The Bergamese Sect (27 page)

The sight of shining objects in the sky also didn’t bother them. Not at first. Those uneasy days as the Cold War opened, after so many years of conflict, were soaked in the suspicion of an unseen, misunderstood enemy. It propelled anything extraordinary into the realms of hysteria. Even though pilots had often reported strange lights in the skies, it was Kenneth Arnold’s sighting of nine flying disks over Mount Rainier in 1949 that had opened the floodgates. It was like the discovery of extra-solar planets or a new form of bacterial life. Once one person had made the discovery, so did a thousand others. Suddenly the mind of the ordinary citizen was bombarded with tales of sinister craft racing over their heads. In the context of the times, it was a perfectly reasonable paranoia.

The myth grew just like the Kennedy assassination stories did a decade later. Daedalus knew they were powerless to prevent it spawning. But they were intrigued by the power of hysteria and watched astounded as the years built a doctrine of unbelievable speculation.

Of course, the military hadn’t been oblivious to this new type of threat. Anything not understood, that could threaten a nation, was worth worrying about.

In 1948, the Air Technical Service Command began a project to collect and evaluate reports of unidentified aircraft and aerial phenomena within the US. Their purpose was to ascertain whether there existed a real threat to national security. They soon concluded that UFOs were real, though were simply the result of misinterpretation, hoaxes or mass hysteria, and not a cause for military concern.

Out of this project evolved another, more coordinated effort to collect data on UFOs. This time the men in charge tried to dissuade the public that UFOs were of an extra-terrestrial nature. But the project’s very existence wafted the kindling of the myth. If the military were involved, surely there was something sinister going on? By the time the project was cancelled in 1949, the myth was already deeply rooted in the public psyche. But still, Daedalus was unconcerned, busy with programmes using the fantastic to protect the nation against the Red Disease.

But the military, like Daedalus, remained watchful. As Cold War tensions grew and the US found itself embroiled in another conflict in Korea, General Major Charles P. Cabell, the Air Force Director of Intelligence at the time, ordered another programme of UFO monitoring. Project Blue Book was run out of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio and was charged with documenting UFO sightings and assessing them from a purely military perspective. No opinions were ever voiced about the origin of the phenomenon. The reasons, as ever, were due to concerns over national security. What if the Soviets were trying to overload the US early warning system with bogus aircraft to gain an advantage during a nuclear strike? The military was just keen to keep abreast of anything that might make them vulnerable. Blue Book would run for seventeen years and gather reports of over 12,000 sightings, only 701 of which remained unidentified.

The CIA was always aloof on the subject of UFOs. It was beneath them, this pastime of the uneducated. But a ‘flap’ of sightings over the US capital in 1952 worried them. Or rather, the public reaction to these reports worried them. Could the Soviets use UFOs to induce mass panic across the nation? Could they manipulate UFO enthusiasts into providing information about sensitive government projects? A CIA study group was set up to monitor the Air Force data and soon concluded that there was little threat from these aerial phenomena. But the tiniest of threats was a beacon in the night to the jittery Agency. They thrived on their own insecurity and soon recommended to the National Security Council that a panel of experts review the Air Force data independently.

This panel, chaired by H. P. Robertson, a physicist at Caltech, finally reported the same conclusions as the Air Force; UFOs did not represent any kind of military threat nor did they provide evidence of visitation by extra-terrestrials. They recommended that a programme of education be set up to reassure the public. Also, it was suggested that civilian interest groups, like the Aerial Phenomena Research Organisation, be monitored for subversive action. This the Agency certainly did, but by this time, they were already looking over the shoulder of Daedalus.

After the Robertson report, the Agency lost interest in UFOs, though they continued to monitor Blue Book in case something interesting turned up. They were more concerned that their involvement in the subject would fuel the paranoia of the public. So they concealed their sponsorship of the Robertson report. They classified the document and banned any mention of their involvement. This attitude, designed to prevent the propagation of conspiracy theories, in the end, would help create them.

