TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS - SECOND FIELD TRIAL
TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS
FACILITY
CONDUCT OF THE SECOND FIELD TRIAL, OPERATION BRAVO-CHARLIE
22 SEPTEMBER 1955, COMMENCING 0617 HOURS
PERSONNEL PRESENT IN THE PRINCIPAL CHAMBER:
Dr. H. Lorenz, principal technical officer, presiding at the control station Dr. , instrumentation Dr. , materials , senior technical assistant, at the apparatus W. Seaton, Division Chief, Western Europe , liaison officer to OSI Professor , historical consultant of this Agency, recording
The Second Field Trial of Operation BRAVO-CHARLIE was conducted at the facility upon the above date. The principal article of the trial was a vessel constructed for the purpose at the works to a specification prepared by Dr. Lorenz, comprising a hull of light steel of approximately twenty-eight feet in length, fitted internally with a charge of pounds of high explosive, a quantity of of the type designated , and a timing mechanism set to initiate the charge at an interval of approximately seconds following translation. No personnel were aboard the article at the time of the trial. The article was placed within the displacement field at the apparatus station, the apparatus having been modified by Dr. Lorenz in the preceding fortnight to permit the displacement of an article of the dimensions specified. The temporal coordinates were set for the eighteenth dynasty in the lower Nile.
The following transcript is prepared from the contemporaneous notes of the undersigned and from the wire recording made at the control station. Annotations are set as before.
- Dr. Lorenz announces commencement of the pre-trial sequence. LORENZ: Gentlemen! Stations, please, stations. , are you at the apparatus? Speak up, man.
: I am at the apparatus, Herr Doktor.
LORENZ: Good, good, very good. And the charge, , the charge is set?
: The charge is set as the specification, Herr Doktor.
LORENZ: Set to the second?
: Set to the second.
LORENZ: Magnificent. Magnificent. Mr. Seaton, you observe — this man, this , he is a craftsman of the old school. You give him a specification, he gives you the second. I have not had such a man at my disposal since — well. Since some time. Not since some time.
MR. SEATON: I am glad you find him satisfactory, Doctor.
LORENZ: I find him essential, Mr. Seaton, essential. Now, gentlemen. — the instrumentation. Are we running?
DR. (instrumentation): Chronometers running. Plates loaded.
LORENZ: The plates, yes. We shall watch the plates with particular care today, shall we not. After our friend’s note. The shadows. The interesting shadows.
DR. (instrumentation): I shall examine them as before, Herr Doktor.
LORENZ: As before, yes, and a little more carefully than before, eh? A little more carefully. Because today, gentlemen, today we are going to perhaps see who lives in the basement. Today we are going to perhaps rattle the cage of the — what shall we call them. Our friends.
PROF. : Doctor, if I may.
LORENZ: Professor! My historian! Speak.
PROF. : I should ask only — the explosives. The detonation will occur in the eighteenth dynasty, if the apparatus operates as the operational planning predicts. The eighteenth dynasty is a period of which we have considerable record. I should ask only that the technical group be alert, in the period following the trial, for any sign in the record that the detonation has had an effect.
LORENZ: Yes, yes, yes, Professor, of course. You shall have your books open all afternoon, you and I shall sit together and we shall hunt for our circles of fire in the papyrus rolls, eh? It will be charming.
PROF. : I had thought, yes, to —
LORENZ: Charming! Mr. Seaton, the Professor and I are going to have a delightful afternoon together. Now. , the coupling.
: The coupling holds, Herr Doktor.
LORENZ: It always holds for you, doesn’t it, ? It is the loyal coupling. Very good. Gentlemen, I shall conduct the sequence in the manner of my predecessor, by stages, except that I shall not pretend to advise Mr. Seaton against proceeding, since I am for proceeding, and there is no point in advising a man against what one is for. Mr. Seaton, are you ready?
MR. SEATON: I am ready, Doctor. Conduct your trial.
LORENZ: With pleasure. , mark the time and begin the log.
(recording officer): Marked, sir. Six-two-three.
LORENZ: First stage. … Stable. Second stage. … Stable. Third stage. , the coupling?
: Warm and within the figure.
LORENZ: Within the figure, of course. , you are a poem. Fourth stage. Fifth stage. We are at the threshold. , the field at the article?
DR. (materials): The field is formed. The article is within the field. The index is at the predicted value.
LORENZ: Sixth stage. Gentlemen, observe. We are now at a magnitude of approximately three thousand four hundred years, which exceeds the first trial by a factor of, oh, somewhat. Somewhat. The instrumentation reports no anomaly. Mr. Seaton.
MR. SEATON: Yes, Doctor.
LORENZ: Will you give the order?
