More Than We Bargained For - 1. More Than We Bargained For

“Dr. Carver put up a notice asking for volunteers to work with him on a new excavation site,” I told Greer. “I’m not sure if you know this or not, but he discovered a previously unknown site in Tikal, not too far from where the Uaxactun temple grouping is located. I’ve heard he discovered the structure just before he was ready to finish up with last year’s dig, so he wants to spend some time exploring it in depth this season. I want to sign up to work with him on it, because it will look terrific on my resume, but I think it would be great if you did this too, especially if we discover something new about the Mayans in the process. What do you think?”

“You know, when I let you talk me into majoring in archeology with you, I was thinking it was going to be more like the Indiana Jones movies, not digging in the ground with trowels and sifting shovels full of dirt through strainers,” he replied. “I’m not sure I want to spend the rest of my life doing those kinds of things, so I may opt to take up a dual major, since I’ve already taken most of the courses for this degree.”

I had to laugh at Greer, because he had been told many times before that ‘real’ or ‘true’ archeology was nothing like what was depicted in the Indiana Jones movies. He was also told that he shouldn’t major in archeology unless he had a strong desire to unearth questions about the past. I’m still not sure if he majored in it just because that’s what I decided to do, since we’ve done nearly everything together for as long as I can remember.

Maybe I should take a few seconds to explain a little bit about us. My name is Jarrett Ray and I will be a senior archeology major in the fall. Greer Spaulding has been my best friend since before we even started kindergarten, because our friendship began when we first met in day care. We lived just a couple of blocks away from each other, so we attended the same schools, sometimes even being assigned to the same class, and this continued until we graduated from high school. It was also during high school when we became boyfriends and lovers, after we finally admitted to each other that we were gay.

Since we were romantically involved at the time, we decided to apply to the same colleges and were both accepted to attend the University of Arizona, which suited our purposes just fine. One of our goals when we were selecting a college was to be able to get far away from our parents and former classmates in San Bernardino, California, but not go so far away that we couldn’t return home fairly easily for the holidays, so Tucson, Arizona seemed like the perfect place for us.

At first Greer was just going to take general courses, until he decided on a major, but eventually he made up his mind to major in archeology, the same as me. He said by doing this we could take the same courses, study together and maybe even work at the same place after we graduated. Even though he thought this should be fairly simple, I attempted to explain to him that our prospects for employment would be severely limited, due to the field we’d chosen, since there weren’t a lot of jobs for people in our profession. I did my very best to convince him about these hard truths, but he seemed determined to do this just the same, so I discontinued my protests.

“I think you’re confusing history again,” I pointed out, “because if you remember correctly, I tried to talk you OUT of majoring in archeology, rather than trying to talk you into it.

“Well maybe you didn’t talk me into it with your words, but you knew I’d end up doing whatever you did,” he stated, while looking at me smugly. “We’ve always done everything together, so why should this be any different?”

He had a point, although a weak one, but I decided to build on his perspective.

“In that case, I guess you’re going to sign up for this too then, since I’ve already decided I want to do it,” I informed him, tongue-in-cheek.

“I suppose I will then, since someone will have to watch over you and protect your cute butt,” he countered, while sticking out his tongue like a little kid.

Since this was settled, we both signed up to go with Dr. Carver and, amazingly, each of us was accepted. Once we had been notified of our selection, we informed our parents, packed the things Dr. Carver suggested we would need to take with us and then we boarded a plane with him, his graduate assistant and eight other students. The flight wasn’t too bad, but when we disembarked in Guatemala, Greer and I got our first surprise.

We thought we were used to being in hot climates, since we had grown up in Southern California and then chose to go to college in Arizona, but those places did little to prepare us for the heat, humidity and the various wildlife and bugs we encountered after we got to Tikal. The site Dr. Carver had discovered was slightly less than two miles from the popular and well-known Uaxactun temple grouping, but it was in an extremely overgrown part of the jungle, which appeared to have remained undisturbed for centuries. Once we established the temporary camp we would work out of, Dr. Carver immediately gave each of us an assignment and put everyone to work.

Since he knew Greer and I were close, he allowed us to work together excavating one side of a possible subterranean stone structure. I say it this way because what he’d found appeared to be merely a small stone base, the type the Mayans might have been preparing as the foundation for another temple, but then failed to complete it. Dr. Carver had used ground-penetrating radar to test the site the previous year, before he left for the season, and was convinced there was something beneath this surface structure. Now, we were looking for a way to get into it.

