Page Content (OCR)
figured out by now that the aliens had used some form of brain wave control for navigation. How they directed their thoughts or translated them into an electronic circuit, we didn't know. But we knew that there were no steering wheels or conventional methods of control on the spacecraft, and the headbands we found with the electronic sensors on them were designed to pick up some form of signal from the brain. The analysts at Wright Field believed that the sensors on the headbands corresponded with points on the multi lobed alien brain that generated low frequency waves, so the headbands formed an integral part of the circuit. If we were able to figure that out, the Soviets were certainly, capable of figuring that out as well. Besides, the general didn't have to say it because | thought it: What if the Soviets, all alone in space the way they were in the early 1960s, had some communication with the aliens that we didn't have? Who said the EBEs had to be anti-Communist anyway? General Trudeau also shared with me some intelligence reports that described antimissile missile tests the Soviets had conducted with very powerful tracking radar. We'd known about their radars because I'd seen them work during exercises in Germany when each side would test the other's responses over the East German border. Their radars and their ability to lock onto aircraft was just as good as ours. But what the general showed me were reports that described the Soviets firing intercept missiles at incoming ICBM vehicles and exploding the intercept warheads so as to knock out the navigational systems on the aggressor missiles. One of those test intercepts had been conducted successfully right through an atomic cloud on one of the Soviet missile test ranges in Asia. This was especially disturbing because anyone who knows anything about the nature of anatomic cloud knows that the electromagnetic pulse immediately knocks out any form of electronics. That's also how we knew what the signatures were of the alien UFOs that buzzed our ships and bases. So much of our nonhardened power was knocked out by the pulse that we knew an electromagnetic wave had hit us. So if the Soviets could harden their antimissile missile guidance system to home in on a target through an electromagnetically charged atomic cloud, they were using a technology significantly more advanced than ours, and it spelled trouble. "When you were in Germany commanding the Nike battalion, " the general asked me, still holding the reports in his hand, "you experimented with tight evasive maneuvers in drone target practice, didn't you?" The general's memory served him correctly. Our antiaircraft battalion deployed the Nike, one of the most advanced guided antiaircraft missiles of its time. The Nike was a radar guided missile. And the Hawk was a heat seeking missile that could be locked onto its target by tracking radar and then, when launched, would home in on the target's heat exhaust. So, even if a pilot tried to evade the missiles, the fast moving Hawk warheads would catch up to him and blow off his engine. If it were a tail engine fighter, it would effectively end his mission and he'd probably have to eject. If it were a wing engined bomber, then, with one of his wing mounted engines shot off, the pilot would probably have to turn for home because he wouldn't have the power to carry the payload of bombs to the target. "When we were shooting at drones in simulated bombing formation, we scored a perfect shoot down again and again, but when pilots used extremely fast evasive maneuvers against our missiles, we couldn't hit them, "| said. "Nike antiaircraft missiles move like boats on water, "| explained. "They cut wide arcs and get an angle to home in on their targets. Any early evasive maneuvers the fighter pilot makes, the missile compensates for and stays on course toward his heat source. But if the pilot is able to evade at the very last minute of the Nike's trajectory, the missile will fly right by and can't recover. Bomber pilots have to stay in formation and keep on course if they're going to hit their target and have enough fuel to get home, so their evasive patterns are strictly limited. For fighter pilots, it's much easier so any MiG, just like any of our Phantoms, can out maneuver a Nike any day." "So if the Soviets have something that can take out missile warheads through an atomic cloud and are using devices that may have come from an alien technology, we have something to worry about, " the general said. "We'd have a lot to worry about, "| agreed. "We have nothing even remotely like this, except for the laser tracking system, but that's years away from any sort of deployment even assuming we can get the President to ask Congress to give us the money to develop it." General Trudeau slammed his palm on the desk with enough force to shake the entire office. I'm sure his clerk sitting just outside thought | was getting bawled out for something, but that was the general's way of reinforcing a decision he was making. "Phil, you are the antimissile missile projects officer for the time being. | don't care whatever the hell else you have to do, you write me up a report on what we discussed here and then put together a proposal | can use to get us some money to develop this thing, " he said. "| know we're on the right track, even if we're in a strange arena. Thought control, " he said, speculating about how the power of the human brain could be harnessed to the navigation of a guided missile. "Well, if the Russians are looking at it seriously, then we'd better do the same thing before they blindside us like the did with Sputnik. " 84 "Explain how that worked, " he asked.