It was then that Daedalus turned its collective intellect on the phenomenon. As usual, the remit of the committee was radically different from the Air Force’s and the Agency’s. Their job was to assess the evidence, not from a military standpoint, but with a completely open-minded evaluation of possibilities. They began to accumulate intelligence, covertly investigate unexplained phenomena, infiltrate civil action groups, and draw their own conclusions. And though they conceded that most reports were laughably irrelevant, there was always that remaining doubt that something odd lay at the core of the myth.

In the mid-1950s, the Blue Book investigators found themselves in a difficult position. A sudden increase in UFO sightings could be directly linked with test flights of new, experimental or unconventional military aircraft. In fact, over half of all UFO sightings from the late 1950s through the 1960s had been attributed to test flights of the U-2 spy plane and the SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft. To conceal these highly sensitive programmes the investigators were increasingly misleading, even deceptive, toward the public.

In 1956, the former head of project Blue Book, in a fit of indiscretion, publicly admitted to the existence of the CIA-sponsored Robertson report. Almost immediately, the UFO pressure groups demanded the document’s release, but despite considerable pressure from the Air Force, the Agency refused to declassify the report. Instead, they released a diluted version, which made no mention of the CIA’s involvement or of their concerns over Soviet psychological warfare. Of course, this didn’t satisfy the fanatics. They branded the report a vile attempt to defraud the people of America. The public’s appetite for the incredible, together with the odd error of judgement by the Agency along the way, had fuelled the belief in a massive cover-up.

Daedalus, in the meantime, had begun to focus on another phenomenon. With the claims of Betty and Barney Hill, that alien creatures had abducted them in 1961, another tidal wave of paranoia washed over the nation. It was a more perverse level of hysteria; one that showed the extra-terrestrial myth had come of age. Now, the phenomenon was malign, physical, damaging.

Of course, even Daedalus had been sceptical and the military and the Agency had shown only contempt for such ridiculous tales. But the fungus of legend grew at an astonishing pace after those early years. Still Daedalus remained passive, alert only to the possibilities, throwing only the weight of their watchfulness at the threat.

With the growing pace of the space race in the early 1960s, the Director of Central Intelligence, the DCI, asked the CIA to update their evaluation of the threat posed by UFOs. Shortly afterwards the Air Force also decided to review project Blue Book. A panel of scientists reported that in nearly twenty years of study, nothing had been conclusively deduced from UFO sightings and they could still not be considered a threat. The panel also recommended that a university be given the task of independently assessing the UFO phenomenon. This was done in a bid to dampen the public’s perception of government dishonesty.

Edward Condon, a physicist at the University of Colorado led the investigation and his report was released in April 1969. Unsurprisingly, the Condon report confirmed that little had been achieved by UFO investigations and that further study was unwarranted. As a result of this and other reviews, the Air Force officially terminated project Blue Book the following December.

For the enthusiasts, the Condon report was another whitewash. Pressure continued to grow on the government, particularly the Agency, for the release of all documents relating to UFOs. In 1977, a lawsuit was launched against the Agency under the Freedom of Information Act. In the new atmosphere of openness, they agreed to the release of 900 pages of material, withholding only 100 pages to protect sources and methods. The documents showed that the Agency had no organised effort to study UFOs and had only a sporadic interest in the subject.

But the case highlighted the basic problem faced by the government. It didn’t matter whether they were silent or were honest. Both were enough to spawn suspicion. When threatened, the Agency had tried diplomacy and had failed. Then they’d tried honesty, but that had failed too. Even if they released every classified document on the subject, the theories, the accusations, would continue to multiply like a cancer. Even the most mundane of official documents didn’t allay the paranoia of the masses. In fact, the more mundane the documents the better. That only proved that something more important was being concealed.

