Irrefutable Proof: Mars Origin "I" Series Book II (15 page)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Cleveland
Heights
, Ohio

Jack
was tall. Perfect posture. Brawny. I could see military as soon as he told me
he was in the Air Force, even in his blue jeans and Nike t-shirt. Handsome, I
thought, late thirties. Seemed like a nice guy, other than him just confronting
me.

“Excuse
me,” I said.

“I
need to know how much you know about the nuclear activity on Mars.”

“I
only know what was in the manuscripts. And I wrote that in my book.”

He
eyed me accusingly.

“It’s
not like I could’ve put the stuff up there, Jack. The nuclear residue. I don’t
even know how it got there. If you’ve read the book, you know that. I don’t
know if it was an accident or some kind of war.”

“Do
you know how much panic you could cause by putting this information out? People
will think that there are Martians who will come with nuclear ray guns and kill
us all.”

“I
certainly wouldn’t say anything like that. Nor do I think people would believe
something like that. The Martians, as it were, are us. You know that. I don’t
intend to cause any panic.

“Listen,
Jack,” I said. “Our history is wrong. I have worked more than half my life to
find our biblical history and present it to the world. To prove that it was
true.” I looked up into his face. “I am an archaeologist, a re-creator of
history. I learn about our history from the fragmentary remains of artifacts
left behind by past civilizations.” He didn’t say anything.

“What
I am trying to prove won’t change man’s belief in God, in the way he conducts
business, or in his everyday life.  It will cure diseases. It will turn around
climate change. It will allow us to travel through space.” I took in a breath. “I’m
scared. I’m worried about putting it all out there. And yes, honestly mostly
worried how it’ll affect me and my family. But I’m worried about mankind, too.
So I wouldn’t do anything to
hurt
anyone.”

“And
you think what you’re doing . . .” he said, and paused. “Finding proof about
ancient space travel, from a planet that has a surface full of evidence of
nuclear activity, is okay?”

I
couldn’t glean anything from his face. Was he turning out to be one of those
“government people” that Addie talked about that would be after me?

He
just stood looking at me. Waiting for me to answer, maybe to say the wrong
thing. Was he angry? Was he going to turn me in, and I’d have to spend the rest
of my days in Gitmo? Maybe he really didn’t believe what was in the AHM
manuscripts.

I
thought about what I should say, then I said, “Yes, I do. I do think it’s okay. 
I think I have to share the knowledge with the world. For our own good.”

And
then he smiled.

“Addie,”
he said, and turned around and walked toward her. “How do you think
you
can help Dr. Dickerson? You and that little mutt of yours will be just as lost
in her world of academia as Dorothy and Toto were in Oz.”

And
that was it. He didn’t say anything else to me about it. I couldn’t believe I’d
convinced him, when I was still so unsure myself. I kept thinking, what did I
say to him? Because, whatever it was, it needed to be my mantra, to give me the
courage I needed. Yet, even with Jack confronting me, in my own house no less, was
kind of weird, okay, very weird, I decided to tell them about my trip to
Israel.

Sitting
back down at my kitchen table, I told them that the proof I wrote about getting
was what Dr. Sabir had left planted under a cypress tree in Israel.

“The Knesset,” I explained, is the national legislature of Israel,
and it convened for the first time on February 14, 1949
, which fell on the holiday,
Tu Bishvat
,
the Jewish New Year for Trees. So, the Constituent Assembly, gathering for the
first time, honored the holiday by planting trees.

“Dr.
Sabir was there for that tree planting holiday, and he planted a tree. But he
also planted evidence. He figured that since he was digging a hole, no one
would notice if he dug two. So he picked a spot under an older tree, where the
roots had already taken hold, and buried what I suspect is the key needed to
decipher the hidden clues in the Book of Enoch. Clues that will give the
knowledge to make us as advanced as our ancestors from Mars had been.”

 I
looked at Rennie and Addie. Their faces were filled with excitement. They had a
look of amusement in their eyes, their mouths hanging open.

“Evidence?”
Addie said, wide eyed.

“Yep.
And, I’m going to dig it up. Me and Claire.”

“It
that what we’re going to Israel for? Manual labor?” Claire asked, and shook her
head. “I probably should have asked the reason you were going before I said,
‘Yes’.”

“We’ll
come,” Addie offered. “We’ll help dig.”

“I
can’t go to Israel,” Rennie said. I don’t have a passport. I don’t have the
money to go all the way to Israel. And, I can’t take time off from work.”

