Ancillary Mercy полностью

Several years later, in October 1958, Jessup met with Sanderson in New York, seeming depressed. He gave Sanderson a Varo edition of his book and asked him to store it safely “in case anything should happen to me.” In mid-April of 1959, Jessup wrote a depressed letter to a friend, which Sanderson later read and characterized as “a straight suicide note.” On April 20, Jessup was found near death in his car near his home in Coral Gables, Florida, an apparent suicide. A hose was attached to his exhaust pipe and ran into his vehicle through a small crack in a window. He died later that night.

Jessup’s death never escaped rumors of murder. The main theory was that Jessup knew too much about the Philadelphia Experiment. Gray Barker made this the theme of his book, The Strange Case of Dr. M. K. Jessup, and others followed suit, arguing that the suicide was a frame-up. The author of the Varo notes is now generally believed to be a man named Carl Allen (alias Carlos Allende), after he essentially confessed as much to the Lorenzens in 1969, then recanted. Allende’s own parents later described him as a “master leg puller,” and his brother called him a “drifter.” If this is meant to discredit the notes, it fails to address that the ONR analysis concluded there were three authors. Sanderson, as usual, put it well: If the authors were nothing but crackpots, “where did they dredge up all these facts or allegations... requir[ing] many years of research to unearth?” In any case, subsequent research into the Philadelphia Experiment long ago reached a dead end. Barring a radical development, the story will remain a legend attached to a disreputable individual.⁹⁶

THE REVEREND GILL SIGHTING AND ACTIVITY IN THE OCEAN

As the reader should discern by now, UFOs have a long history of being seen in and around large bodies of water, a fact generally unremarked upon by most researchers. (The great exception, of course, is Ivan Sanderson.) Upon reflection, it is easy to see why there should be a large share of UFO activity at sea, and why most people, landlubbers that we are, tend to ignore it. The world’s surface is, after all, 70 percent water, and little of it is known below a few hundred feet, even today. Time and again, however, we come across encounters with strange objects at sea. In June 1959, the Argentine navy trapped a large silver object in the harbor at Buenos Aires. It was “shaped like a huge fish,” with a tail similar to the vertical stabilizer on a B- 17. Divers obtained a good look at it but could not identify it as a submarine; moreover, the object seemed too maneuverable and fast to be a sub.⁹⁷

In late June occurred yet another “classic” sighting, out in the remote region of Papua, New Guinea. Actually, it was a series of encounters over June 26 and 27, 1959, and involved multiple, close-up sightings of a hovering UFO craft, with much mutual waving and seemingly goodwill exchanged. The main witness was the Rev. William Booth Gill, a respected man on the island, known by all as scrupulously honest and decent. On the evening of the twenty-sixth, Gill, accompanied by thirty-eight witnesses, saw a shining object at around 6:45 P.M., hovering in the air at about three hundred or four hundred feet. The object was circular and had legs under it, and a bright blue light shone from the craft upwards into the sky. Everyone also saw four figures on what appeared to be a deck.

The visitors returned the next night at about 6 P.M. Father Gill quickly arrived on the scene, along with many others. Again, they saw four figures on top of the ship, and this time saw two smaller craft nearby. In Father Gill’s detailed account of the incident (an eleven-page, single-spaced report signed by over twenty-five witnesses):

[T]wo of the figures seemed to be doing something near the center of the deck. They were occasionally bending over and raising their arms as though adjusting or setting up something (not visible). One figure seemed to be standing, looking down at us.

At this point, Father Gill waved to the figures. To everyone’s surprise, the figures waved back. A teacher among the witnesses then raised both of her arms and waved, and two of the figures did the same. The mutual waving went on for some time. When it became dark, Father Gill used a flashlight to make a series of movements toward the craft, and the craft eventually made several wavering motions back and forth.

The Rev. Norman E. G. Cruttwell (not present) who investigated the event wrote that

the facts of this sighting and the waving by the men and the responses to the [flashlight] signals are fully corroborated by ... many of the other witnesses in personal interview with myself.