Then came Majestic. This was Walsh’s favourite. In 1984, a series of documents surfaced that seemed to show that President Truman had created a secret committee in 1947, called Majestic-12, to secure the UFO wreckage, and five alien bodies, purportedly crashed near Roswell, New Mexico. But the Majestic documents were an elaborate hoax. None of them were originals and many of them contained errors of context that revealed their contemporary origin. At least one of them was a crude alteration of an official letter between George C. Marshall and Presidential candidate Thomas Dewey concerning the ‘Magic’ radio intercepts of 1944. But Majestic had spawned an entire subculture of conspiracy quacks.

It exasperated Walsh. The ufologists continued to have the utmost confidence in their sources. Documents supplied to them anonymously through the mail, or by strangers who’d show up at their door with a pickup full of government memoranda. The Agency, like Daedalus, had finally realised they were fighting a losing battle. These people wouldn’t allow them to disprove the government’s involvement; take that away and the theorists had nothing. And so the Agency continued to respond to the frequent requests under the Freedom of Information Act – revealing what they knew, which was very little. But they’d lost interest, both in the phenomenon itself, and the tireless investigators who hammered on their doors.

But the men of Daedalus knew much more than the Agency had ever known. Forty years of experience had changed them. It was no longer a joke to be brushed aside. The reality had become an ugly beast. A beast that hung in the shadows ready to pounce on the world, changing the planet’s psyche forever, creating that global iconoclasm that ate away at Walsh’s every waking thought. They had learned much in those years, the men of Daedalus. Sure, there were the deluded masses, the insane, the plain liars. But there were also those few enigmas that represented a truth even the Agency were unaware of. The myth had an underlying reality, and only Daedalus sensed its sinister implications.

The carefully executed sequence of events, the contrived methodology, the
modus operandi
. All of it was convincingly incriminating. Someone, somewhere, was directing an improbable and hideous program of persecution.

But the wizards of Daedalus had failed to find the origin of the deception. Nor had they found the evidence for alien visitation that so many expected. The conspiracy was there behind those myths, some sinister organisation staging the incredible, perhaps in collusion with unknown, possibly alien, forces. But its identity was a mystery to the most powerful men on the planet.

That is, until Sebastian had appeared. This mysterious figure had been a surprise to Daedalus. The pattern had changed, the activity of that hidden organisation redirecting toward another goal. They were searching, attempting to find a man once a part of the collusion. A single, dangerous man hiding among the seven billion faces of the world, threatening them with exposure.

Then Daedalus had found the key – a tenuous contact with a secretive group of conspiracy theorists about whom Daedalus knew almost nothing. They’d tried infiltration, but this group was surprisingly difficult to assess, let alone penetrate. So they’d merely watched, waiting for the intelligence to reveal the renegade’s presence. Eavesdropping on the global networks for mention of his defection. And now it had come, and with it, more complications than Walsh could ever have imagined.

Now he understood; Sewell’s purpose was clear at last. He was a disciple of that organisation and Sebastian was his Judas. And now the full force of Sewell’s influence was bearing down on the traitor.

Walsh folded up the newspaper and threw it carelessly on the passenger seat. He looked up and saw the parking lot was now completely empty except for his Daewoo parked suspiciously away from the lights. It hadn’t gone unnoticed by a patrol car that had entered the parking lot to check on the recently closed mall. It was cruising slowly toward Walsh’s car.

A sudden pang of fear rushed through him. How far did Sewell’s sphere of influence go? Certainly, the Feds would be on the lookout for him, though they’d have no clue why. But the police could also have his description, alerted to a dangerous fugitive. Walsh cleared his throat nervously, reaching for the ignition.

But he stopped. Fleeing now would only invite suspicion, pursuit. The patrol car pulled up, the officer winding down the window and eyeing him, assessing his reaction to the intrusion.

‘
Evening, sir,’ said the policeman.

‘
Officer.’ Walsh nodded in acknowledgement.

‘
You in any trouble?’

For a brief moment Walsh didn’t understand the context of the officer’s question, was about to enlist the trooper’s help, but it passed quickly. ‘No, I’m fine thanks, just finishing my sandwich before getting back on the freeway.’