The Apocalypse Calendar (10 page)

It was the final class for
the semester, and Miller and Gary were quite pleased with the way the graduate student workshop in geology class had gone. The students had focused on current major geologic events during 2009 and 2010. They had more than enough to chew on and were able to relate all of these events to a speedup of mantle convection worldwide. The implications of all of this were beginning to get a little frightening; God knows what would happen next. There had been volcanic eruptions in Iceland and devastating 7.0- and 8.8-magnitude earthquakes in Haiti and Chile. Over two hundred and thirty thousand people were killed by these earthquakes. The volcanic eruption in Iceland was mainly dangerous for air travel. The students were quick to pick up on the fact that the Iceland eruptions were actually occurring on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and that this ridge continued under the Arctic ice cap.

The class was rather large for a graduate course. There were fifteen students this time around. They were mostly PhD candidates, with only a smattering of MS candidates. Each student was graded on the quality of his participation in the class. Miller and Gary were able to draw meaningful questions and answers from the majority of the students. All in all, it was an excellent group this semester. Most of the students studied under the two professors and would be assigned research projects in Mexico, the Caribbean, and western North America for their theses and dissertations. A large part of the students’ grades for the course was related to their term projects. Each student was given a current tectonic event topic in geology to write an in-depth term paper about. The usual question from the students arose on how long their term papers should be. Miller gave the usual professorial response of “Long enough to cover the subject.” Finally, each student had to present a ten-minute oral summary of their results in class. A brief discussion period followed each presentation.

Everybody agreed, including the two professors, that there had been an increase in the number of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions worldwide. There had already been seventy-seven earthquakes of a 6.0 magnitude or higher. Everyone also agreed that these data indicated more active mantle convection. If this trend continued, more disasters such as those at Haiti and Iceland would be occurring elsewhere in the world in the months and years to follow.

As the class was about to end for the semester, one student asked, “Is there any relationship between speedup in mantle convection and changes in the weather? We seem to have gotten more tornadoes and severe hurricanes during the last two years.”

Miller said, “One of my professors stressed years ago that meteorology is an imprecise science—although it is a lot better today than it used to be. Your question is food for thought. There could indeed be some sort of relationship between weather patterns and mantle convection. It has been proven that mid-ocean ridges are sources of heat. I would think that an increase in heat along ocean ridges would affect ocean currents and would, in turn, affect world weather. This is a subject that we will try to address in the workshop course in the future.”

Miller gathered up the term papers and took them to his office. He needed to read them and turn in his grades for the workshop course and the other courses he was teaching this semester. He and Gary had planned to do some fieldwork in Puerto Rico. To keep peace in their families, they decided to take their wives along. Besides, since Rosita’s native language was Spanish, she would be quite handy to have along—though Mexicans and South Americans often have trouble understanding Caribbean Spanish. Puerto Ricans tended to leave off letters in their pronunciation of words—“
Buenas Dias
,” for example, was pronounced “
Buena Dia
.”

Miller and Gary decided to collect samples of red radiolarian chert from the Bermeja Complex of southwestern Puerto Rico not far from the southwestern cape of the island, Cabo Rojo. Their previous studies in La Désirade near Guadalupe and in the Dominican Republic had established that the red chert, found in the Greater Antilles and in La Désirade in the Lesser Antilles, was mostly Late Jurassic in age and was totally unknown from anywhere else in the North Atlantic Basin, in spite of extensive coring by the Deep Sea Drilling Project funded by the National Science Foundation. The radiolarian microfossils occurring in all of the Caribbean red chert were also from a higher latitude than any radiolaria recovered by the DSDP in the North Atlantic. The faunal composition of radiolaria assemblages occurring in these samples also indicated that the Caribbean red chert formed south of the Jurassic paleoequator. These data established conclusively that the Caribbean Plate formed in the Pacific rather than in the Atlantic, as some geoscientists believed.

After an hour, Miller finished grading the term papers and turned in his course grades to the registrar via the Internet. He sent an e-mail to the head of the Physical Plant Department that he did not want his office cleaned during his absence. Miller didn’t want anyone messing around with the box in the corner that kept generating flashes of mysterious green light.

