The Gemini Divergence by Eric Birk

aircraft is closing at a
thousand knots.”
    “That’s impossible, nobody has anything that
can go that fast.”
    “I agree sir,” pleaded the navigator, “That
is why I did the calculations again and again, but forget that, if
we are going to intercept this thing we need to do a course
correction to north four degrees west.”
    “Adjusting,” responded the captain.
    The navigator went on, “Visibility is fifteen
miles and we should close in three minutes so if they have their
lights on we should see it…”
    But before the navigator finished his
sentence the pilot was already nervously uttering, “Mother Mary,
help us please.”
    The navigator looked up to see a light as
bright as a torch that was on a course that would cross their path,
but soon after they closed on it, the object changed course to
elude them.
    “Object evading,” reported the navigator.
“Pursuit bearing is north forty three degrees east.”
    “Copy on pursuit bearing… correcting.”
answered the pilot.
    At that moment the object dove at an angle
far too steep for the mosquito to follow, so the pilot swung around
to keep a visual on the object.
    “I have never seen anything turn into a dive
so quickly,” exclaimed the pilot. “If I’d have done that, this
plane would have snapped like a twig and you and I would have
passed out from the G’s.”
    After the pilot noticed that the object had
leveled off he decided to take another dive at it. When he did, the
object accelerated straight up.
    The pilot and the navigator watched as the
object grew smaller and smaller, then disappeared into the stars in
just a matter of seconds.
    After they returned and reported what they
had witnessed, The British Fighter Command doubled their night
patrols and increased their night radar staffing.
     
    The wave of 47 had begun.
     
     
    ~~~**^**~~~
     

     
    The Cold
War / The Arnold Sighting
     
    24 Jun1947
    Kenneth Arnold sees
a squadron of unknown aircraft flying in
formation over the Cascade Mountains in Washington State as he was
piloting his own plane.
    He described them as boomerang shaped and
flying through the air at incredible speeds like saucers skipping
across water.
    It was from this
description that the press coined the eternal catch phrase “flying
saucer ”.
    *~*
    It had been raining all night at McChord
Field in Tacoma, but Gus along with other technicians of their
newly formed secret ‘Field Activities Group’, had been working
right out in the rain when necessary, to convert a decommissioned
but still flight worthy B-29 into a flying scientific measurement
platform.
    Every instrument on the plane was so high
tech that it had to be hand made because there were not yet enough
public uses for these instruments in 1947 for any commercial
company to manufacture them.
    All of the combat markings and paint schemes
had been removed and the plane had been repainted with the markings
of a weather plane.
    Inside of the plane Volmer was working on an
instrument panel that was to control the new data collection and
sampling systems. The moist air had fogged his glasses to the point
that it necessitated he remove the spectacles and wipe them off
with his handkerchief.
    As he wiped, Gus approached him in the plane;
the sound of rain pounding on the aluminum fuselage like a large
tin roof.
    Gus asked, “We’ve finished a lot today Mr.
Volmer, and everyone is soaking wet, can’t we call it a night and
come back tomorrow?”
    Herr Volmer turned and put his glasses back
on as he responded, “Oh my, Heavens no, General Lemay has flown me
here on a moments notice to respond to this most recent
sighting.”
    “You mean the Arnold sighting the other day,
it’s all over the papers?”
    “Yes, that is the one.”
    “But why don’t they just ready a fighter
pursuit squadron and wait for those things to come back?”
    Volmer explained, “The General was very
impressed by the data our balloon returned a few months ago. He has
increased funding for more