Reading Room

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.

617. Dr. Lorenz announces commencement of the pre-trial sequence. LORENZ: Gentlemen! Stations, please. , are you at the apparatus? Speak up, man.

: I am at the apparatus, Herr Doktor.

LORENZ: Very good. And the charge is set?

: The charge is set as the specification, Herr Doktor.

LORENZ: Set to the second?

: Set to the second.

LORENZ: Magnificent. Mr. Seaton, 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. For some time.

MR. SEATON: I am glad you find him satisfactory, Doctor.

LORENZ: Essential, Mr. Seaton. Now, — 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: A little more carefully today, eh? We may finally see who lives in the basement. Rattle the cage of our — what shall we call them. Our friends.

PROF. : Doctor, if I may.

LORENZ: Professor! My historian! Speak.

PROF. : The explosives, Doctor. If the apparatus operates as planned, the detonation will occur in the eighteenth dynasty, a period for which we have considerable records. After the trial, I should like us to examine them for any evidence of its effects.

LORENZ: Of course, Professor. You and I shall spend the afternoon hunting for our circles of fire in the papyrus rolls. It will be charming.

PROF. : I had thought, yes, to —

LORENZ: Then we are agreed! , the coupling.

: The coupling holds, Herr Doktor.

LORENZ: The loyal coupling. Gentlemen, I shall proceed by stages, as my predecessor did. I shall spare Mr. Seaton the customary advice against proceeding, since I am entirely in favour. Are you ready, Mr. Seaton?

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: approximately three thousand four hundred years. Well beyond the first trial, and 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. Six seconds to detonation by our clock. I leave the Egyptian reckoning to the Professor. 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. Our charge has now detonated in his kingdom. Or has not. We shall 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: Recovery was not required. We have dispatched the article; for now, we presume detonation. Professor, your books. Now we hunt.

PROF. : My books are in the next room. I shall bring them in.

LORENZ: By all means. , keep the recording running. 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.

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.

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] Splendid! One circle of fire becomes many. We have stirred the hive, Mr. Seaton.

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 body — the account is here in our hands. But then comes the multiplication. We sent one article, Professor. What were the others?

PROF. : I do not know, Doctor.

LORENZ: Nor do I. But suppose the multiplication is a response. We struck a single blow, and they came out in numbers. To the limits of the four supports of heaven, says your papyrus.

MR. SEATON: They saw us.

LORENZ: And showed themselves over Egypt. Where they were before, or where they went afterward, we cannot say. But they appeared once. Once that we know of.

PROF. : Doctor.

LORENZ: Professor.

PROF. : There is considerable material of this kind in the ancient record, usually catalogued as prodigy or portent — in the modern term, fortean phenomenon. Livy was our first connection to the program. This document, the Tulli papyrus, is the second. I cannot yet say how many others there may be. I have begun privately to compile a list. It 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: A private 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.

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: All that from a single blow, Doctor.

LORENZ: Yes.

MR. SEATON: If we brought them out in the eighteenth dynasty, they are still out now. They have had all this time.

LORENZ: That is a possible reading, yes.

MR. SEATON: They are aware of us.

LORENZ: Of someone, Mr. Seaton. Whether they know who struck them is another question.

MR. SEATON: We have to be ready for them.

LORENZ: Mr. Seaton?

MR. SEATON: We need to know what they can do, and what we can do against them. 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: This afternoon, Doctor.

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.

915. 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, )