MR. SEATON: I should prefer that you give it, Doctor.
LORENZ: As you wish. , mark.
(recording officer): Marked, sir. Six-three-one and twenty seconds.
LORENZ: Initiate!
0631:28. Initiation. The wire recording captures a sound which the undersigned characterizes in his contemporaneous notes as similar to but more pronounced than the equivalent sound at the First Field Trial. The article is reported by Dr. (materials) to have departed the chamber.
DR. (materials): The article has gone.
LORENZ: Splendid. The charge will detonate in — what was it, the timing — yes, six seconds from our time, which would correspond to a time in the eighteenth dynasty that I would not care to estimate but which the Professor may wish to compute later for our records. Let us count it down. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. , mark the moment of presumed detonation.
(recording officer): Marked, sir. Six-three-one and thirty-four seconds.
LORENZ: There. Somewhere in the lower Nile of the reign of — who was it again, Professor.
PROF. : Thutmose III, if the coordinates were correctly set.
LORENZ: Thutmose the Third. Splendid name. Somewhere in the lower Nile of the reign of Thutmose the Third, gentlemen, in this very second, our charge has detonated. Or has not. We shall in due course discover which. The four seconds, ?
DR. (materials): Elapsed.
LORENZ: And the article?
DR. (materials): No recovery.
LORENZ: Ah! No recovery. As Mr. Seaton had supposed.
MR. SEATON: As I had supposed.
LORENZ: Well. We did not require the recovery. We required the dispatch. The dispatch is accomplished. The detonation, we shall presume, is accomplished. Now we hunt. Professor, your books.
PROF. : My books are in the next room. I shall bring them in.
LORENZ: Bring them in, bring them in, by all means. , do not yet discontinue the recording. We may have remarks to make.
0637 to 0915. Professor absent from the principal chamber, having gone to retrieve his volumes. The chamber is silent for some minutes. Dr. (instrumentation) examines the photographic plates. Mr. Seaton paces. Dr. Lorenz seats himself at the control station and is heard to whistle a tune which the undersigned does not recognize. stands by the apparatus, silent. At 0644 Professor returns with a quantity of bound volumes which he sets upon the table.
PROF. : I have here the Breasted edition of the Egyptian inscriptions, the Davies catalogue of the eighteenth-dynasty papyri, the Erman and the Wilson, and three volumes of the published transcriptions from the Vatican collection. If there is anything in the record consistent with the trial, it should be in these. I shall begin with the Breasted.
LORENZ: Begin with the Breasted. , you may bring coffee.
PROF. : Thank you.
0644 to 0902. The recording captures the Professor reading, occasionally aloud, more often silently. Pages turn. Volumes are set aside. The undersigned, who is required to remain at the recording, notes that the period was one of considerable length and that no exchange of substance occurred. Mr. Seaton at one point asked Dr. Lorenz whether the apparatus required any attention; Dr. Lorenz replied that the apparatus required no attention, and that the search was the substance of the trial at the present moment. Mr. Seaton resumed his pacing. The wire recording is continued at the direction of Dr. Lorenz, who instructs the undersigned to “let it run.” At 0902 Professor sets down the volume he has been examining and speaks.
PROF. : Gentlemen.
LORENZ: Professor!
PROF. : I have something. I should like to read it.
LORENZ: Read, Professor, read.
PROF. : This is from the published transcription of a papyrus held by the Vatican collection. The papyrus is of disputed date but is generally assigned to the reign of Thutmose III. The transcription is in the third volume here, at page . The Latin and the English are facing. I shall read the English.
LORENZ: Read.
PROF. : [Professor reads aloud. The text of the passage is appended to the present minutes as Annex A and is not reproduced here. The passage describes the appearance in the sky of a circle of fire, of dimensions consistent with the article, accompanied by a foul odour, and the subsequent multiplication of similar circles over several days, “more numerous than anything.”]
A silence in the chamber. The recording officer notes the interval at approximately eighteen seconds.
LORENZ: [softly] Well, well, well.
MR. SEATON: Professor. Read the part about the multiplication again.
PROF. : [Reads the passage a second time, more slowly.] “Now, after some days had passed over these things, Lo! they were more numerous than anything. They were shining in the sky more than the sun to the limits of the four supports of heaven.”
MR. SEATON: More numerous than anything.
PROF. : That is the rendering, Mr. Seaton.
MR. SEATON: We sent one.
PROF. : We sent one.
LORENZ: [laughing] Oh, but this is splendid. This is splendid. Mr. Seaton, you observe? Our one circle of fire has become many circles of fire. We have stirred the hive, Mr. Seaton. We have absolutely stirred the hive.