Miller and Gary returned to the
Institute in late August after spending an enjoyable summer with their families in Puerto Rico. Their stay in the Caribbean was for both work and pleasure. The two geologists managed to collect several hundred pounds of samples from the Sierra Bermeja. The two wives were born collectors. In addition to their purchases on the island, they collected everything from driftwood to rocks. Most of the rocks were what most geologists would consider to be “Leaveright”—meaning “leave’er right here.” The stuff that the two ladies collected ended up weighing more than the rock samples collected by the two geologists.

As a result, Miller decided that instead of flying back to Texas, they would take a freighter to New Orleans. The food and accommodations on freighters are great, the fares are relatively cheap, and they could carry any amount of cargo they wanted to. The cruise by freighter was relaxing. There wasn’t much to do during the day except sit out in front of the staterooms in a lounge chair and watch the flying fish. Meals were served at the captain’s table.

When Miller returned to his office, he was alarmed by what he saw in the middle of the floor. The lead box containing the disk had been moved and was partly open. Dents could be seen in the lead container. The office floor had been waxed. It was clear that the cleaning crew had gotten into Miller’s office. He had told the head of Physical Plant not to clean the office before he left for Puerto Rico, but it was the custom of the cleaning crew to wax all office and classroom floors before school started. In spite of the fact that the Institute was a state university, most of the cleaning crew employees were illegals from Mexico and could read neither Spanish nor English. Some appeared to be pure-blooded Mexican Indians.

The pulses of green light emitting from the disk were both extremely rapid and more intense. Each pulse of light seemed to vary in length. Miller still wondered whether this might be some sort of coded message. About this point in time, Gary entered the office and asked, “What in the hell is going on with that crazy disk?”

Miller responded, “I don’t know. I guess I’d better call Herman Swartz at NASA and see what he thinks we ought to do. This thing may be dangerous to have in my office.”

The call to Herman was brief but to the point. Swartz told Miller to take a video of the disk for at least one hour and to send it to him as an e-mail attachment. Herman said, “Frank, I think you may be correct that the pulses may represent some sort of code. I doubt if the light rays are harmful. However, when you’ve made the video, put the disk back inside the stone box and slide it into the lead container. We’d better be careful with this thing. I will get our computer guys to analyze the light pulses and see what they can come up with. I will also send a copy of your video to the code-crunchers at NORAD. I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. In the meantime, I suggest that you notify Dolores Clark about what’s going on.”

Gary and Miller were in the
middle of a conversation about some of the results of the Puerto Rican research project when the phone rang. Miller picked up the phone. He was somewhat irritated by being interrupted in a conversation involving his research.

The voice at the other end was that of a rather panicky Herman Swartz, who said, “Frank, the people at NORAD have broken part of the code. The pulses apparently represent some sort of warning about activity deep inside the earth that could cause the destruction of much of mankind. One of the decoded words was ‘Apocalypse’! All of this came into better focus with the intense 9.0 earthquake that occurred in Japan last Friday.”

Miller sighed and said with a look of apprehension, “Herman, I suggest that we set up a conference call with you, Gary, Dolores, and me. I’m beginning to think that there is some sort of tie-in between the alien device and all of the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that have occurred since my grandson turned the magic knob. These events have been worldwide. We still need some input from the archaeologists attempting to translate the Mayan glyphs.

Dolores said that these glyphs are much older and different from any that her experts have ever seen before. We need to get all of the available experts to work on the translations. People’s lives may be at stake. Herman, the new information from your computer experts may lead to a breakthrough.”

Over in his office at the Johnson Space Center, Herman said as he paced back and forth, “Okay, let’s go for the conference call. Frank, I’ll let you handle it at your end. I suggest we set this up for two o'clock tomorrow afternoon.”

