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So the creatures were able to survive extended periods living inside a high energy wave by becoming the primary circuit in the control of the wave. They were protected by their suits, which enclosed them head to feet, but their suits enabled them to become one with the vehicle, literally part of the wave. In 1947 this was a technology so new to us that it was as frightening as it was frustrating. If we could only develop the power source necessary to generate a consistently well defined magnetic wave around a vehicle, we could harness a technology which would have surpassed all forms of rocket and jet propulsion. It's a process we're still trying to master today, fifty years after the craft fell into our possession. | pushed myself through the night to complete the report for the general. At least | wanted him to see that our strategy held out the probability that even in a basic evaluation of the material were covered, the seeds were there for specific products we could develop. | wanted to start the entire process by writing him a background report about the nature of the beings we'd autopsied and what we could understand of the technology from an analysis of their spacecraft. By the time | finished, it was already just before sun up, and | looked like hell. This was the day | was going to drop my report on the general's desk, first thing. I'd snap right to attention in front of him and say, "Here's that report you were waiting for, General, " confident it contained more than he ever thought it would because the subject was that new and complicated. But | wanted to be clean shaven and in a clean, crisp shirt. That's what | wanted. | didn't even need any sleep because my optimism and confidence at that moment were more powerful than anything a few hours of sleep could give me. | knew | was onto something here, something that could change the world. Here in the basement of the Pentagon, lying close to dormancy for over a decade, were secrets my predecessors had just begun to discover before they were stopped. Maybe it had been the Korean War, maybe the CIA or other intelligence agencies had cast a pall over R&D's operation, but those days were over now. | was at the Foreign Technology desk and the responsibility for this material was mine, just like General Twining had said it should be fourteen years ago. In those drawers | had found the puzzle pieces for a whole new age of technology. Things that were only twinkles in the minds of engineers and scientists were right here in front of me as hard, cold artifacts of an advanced culture. Craft that navigated by brain waves and floated on a wave of electromagnetic energy, creatures who look through devices that helped them turn night into day, and beams of light so narrow and focused you couldn't see them until they bounced off an object far away. For years scientists had thought about what it would have been like to travel in space, especially since the Russians first put up their Sputnik. Plans for a military operated moon base had been developed by the army in the 1950s under the leadership of Gen. Arthur Trudeau at R&D but were ultimately shelved because of the formation of NASA. Those plans had tried to confront the issues of space travel for prolonged periods of time and adjusting to a low gravity state on the moon. But here, right in front of us, was the evidence of how an alien culture had adapted itself to long range space travel, different gravities, and the exposure to energy particles and waves crashing into a spacecraft by the billions. All we had to do was marshal the vast array of resources in the military and industry at R&D's disposal and harvest that technology. It was all laid out for us, if we knew how to use it. This was the beginning and | was right there on the cusp of it. So in the first few minutes of glimmering light just on the edge of the horizon, a promise of the day to come, | took off for home, for a shower, a shave, a pot of coffee, and the crispest new uniform | could find. | was driving east into the dawn of a brand new age, my report right alongside me in my briefcase on the front seat. There would be other reports and the details of long term complicated projects to confront me in the future, | knew, but this was the first, the foundation, the beam of light into a hidden past and an uncertain future. But it was a light, and that's what was important. No time for sleep now. There was too much to do. 44