“Then
I guess it’s just me and Jack.” Addie glanced at her brother, and he gave a nod
to confirm. “But wait, Justin, you said February 1949 was the day that they
planted trees.”

“That’s
right.”

“Dr.
Sabir didn’t present those manuscripts to Dr. Yeoman until October.”

“You
really do know my book.” I said, and laughed. “And that’s right. He wrote, in
those last pages of his notebook, that he held on to them for a while. Trying
to find more evidence to help substantiate his story. That’s when he came up
with the idea of the Book of Enoch. It was found a couple of caves over from
where the manuscript about man’s migration was found.”

She
opened her mouth to speak, and Mase came in. I introduced him to everyone. When
Addie asked if he would be going with me, he told her, “No. She never takes me
anywhere. She’d rather take Greg, her brother.” Then he invited Jack to come
and hang out with him, telling me I should have let him know it was a guy in
the house. He was sure Jack didn’t want to be with us girls. Addie nor Jack
protested and Addie didn’t waste any time getting back to the hidden evidence.

“Where
is Dr. Sabir’s notebook? Can I see it?”

“Don’t
you remember, in the book, I said I mailed it to Ghazi.”

“Wasn’t
sure if you did that to protect yourself.”

“You’re
funny. No. I really did it.”

“When
we get to Israel, we should go and see him. And see the notebook, too, if we
can.”

“I
haven’t heard from Ghazi since I mailed him that notebook.”

“And
you haven’t called him.”

“No.”
I glanced over at Claire. “Have you heard from him?” She shook her head.

“So,
everything is in the Book of Enoch?” Addie asked. “That book tells the truth
about humans coming from Mars,” she said thoughtfully. “So, it’s is in the
Bible?”

“The
Book of Enoch is not in the Bible,” I began to explain, and then almost on cue,
Simon’s name popped up on my Caller ID.

Again.

I
excused myself and took the phone call.

He
seemed to have gotten somewhat frantic since we talked only a couple hours
earlier. He kept saying my name, as if he wanted to tell me something, but
didn’t know how to how to say it. I told him that I had just planned my trip
back to Israel with my new travel partners. That didn’t sit well with him.

He
said that I shouldn’t take anyone with me that didn’t understand what was going
on. Which seemed strange because I had never told him what was going on. His
usual playfulness gone, he said that he and I should go. I looked around the
room and saw the excitement buzzing around the room as Addie, Claire and Rennie
talked about what we were working on. Even Jack and Mase had wandered back in
and had joined the conversation.

I
felt like my amateur sleuths and I could handle it. And when I told him, he
said he would come, too. I told him don’t, but when I got back I would go over
the things I had with him. I was sure, although I didn’t say it to him, I would
need more help with the Book of Enoch. I figured I would get him to help me
with that.

He
asked me when I was leaving, and where was I staying. I told him, reluctantly.
But once I hung up the phone I regretted it.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Villa
Mondragone, Jesuit Community

Frascati
, Italy
, 1912

“What
have you done?” Rector Roberto Bershoni stood with his hands behind his back,
looking out the window. He didn’t face Father Realini as he spoke to him.

“It
doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, it’s done.”

“But
why?” Rector Bershoni turned, his eyes pleading.

“Its
secrets have stayed hidden too long. Someone must tell.” Father Realini
steadfastness shown in his eyes.

 “They
don’t have all the parts to it. No one will be able to decipher it.”

“They
will all be found.”

“But
you do not know when.” The Rector raised his hands and dropped them in
exasperation. “And when they all are found, by then our manuscript may be lost
or destroyed. It was safe here.”

“It
won’t be destroyed.”

“You
don’t know that. It was a foolish thing to do.”

“It
will be safe with him. Wilfrid Voynich. He cares for books.”

“You
have no idea the nature of that man.”

“If
you don’t agree then get it back. Indeed, why did you let it go in the first
place?”

The
Rector lowered his head. It had stunned him to see the book there among the
others put out for sale.

“The
Provincial Superior,” the Rector said, looking away as if chastened by his own
inability to stop the sale. “He had told Mr. Voynich that he could choose from
whatever was set out. How was I to go against that? And, I certainly couldn’t
give the reason why he couldn’t take it.” His hands came shakily up to his face.
He put his fingers to his temple. “And what of Father Marquette?” the Rector
looked at Father Realini. “Did you tell him?”

“He
knows the secret about the book.”

Rector
Bershoni grimaced at the thought. He opened his mouth to speak, and closed it
again. He sat down in his chair and covered his face with his hands.

Father
Realini held up his hand. “But not the true story. Only one I made up, so he would
help me.”

