A warning from across the galaxies

Chapter 1: The start

A V Ram Mohan

If you think about it a bit, you will have to admit that all of us have a favourite place in mind for outstanding natural beauty, in terms of how the skies come together with the terrain, with its flora and large water bodies, framing a memorable landscape. For my money, the area bounded by twenty kilometres east and west of Srirangapatna on both sides, with the river Kaveri neatly bisecting the middle, would be right at the top as a place to recharge one’s creative energies. Terraced paddy fields, leafy green trees, an undulating landscape, a clear crisp air you can cut with a knife and a constant gurgling noise of flowing river, there is simply no match for this combination, let me assure you. In the midst of such a landscape sat a modest but well-appointed bungalow, appropriately named, Sparkling Waters, belonging to a Kannada family which lived there for generations. Dr Trilok Chander, the eldest son of the family, had come down from Bangalore for his monthly visits home. That night he was sitting in his favourite chair, on the terrace overlooking the flowing river about fifty meters away, reading a book and sipping a large Talisker. That being a full moon night it was a dreamlike setting, an interplay of light and shadows, with glittering silver streams of the river in front of him. For some reason he was all alone at home that evening.

About half an hour before midnight, Dr Trilok Chander looked up from his book to see a startling image in the sky. He could see at a distance three dots, colourful and steadily increasing in size, as if they were coming towards him. Softly and noiselessly, these dots seemed to be gently dancing in the horizon coming in, as much as he could estimate, from a great distance. These objects seemed to be able to stop abruptly, change direction and whizz away at great acceleration without much effort, and with no apparent source of power. Within about ten minutes they were right in front of him, three pan cake like objects with soft colours of red, orange, yellow, blue and green revolving around them. As suddenly as they arrived, the three pan cakes, each of five meters in diameter and one meter thick, set themselves down in the open area between the river and the bungalow. A door-like hatch opened in the central pancake and two figures emerged from it. Identifiably human like these figures were spindly with narrow torsos and outsize heads, and beaming eyes, not unlike Hollywood’s concept of alien creatures.

Any other man would have panicked, or at the very least be concerned about his own safety, at this unnatural development, but Dr Trilok Chander was merely curious. Perhaps it is now time to talk more about Dr Chander. First thing, he was not a medical doctor, but a doctorate in Aerospace Engineering from MIT and had done advanced research work at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Caltech. At the time of this story, he was the Dean of Mechanical Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science at Bangalore, and was on the verge of being appointed as the National Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister, but you are not supposed to know about it yet. It was therefore unsurprising that at the time these three mysterious pancakes arrived at his backyard, he had known a fair bit about the phenomenon of UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) experienced in various locations in the US and Europe. So far what he had seen in front of him seemed to conform to such UFO sightings reported earlier.

Trilok Chander waited patiently as these figures from the central pancake silently approached him. They just levitated from the ground level to the first floor terrace without any apparent effort and stood in front of him, and one of the figures began to speak. ‘Good evening, Dr Trilok Chander, let me offer our sincere apologies for intruding into your evening rather abruptly’ the figure number 1 said. He continued in English, spoken in a neutral international accent, ‘We have come in friendship, Dr Chander. We are from a planet located in a different galaxy several thousand light years away from Earth.’ At that time Trilok’s mind reverted to his mother tongue, Kannada, wondering ‘what kind of a fantastic yarn is this?’. Whereupon the figure number 1 started speaking to him in Kannada, ‘I know you are wondering if we are for real. Let me assure you, sir, we are indeed aliens from a different galaxy.’ Trilok Chander could now see that there were no lip movements in their face, and they could ‘speak’ just about any language they chose to speak. The aliens seemed have within their heads a universal compiler which can read the thoughts running in the minds of people or creatures in front of them, understand them and then respond in kind in the same language. ‘The so called ‘speech’ I am hearing’, Trilok was telling himself, ‘is but an aural stimulation experience in my mind triggered by this alien, really speech without any sound. This kind of things can happen only in science fiction, and I am personally experiencing it for the first time’. As if it was appreciating Trilok’s diagnosis, the alien number 1 said, ’You are right, sir, we can understand and talk in any language employed by the other party’. He continued, ‘We have specifically come to meet you. The leader of our mission, who is now waiting inside our central craft, will deliver a special message for you, from the leader of our planet. Will you please come with us? It will only take ten minutes of your time.’ At that point the two aliens moved close to Trilok, standing within inches of each side of him, sandwiching him in between. Trilok began to feel his body becoming relaxed and inert, and in no time at all the three of them were gliding together off the floor towards the central craft. Without seeming to take the steps down or climb stairs up the craft, the three of them just swooped inside the central craft; the engineer in Trilok could not figure out how such gliding movement without any effort can occur. ‘Here these people are defeating all laws of physics without any apparent effort’ he was thinking.

