Nexus - 0905 - New Times Magazine-pages

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At that point I asked, "What in God's name did you do with all straight up, and sitting on this huge steel platform was a giant the dirt?" And they just looked really strangely at me. I guess electromagnetic fusion containment engine! And I immediately they didn't expect me to try and figure things like that out. knew that, because its configuration was similar to mine but it The walls were at least 30 feet high, and all along them were was the size of a Greyhound bus. Mine was about the size of a different workshops and laboratories and periodically there were _ large watermelon! big, huge, work bays. So we kept driving down past all kinds of You can recognise engines that are comparable. If I had an aircraft that I had never seen. Some of them I had seen, like the internal combustion engine taken out of a Model A Ford and had XB-70. it sitting on the ground and you pulled an engine out of a Viper ROBERT: Was this area carved out of dirt or was it rock? today and placed it alongside, you would recognise that they DAVID: I don't know. Everything was coated with a ceramic- operate on the same principle of internal combustion. However, like material. the difference in performance between the two is unbelievable. ROBERT: [| thought there were mountains surrounding the dry It was the same situation with my little engine and this thing lake bed? Those must be fairly solid? they had stored underground. They both ran on the same princi- DAVID: Yeah. There are all kinds of mountain ranges around _ ple, the same configuration, but the level of sophistication is like that area. I never saw any "dirt", though, because everything had that of the Model A compared to the Viper engine. This thing concrete over it or was covered with some type of ceramic materi- they had was so powerful. There were so many design features al. The most interesting thing about this to me still is how well lit that I didn't recognise, for reasons that became clear. the underground area was. There were no ROBERT: At this point you were just shadows, anywhere. And there were no light looking at the engine. Where was the rest of fixtures, anywhere. I was wondering how the craft? they generated that much light. It didn't look DAVID: Well, that's where the argument like the walls were glowing, or the floor or "Let me put this into started. They asked me if I liked what I the ceiling. But every square inch of this place was lit, and yet there was no visible saw. I said, "Well, yeah, but I'm confused. I thought I was the first one to build one of perspective. In 1971, source of light. we had no laptops, these engines." And after we had been driving for a while And this is where things really started get- and we had passed a lot of different aircraft, no modems, no fax, ting odd. The colonel that was with Dr we took a road to the left that took us away no VCR, no cellphones; Rudolph said, "Son, you want to help us from a lot of the other activities. I could see we didn't even have with this design here since yours is very a lot of people working on stuff. These air- similar to it. You do want to help your craft appeared to be operational. Some of handheld calculators. country, don't you?" them I fave we seen before or since. They Texas Instruments wed pad an jAmerican Mag panket. were shaped like a reverse teardrop. nd I listened to Anita Bryant's recor And there were others that looked simi- developed those about before I went to sleep. I was a real five years later. lar to the flying wing. One aircraft, the patriotic flag-waver even in the ‘70s. XB-70, was a delta-wing bomber built Of course, it wasn't real popular to do in 1959. that then because the war in Vietnam ROBERT: And you were at Area 51 was still raging. My peers couldn't in 1971? understand why I loved America so DAVID: Right. June 20, 1971. So, much, but it was just the way I was we get there and it was just amazing, raised. because we drove up to the side of So at first I agreed with the colonel these big steel doors and one of the that I wanted to help. However, I was officers got out and put his hand on a very curious and asked, "Where are scanner-type thing and it flashed a light your people that built this engine?" He at him. I thought it took his picture. In paused for a moment, then told me, hindsight, I would have to guess that it "Well, they are on vacation right now. was a retina scanning device. And after the guy was scanned, the You're off on summer vacation, right?" And I said, "Okay! So where in the hell did these guys get all this technology?" door opened up, so I knew this was a security system of a kind. That's good. Did they leave any notes on their work that I can This was 1971. look at?" Then I was told, "Well, they took them with them as Let me put this into perspective. In 1971, we had no laptops, homework. You get homework." And I was thinking, "You no modems, no fax, no VCR, no cellphones; we didn't even have know, this is really condescending. Iam 17 years old." But that's handheld calculators. Texas Instruments developed those about how they treated 17-year-olds back then. So I thought, "Okay; I five years later. So where in the hell did these guys get all this will play along with this asshole." technology? T agreed to help them, but told them that I needed to get a closer As soon as we went into the room, I immediately noticed the look at the engine. And they agreed, at which point I walked up temperature drop, because it was warm in the big open areas we _and got onto the platform. And the closer I got to it, the more I had just come from. It was very cool in this room. You could realised that these people had no idea what this engine was; they almost see your breath. And as we entered the room, the lights— —_ were still trying to figure it out. I could tell that it didn't belong to wherever they were coming from—came on. And again there us. And when I was about three feet away, the first thing I were no shadows being cast, anywhere. noticed was a perfect shadow of myself on the engine. And what Then someone threw a switch and activated a hoist attached to _—_did I tell you earlier? some cables that were attached to a big tarp. The tarp was lifted ROBERT: There were no shadows anywhere. "Let me put this into perspective. In 1971, we had no laptops, no modems, no fax, no VCR, no cellphones; we didn't even have handheld calculators. Texas Instruments developed those about five years later. So where in the hell did these guys get all this technology?" 58 = NEXUS www.nexusmagazine.com AUGUST — SEPTEMBER 2002