Miller said with a nervous voice,
“Is everybody ready? Herman, are you hooked up on your end? Gary is using the other phone in my office. I think the first thing we need to look at is the number of major earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that have occurred since my grandson, Alfred, turned the knob on the disk. It’s hard to believe that Alfred may be responsible for the destruction of mankind! Gary, do you have the earthquake and volcanic eruption data for 2010 and 2011? Try to summarize this if you can.”

Gary said with a look of enthusiasm, “In 2010, there were a total of twenty-two earthquakes with a magnitude of 7.0 plus, and there were one hundred and fifty-three earthquakes with a magnitude of 6.0 to 6.9. The strongest earthquake was the one in the Maule region of Chile south of Santiago. The magnitude of this little gem was 8.8. The highest death toll occurred in Léogâne, Haiti. Apparently, nearly two hundred and thirty thousand people died in this 7.0-magnitude quake—but I have seen figures as low as eighty thousand and as high as three hundred thousand. The second-deadliest quake occurred at Ginghai, China. Here, nearly two thousand seven hundred people were killed in this 6.9-magnitude quake.

“Ten major volcanic eruptions occurred in 2010: Eyjafjallajökul, Iceland; Mount Merapi, Indonesia; Tungurahua, Ecuador; Pacaya, Guatemala; Kliuchevskoi, Shiveluch, and Kizimen, Kamchatka Islands; Santiaguito, Guatemala; Mount Sinabung, Indonesia; and Cleveland Volcano, Alaska. I find it interesting that three of these major volcanic eruptions occurred in the Kamchatka Islands. As you may be aware, these islands are located just north of Japan along the east coast of Siberia. The Kamchatkas are, more or less, a continuation of the Japanese island arc and link the Japanese islands with the Aleutian Islands along the Ring of Fire. It is also worth noting that the Cleveland Volcano is located in the western Aleutian Islands just around the corner from the Kamchatka Islands. The clustering of volcanic activity in this part of the Ring of Fire suggests that there is very active subduction occurring. The Pacific Plate is being shoved underneath the island arc to a depth where melting occurs. These volcanic eruptions along the Japan–Kamchatka–Aleutian trend seem to have predicted the major earthquakes that occurred in Japan. I should also mention that Guatemala was unusually active in 2010 as well.”

Gary continued, “So far, in 2011, there have been nine major earthquakes with a magnitude over 7.0. Five of these earthquakes occurred in Japan: four at Honshu, and one at Tohoku. In the 9.0 quake at Tohoku, most of the damage was done by a giant tidal wave. Over fifteen thousand people were killed. The other 7.0-plus quakes occurred in Pakistan, Argentina, Chile, and the Loyalty Islands in the South Pacific. On top of this, there were over eighty earthquakes of 6.0 to 6.9 magnitudes. Volcanic activity in 2011 so far includes a major eruption of Mount Etna in Sicily.”

Miller noted, “In my opinion, the Eyjafjallajökul, Iceland eruption in 2010 is particularly important because it demonstrates an increase in volcanic activity along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This, in turn, reflects an increase in mantle-core convection.”

Herman said with an air of childlike scientific excitement, “I just talked to our NASA and NORAD computer people. They indicate that there seems to be something like GPS coordinates embedded in the alien message. God knows what these coordinates refer to. I prefer to keep everyone out of this UFO show until we know more. I have friends at NASA and NORAD that I can trust. Hopefully we can get this done covertly without getting all of the politicians involved. For now, even the President should be left out of the loop. There may be nothing to this alien thing at all, but I’m afraid this is not the case.”

Miller said, “We need to know if the Mayan Calendar reference in the inscriptions refers to the end of the world on a certain date. It could be that this alien disk is some kind of kitchen timer–type calendar in its own right, which my grandson, Alfred, turned on. Perhaps we should call the damn thing ‘The Apocalypse Calendar’!”

Herman said, “This is a good name for Alfred’s new toy. I suggest that we use this as a code name for this device.”

Miller said, “Well, I guess we can’t do much more now. Let’s get together with another conference call at two o'clock on July 15. Maybe by then we’ll have some new information on the hieroglyphics and the alien inscriptions.”