What looked like a thin pan cake from outside, was much larger and more spacious inside than expected, with various screens on its circular walls and a central console, where the boss man was seated. He was no different in appearance from the original two who had accompanied him, but there was an air of authority about him. Or her, if it indeed was the case, Trilok could not tell. ‘Thank you, Sir, for visiting us and my apologies for this rather unconventional reception to our craft’ the leader started speaking. ‘As my colleagues have already told you, we are indeed from a planet in a galaxy very far and very different from your own. We have been watching planet Earth for several million years, and we rather admire it and its inhabitants including all of its species, humans, animals and birds. What we have seen in the past two hundred years so in your planet, makes us feel deeply worried for the future of Earth as a habitable planet, and hence we are making this unorthodox approach to you’. Trilok raised his eyebrows enquiringly at the leader. ‘Yes, I can see that you are puzzled. What I am referring to is this relentlessly on-going arms race among various nations on Earth, particularly of the nuclear variety. Looking at what is going on now, excuse me, actually what has been going on for a long time, with various administrations in the USA, North Korea, Russia and China we believe that Plant Earth is now getting teed-up for a nuclear armageddon.’ Seeing Trilok nodding his head in agreement the alien leader continued ‘More worrying for us is the development in recent years, when many more nations have also joined the nuclear biggies. I am talking now about India, Pakistan Iran and a few others. With about ten thousand nuclear war heads and missile technology to deliver them to any part of the planet, your beloved earth is but a few minutes away from total annihilation. All you need are a few mad men, elected or selected to be your leaders, who seek global domination through the use of nuclear devices, and you are done’. Trilok was somewhat puzzled, ‘Sir, you may be right in your assessment about nuclear arms race in the world, though your conclusions may be somewhat over blown. But tell me, what have I got to do with all that? Why are you telling me all this, and why should your planet in a far away galaxy be bothered?’. The leader replied ‘All in good time, Dr Chander. I have come at the express direction of the leader of our planet, however ridiculous that expression may sound to you, to convey certain important messages and our conclusions about this situation on Earth. Before I do that our leader has directed me to show you some things physically, as seeing is indeed believing. To do that we will now need to take a short trip to Planet Mars’

At this Dr Trilok Chander was startled, ‘Now, wait a minute. Are you really planning to take me to Mars? That is several years of space travel which I don’t want to do right now’. ‘Not to worry, Dr Chander, we can do the round trip in no time at all, well before the ice in your drink, back on your terrace, melts. Just sit still, close your eyes and relax’. Trilok could feel a sudden jerk and a high intensity whoosh for a few seconds, and soon he could feel the craft slowing down and hovering slowly over something. The alien leader signalled his assistants to open the side panels for Trilok to get a good view. ‘I have purposely brought you to those formerly in inhabited areas of Mars where a thriving civilisation existed millions of years ago. People in Mars then were human-like, but much larger, with an average height of about 8 feet, with formidable intellect and scientific achievements. There, you can see some of their built-up structures like buildings, roads and cities. You can also see their artefacts like temples and statues which are similar to what you have seen at Earth, only much bigger.’ ‘But the whole place is in ruins now, as we can see. What happened to the people of Mars?’ Trilok asked the alien leader. ‘You may well ask. About a million years ago there was a nuclear armageddon among various nation tribes of Mars which completely destroyed the planet and finished them off as a race’. It was an unbelievable story on the face of it, and Trilok was not buying it, ’How do you know for sure? As you say you were from a different galaxy, and how can you know about what happened there in Mars a million years ago? How old are you, anyway?’. The alien leader was gently smiling at Trilok’s agitated questioning, and responded patiently ‘We will come to the question of my age later, which really should not matter any way. I will now show you proof. There is a reason why we don’t want to get down on Mars now to give you an on-site experience. There is still a lot of harmful radiation about, which we will now prove’. Saying this the leader took out an instrument which Trilok recognised as a Geiger counter which measures radiation levels in the atmosphere. The assistants promptly attached the instrument to a robotic arm which extended outside of their craft for a few minutes to take readings. When the arm came back with the counter showing the radiation levels in Mars, Trilok could not believe his eyes. It was way above levels in which humans could survive. Furthermore, he was shocked to see the instrument showing traces of Uranium-235 and Plutonium-239, which have very high half-life times. The alien leader was watching Trilok’s reactions and was impressed at Trilok’s immediate grasp of the facts and their implications. He said approvingly ‘I can see that you recognise the situation; you will agree that these elements U-235 and Pu-239 indicate weapons signature on Mars. As you can see for yourself, a civilisation superior in every respect to the human race, exterminated itself by their adventures with nuclear weapons. All done in a matter of few short years: one moment Mars was a solid plant and the next in complete ruins which cannot be approached for millions of years by anyone because of prevailing radiation levels. Okay, enough of this site visit, lets go home to Srirangapatna’.

