a persistent motion problem. He was “flying” the station while the other two techs monitored his progress at the
console.

When the box is under motion, its occupants are totally isolated from the room. To enter the station, you must cross a drawbridge
that raises away when the motion system is activated. The station then lifts up on its legs to prepare to simulate the flight.
The occupants are now suspended twelve feet above the floor. Anyone on the outside of the station would prevent the station’s
rise. The catwalk is covered with a pressure sensitive flooring that inhibits motion, and lights a warning light at the console
to show when anyone steps on the station or even touches it. So Dennis was completely isolated from others as he flew the
plane above the computer earth.

The gentle rocking motion of the simulator and the background noise of the jets worked in unison to lull him. He was almost
dozing when suddenly a hand slapped the back of his head. It was the kind of slap a pilot would use to jump-start his copilot’s
brain when he botched something.

It definitely got Dennis’s brain working. He punched the emergency stop, shutting off the power to the system, ripped off
his seat belt, and bolted for the door. He almost pitched over the railing. The drawbridge had not yet dropped in place. He
was on it and running for the steps before the pumps had released all the pressure. His faith in modern machines was somewhat
shaken. But the best was yet to come.

Friday night is the only night that the trainer is completely shut down. The process of turning it off is involved and must
be followed exactly to prevent damage to the components.

Ted and Ron were working in the flight station as Jerry worked outside the building to clean up the area. Ted was shutting
down the pilot’s side as Ron did the same with the copilot’s side. The windows were blank. They had already turned off the
computer that produced the visuals. Suddenly the window blossomed with a picture of the runway at Minot.

“Wonder why Jerry turned on the visuals?” asked Ted. “You finish up here and I’ll go see what’s happening.”

He left to check on the computer room. He was surprised to find the visual computer working away but the room totally empty
of human beings. He tracked Jerry down in the maintenance shed, where he was laboring to store a garden tractor. Jerry followed
him back to the bay to see what was going on.

Ron was standing on the catwalk of the flight station as they entered the bay. He just shrugged his shoulders when they told
him they didn’t know how the visuals came back on.

“You two go ahead and pull the plug on the computers and I’ll police up the console room,” he said.