MR. SEATON: Doctor, be quiet for a moment.
LORENZ: As you wish.
MR. SEATON: Professor. The description. The dimensions of the circle. The odour. The — the body, what does it say of the body.
PROF. : “Its body one rod long and one rod large.” A rod is approximately five and a half meters. The article was approximately eight and a half meters. The figure is of the same order. It is not precise.
MR. SEATON: It is not precise. But the order is correct.
PROF. : The order is correct.
MR. SEATON: And the odour.
PROF. : “The breadth of its mouth had a foul odour.”
MR. SEATON: The mouth being the —
PROF. : I should say it is the rendering of an Egyptian term that does not have a precise equivalent. It may refer to an opening. To a vent. The gas, Mr. Seaton.
MR. SEATON: The gas.
LORENZ: The gas, the gas, the explosives, the body — all of it, Mr. Seaton. We have sent the article and it has been seen and it has been recorded and the record is here, in our hands, in a printed volume. And then, then, observe — the multiplication. They were more numerous than anything. What were more numerous than anything, Professor? Not our article. Our article was one. What was more numerous than anything?
PROF. : I do not know, Doctor.
LORENZ: You do not know. Mr. Seaton does not know. I do not know. But we may suppose. We may suppose, may we not, that the multiplication is the response. We struck at them. We struck a single blow. And they — they replied. They came out in numbers. In numbers more than the sun. To the limits of the four supports of heaven, says your papyrus. To the limits of the four supports of heaven, Mr. Seaton.
MR. SEATON: They saw us.
LORENZ: They saw us, Mr. Seaton, and they came out, and they showed themselves. They showed themselves over Egypt in the eighteenth dynasty in numbers, Mr. Seaton, in numbers. Where they have been all this time, where they have been since then, where they have been before then, we cannot say. But they have shown themselves once. Once that we know of.
PROF. : Doctor.
LORENZ: Professor.
PROF. : I should observe, since the question has been raised, that the historical record of antiquity contains a considerable body of material of a similar character which has hitherto been catalogued by scholars under the heading of prodigy or portent or, in the modern term, fortean phenomenon. The Livy passage was the first such we identified as bearing upon the program. The Tulli papyrus, as this document is called, is the second. I am not in a position at the present moment to say how many further such there may be in the corpus. I should observe only that I have begun, in a private capacity, to compile a list, and that the list is not short.
MR. SEATON: A list, Professor.
PROF. : A list.
MR. SEATON: I should very much like to see the list.
PROF. : I shall bring it to you when it is in a state I am prepared to share. It is not, at present, in such a state.
MR. SEATON: I shall expect it.
LORENZ: Oh, the Professor has a list. The Professor has been making a list. Professor, you are a man of layers. I had not suspected it of you.
PROF. : Doctor, I should prefer not to discuss the list further this morning.
LORENZ: As you prefer, as you prefer.
A pause. Mr. Seaton crosses the chamber to the window. The recording captures his breathing, audible, for some seconds.
MR. SEATON: [Without turning from the window.] More numerous than anything.
LORENZ: Mr. Seaton.
MR. SEATON: They came out in numbers, Doctor. We hit them once and they came out in numbers.
LORENZ: Yes.
MR. SEATON: If they came out in numbers in the eighteenth dynasty, when we hit them, they are still out. They are out now. They have been out since then.
LORENZ: That is a possible reading, yes.
MR. SEATON: They are aware of us.
LORENZ: They are aware of someone, Mr. Seaton. Whether they are aware of us as we understand the word — that is a question for another day. But they are aware.
MR. SEATON: We have to be ready for them.
LORENZ: Mr. Seaton?
MR. SEATON: We have to be ready. We have to know what they can do. We have to know what we can do. We have to — we have to start now.
LORENZ: [Slowly.] Mr. Seaton, that is a conversation I should very much like to have with you, when the technical group has been stood down and we have a moment in private.
MR. SEATON: We shall have it, Doctor. We shall have it this afternoon.
LORENZ: This afternoon. Excellent.
PROF. : Mr. Seaton, may I —
MR. SEATON: Professor. Bring me your list. I do not care what state it is in. Bring it.
PROF. : I shall bring it.
MR. SEATON: , discontinue the recording.
- The recording is discontinued upon the instruction of the Division Chief. These minutes have been prepared from the contemporaneous notes of the undersigned and from the wire recording. They have been reviewed by Dr. Lorenz prior to circulation. Any correction or addition is to be addressed to the undersigned within ten days of the date of the present document.
Recording Officer
Office of Scientific Intelligence
Annex A: Text of the Relevant Passage from the Tulli Papyrus, Vatican Collection, in the Standard English Transcription (under separate cover, )