The same procedure in their return journey as before. Trilok could feel the craft slowing down and settling down on firm ground. The alien leader started speaking ‘Dr Chander, you might wonder why we have chosen you. We know you are high up in the scientific establishment in India, and soon you are going to be the scientific adviser to the Prime Minister, therefore believe me when I tell you that you are not a random choice. Similar to your profile, and including you, we have chosen ten top scientists all over the world, from the US, Japan, Europe, Russia and even Korea, Pakistan and Iran. You may know most of them by name, and some of them would even be your friends and colleagues from the past. Even as we speak these ten scientists have had an experience exactly the same as what you have gone through this evening, visit to Mars and all. We want this distinguished group of ten scientific minds to lead the way in bringing the world leaders to their senses about the dangers of nuclear wars. All their talk of space wars involving nuclear weapons technology must stop, for the good of mankind, excuse me, for the very existence of mankind. If you and other members of this group do not succeed, I need not point out to an intelligent man like you, whatever happened to Mars will happen to Earth, and right quick.’ At this Trilok was becoming a bit suspicious about the whole venture. He said ‘I just don’t understand why you and the leader of your planet bother about us, earthlings. How does it matter to you, whether we on Earth live or perish as you keep saying? Is this part of a clever plan to take over Earth under your control, or to create an intergalactic hegemony as it were?’. The alien leader seemed to be smiling when he heard these agitated words from Trilok and said, ‘Intergalactic hegemony, indeed. To your credit, I must say you don’t lack imagination. Just look at us, with our spindly body, oversized heads and wires sticking out all over, do you really think we would be able to survive on Earth’s atmosphere, much less enjoy our time here?. May be this is the time to answer your question about my age. How about several million years in your timescale sound? We, in our planet in the distant galaxy I spoke to you about, swing to a different beat, in terms of time, how we spend it and purpose of what you loosely call life. Our leader and myself to an extent have watched the complete annihilation of Mars due to the uninformed and stupid antics of its inhabitants, feeling utterly helpless in the matter. We are however now determined to prevent such a fate from happening to you, the human species, if you can believe such a melodramatic statement coming from me. See it as our last ditch effort to prevent your foolish nuclear adventures from obliterating all life in a promising planet. Other than that we just don’t care if you follow through on our good intentions or not. However, if the ten of you meet soon and decide to involve us in this effort, please be assured we will be at your service and we will deploy the kind of technology you have only dreamed about in doing so’

It was time to take leave. The alien leader said ‘Here are some souvenirs of our evening together for you to remember the details. This is a print out of the Geiger counter readings which you observed in the ruins of Mars, including the spectrographs of U-235 and Pu 239. This is a pen drive which will show you the video images of your visit to Mars, images of what you had observed there yourself. Before I forget, here is another pen drive, which clearly shows the entire process of how the foolish inhabitants of Mars came to their end in glowing colour: how their leaders thought and spoke, escalating nuclear wars among themselves all of it leading to a climactic scene when everything goes up in flames. You will be able to recognise the same patterns of behaviour happening on Earth as it was then in Mars. This will be a powerful reminder what will happen to you and how the nuclear end will unfold, should you need one’. As he got up to leave, the alien leader said, ‘One final thing. You will receive calls and connection requests from the other members of this group of ten. I would urge you to interact with them to arrive at a workable approach to this problem. How to identify the members of this exclusive group? It is simple, every one of you will have a micro-dot on the inside of their left forefinger, like this’. At this point Trilok was surprised to find himself obediently extending his left forefinger to the leader, who marked its inside with a felt pen like object. There was a unique mark of 2 mm diameter, which looked like all typical micro dots, that contain details of identification about Dr Chander visible only under electronic magnification. Trilok was asking the leader, ‘How do we get in touch with you, if we do want to go ahead with your plan?’. A ghost of smile crossed the leader’s face, while he replied mysteriously ‘You will discover it soon enough’. 

A bit after midnight, Dr Trilok Chander woke up from his sleep, a bit embarrassed about falling asleep while reading his book. There were no signs of the three pancake like objects, and no aliens either. His book had fallen on the floor to his left. Trilok was convincing himself that the whole episode was a dream, and a rather interesting one at that. His drink was still on the side table, with the ice in it in final stages of melting away. He suddenly remembered the alien leader’s remark about ice melting, and looked at his watch. It was half past twelve. ‘To Mars and back in one hour, indeed. What an enchanting thought, but practically unworkable’. Just then he noticed a black spot on his left forefinger. Startled he jumped out of his seat, as two pen drives fell from his lap and clattered on the floor. A print out of Geiger counter readings followed, gently fluttering in the air.

A V Ram Mohan                    26th October, 2020