“And
that letter you left in the book. All those lies. That made up history. How
could you?”

“Should
I have told the truth? Should I have called it by its real name? Or, told that
it was a book that holds the secrets of our ancestors?” Father Realini asked.

Rector
Bershoni could take no more. He dismissed Father Realini with a wave of his
hand. Afterwards, he sat for a long time. The fear, disgust and weariness that
he felt lingered stagnant in the air, making it hard for him to breath. After a
long while the Rector, with a sudden intensity, reached over and pulled the
heavy red, velvet sash that hung from his ceiling and that was attached to a
bell in an inner room of his office. It was a call for his Superintendent to
come into his office.

Then,
he rang it again, pulling it down hard, and giving out a shout, “
Rapidamente Padre!
Vieni presto!
”

He
needed to send a telegram. That book must be watched. And, he needed to put the
plan into action. A plan that had laid dormant for thousands of years. A plan
older than the Society of Jesus. Older than Jesus himself.

“
Rapidamente
Padre,”
he said, pulling down the sash again.

Cleveland
Heights
, Ohio

2011

“Maybe
it’s
another
manuscript that Dr. Sabir found.” Addie’s eyes were as big
as a child’s on Christmas morning. “Something that has to be deciphered. A book
with all the clues in it. Like in
The DaVinci Code
. Something that no
one else has been able to decode before.”

“Or
in a mysterious ancient language,” Rennie added.

The
two of them were back to their book references. Still sitting in my kitchen,
for more than three hours, Addie and Rennie hadn’t run out of energy, and seemed
to want to solve the whole mystery in one night. Jack had gone outta sight
again, probably somewhere with Mase, watching sports on TV.

“We
just saw something like that. The other day. Didn’t we, Justin?” Claire looked
at me.

“Something
like what?” I asked, confused.

“An
undecipherable manuscript. When we were at Professor Abelson’s house.”

“Oh
yeah,” I said, and paused. I don’t know what look I had on my face, but
everyone stopped and stared at me.

“What?”
Addie said.

“Is
that it? Is that
the other
manuscript of clues?” Claire asked.

“There’s
no other manuscript with clues,” I said. “It’s all in the Book of Enoch.”

“Then
why did you make that face,” Claire said.

“I
made a face?” I asked. Claire nodded.

I
looked at them, looking at me. “It’s just that this guy, well a priest, came
over here today, and asked me if I wanted to be among a group of scholars that
go to Italy to help decipher it.”

“Decipher
what?” Addison pounced on me. “Did you say you would? Maybe you shouldn’t go.”
Her mind was swinging like a pendulum.

“I
would what?” I asked Addie. “You don’t even know what I’m talking about.”

“Uh-huh.
An undecipherable manuscript that you saw the other day, and then today a
mysterious man came over to ask you more about it.”

“He
was a priest.”

“Yeah,
right, like in the book
We’re No Angels.
Killers, dressed up like
priests. I saw him. The one that was leaving when we got here, right? Indian
guy. Kept smiling, and it was nothing to smile about. He was up to something.”

“Are
you always this suspicious?” I asked.

“What
kind of book was it, Claire.” I guess I wasn’t giving up information quickly
enough for Addie.

“It’s
called the Voynich Manuscript,” Claire answered.

“What’s
the Voynich Manuscript?” Rennie asked.

“I’m
not quite sure,” I said. “Didn’t really interest me.”

“You
got a computer?” Addie said, making herself at home and getting up to put on
another pot of coffee. “We can find out.”

“The
Voynich Manuscript. Okay.” Addie started, shifting in the kitchen chair to get
comfortable. I had found her a computer. I’d given her and Rennie my laptop,
and me and Claire were searching for information on Mase’s.

“Here,
this says that the Voynich Manuscript,” Addie was reading from the computer
screen, “is a manuscript, or book, that is written in some unknown language
with unknown plants drawn in it.”

“An
unknown language? Could that really be true?” Rennie asked.

“Yep.
No one can decipher the language, and most people who’ve studied it don’t
believe that it’s a hoax. The pages were dated to about the fourteen or fifteen
hundreds.” Claire said.

“How
do you know that?” I asked Claire. “We just started looking it up.” I looked at
the computer screen to see where she could be reading that from.

“Professor
Abelson told me.”

I
should have known.

 “What
else did she tell you?”

“She
said that
she used to
work at the Hebrew University for Samuel Yeoman.” Claire raised her eyebrows
and looked at me. “She said that he knew several languages. He was fluent in
them, and that’s why she became a linguist, and why she can speak different
languages. And, she said that she was very good at what she did. She was a
genius at it.”

“She said ‘genuis’?” I asked.

“Genius,” Claire said definitively, I’m sure mimicking how Professor
Abelson had said it. “And she said that Samuel Yeoman was a genius, too.”

“That’s probably who her fake husband Samuel is, Dr. Yeoman.”

Me
and Claire started laughing. That woman must hate me for some reason. She told
Claire all that stuff about the manuscript when I was the one who had asked the
question about it. And then telling Claire all that personal stuff about
herself. Who cares?

“Okay,” Addie started reading
again, evidently trying to get the conversation back on track. “The manuscript
was named after Wilfrid Voynich, a rare book dealer who bought it in 1912 from
Jesuit priests in Italy.

Father Chandra said he was a
Jesuit priest.

“They found a letter.” Addie
continued reading. “Let me see here.” She ran her finger down the screen trying
to find her place. “Okay it says that scholars had been able to deduce some of
its previous owners, but not the author. And, the farthest they could go back
with certainty, thanks to a correspondence found with the book written by
Johannes
Marcus Marci to Athanasius Kircher, was to the early 1500s. Marcus wrote that
the manuscript
had belonged to Emperor Rudolph II of Germany, 1552-1612, who purchased it for 600 gold ducats, believing it was the work of the
philosopher Roger Bacon. “Scientists have been able to date it to somewhere
around 1405 to 1420.” Addie finished reading and looked up. “It says that the
book is probably from northern Italy.”

I googled Roger Bacon. “That
doesn’t make sense,” I said. “He lived almost a century and a half before the
book was thought to have been written.”

“Maybe the book is older than
what scholars think,” Addie said.

“I’m sure it was carbon dated.”

“Oh yeah, I read that it had been
carbon dated,” Addie said.

“Then why did you say the book
was probably older?” I asked.

“Because you can’t believe
everything you read on the Internet,” Addie said.

 I shook my head and went back to
reading. “They’ve looked at the book under ultraviolet light and found a
signature that appears someone tried to erase.

 “It says the book is small,” I
read. “About 23 cm by 16 cm in size. Let me see, that’s about 9 by 6 inches.
That’s about the size of a paperback book.” I looked up at Addie. “You can
relate to that, huh?”

“I like hardcovers.”

I chuckled. “Okay.” I looked back
down at the screen. “The codex is about 240 pages. But what seems most
interesting is the language. In more than six hundred years, no one has been
able to decipher it.”

An unknown language
.
Hmmm
. . .

“So the book has pictures of
plants . . . Hey,” Addie said. “These pictures show naked, pregnant women.”

“Wait. What did you say? Let me
see that,” I said.

It couldn’t be
, I
thought.
The Nephilim?
I pulled the laptop Addie was using over to me
and gazed down at the pictures. The words in the Book of Enoch stuck in my
brain. Naked, pregnant woman. I didn’t see these pictures at Professor
Abelson’s house. She just had pages with the gibberish, or, I guess,
words
,
on it. What if a Watcher wrote this book about what Enoch described in his
book? I shook my head and took in a breath. I’m sure one thing didn’t have to
do with the other.

“And look at this!” Addie said. She
was using my laptop while I was looking at the naked women on hers. “It says
that these plants, the ones depicted in the Voynich Manuscript, are not found
anywhere on Earth. Justin,” she said, “It’s just like the laboratory on Madagascar!”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You wrote that they experimented
with plants and things at their laboratory on Madagascar. Maybe these pictures
are a depiction of some of the plants they created.”

“Oh, I doubt that.”

“Justin. Think about it,” Addie
said. “The people from Mars brought the plants here and they had some
greenhouse, hothouse, or something or other on Madagascar where they kept the
plants from Mars. And they planted them in the ground, too,” she said.

“They were either purposely
genetically changed, or they were hybrids of Mars and Earth’s plants.” Addie’s
mind was working a mile a minute. “Or,” she said. “After some time, they evolved
into the plants that are on Madagascar now. I don’t know why the book would
have pregnant women dancing around. But these plants – and the animals that are
in the Voynich Manuscript are not found anywhere else on Earth, either, maybe because
they’re pictures of the ones that had been on Mars.”

I started wondering if the pictures
in the Voynich Manuscript might just be depicting the stories in the Book of
Enoch. The idea of the Voynich Manuscript and man’s origins on Mars being
interrelated was starting to make me think – maybe so. Maybe it even had
something to do with the AHM manuscripts.

And if those three things were
related, I
knew why
there were pregnant women being depicted.