When he first told us this, we were excited and attacked our job with a great deal of enthusiasm, but by the third day we were beginning to develop blisters, even though we were wearing gloves in this stifling heat. This made us wonder how long we were going to have to continue on in this fashion, and of course, Greer started his bitching again.

“Damn, I should have just gone into construction,” he griped. “At least then I’d have machinery and power tools to work with and wouldn’t be digging around in the dirt with tools initially designed during the eighteenth century.”

“Yeah, I know it’s not easy, but just think about how good you will feel and the recognition you’ll receive if we actually find something important. We might even become international celebrities,” I suggested, hoping this might be enough to placate him.

“Oh, we’ll become famous alright, as the two doofuses who wasted our lives digging in ancient sandboxes,” Greer quipped, in response.

We kept working and slowly made our way beneath the set of surface blocks, so we could begin to examine if there was anything beneath this large stone base, no matter how difficult or boring the work was. Late on the eighth day, Greer shocked me when he screamed out.

“Jarrett, I think I’ve found something,” he stated, with great deal of excitement. “I’ve uncovered a rather large stone, but I think it’s too smooth to be natural. I have a feeling it might have been put here to hide something, like the entrance into the chamber that Dr. Carver believes is here.”

“Let me go get him then, because he should be the one to decide what he wants us to do next,” I offered.

Greer agreed, so I ran off to find Dr. Carver. When we got back, Dr. Carver examined the area and the object quite closely and agreed with Greer’s initial assessment. He then suggested we take our time uncovering it, however, just in case there might be other artifacts in the same area, because we wouldn’t want to destroy such things in our haste to uncover the entrance, if this is what it truly is.

Over the next day and a half, Dr. Carver helped us dig around this large piece of rock until it was completely uncovered, and then he got the others to help us move it away. Slowly, an opening came into view.

“We’ve done it! We’ve found the entrance to the hidden chamber! I’ll bet it’s probably filled with treasure!” Greer shouted, like a conquering hero.

“Easy, son. Although this might lead to the chamber, it might also be something entirely different, like the covering used to protect a well or hide a food storage area from animals. There may not be any treasure or anything important at all. We’ll have to take our time and investigate it very carefully, before we can determine what it is.”

Greer eventually calmed down a bit, but he still hoped this was the entrance to the hidden chamber. We allowed Dr. Carver time to investigate the area beyond more closely, but it was getting dark and there wasn’t sufficient time to do what he wanted. We were slightly disappointed, but we understood these things take time, so we spent the rest of the night wondering what the stone might have been protecting.

The following morning, once we’d eaten and Dr. Carver was ready to see what was beyond the initial opening, he told Greer and I that he wanted us to join him, since we had uncovered it in the first place. He told everyone else to continue working on their previous assignments though, since he didn’t want them milling around or trying to follow us into the shaft. He was afraid that one of them might unintentionally destroy some archeological evidence that might be there and he wanted to protect everything the ancient Mayans had left behind.

Once Dr. Carver determined it was safe to proceed, we each grabbed a lantern and began to make our way along the tunnel-like passage. We had to get down on all fours since the opening was short and narrow. We followed Dr. Carver, so he could determine if there was anything we should stop and investigate along the way. Luckily, the passage had a stone floor, so we didn’t have to dig our way in or sift through the dirt below us before we could proceed.

The tunnel sloped gradually downward, so we continued moving farther beneath the surface the entire time. After about forty-five minutes of moving along it in this fashion, since Dr. Carver was inspecting every inch carefully as we proceeded forward, until we ended up reaching a small chamber. The area was a little over six feet high and ten feet square, and in the center there was a large, stone structure, which appeared to me as if it might be a sarcophagus. Looking at it, I wondered if it might possibly contain the remains of some important person from the ancient Mayan culture.

“I believe this is the chamber the ground penetrating radar had revealed,” Dr. Carver told us, “but we must go back outside for now. We’ll need to gather up some tools to bring back with us, along with a camera to record our findings, before we are able to do anything more. When we return we’ll map out the space and take pictures of the entire area, including the symbols on the walls, and then we’ll see if there is anything beneath that stone lid.”

He said the last part while pointing at the stone structure that I assumed to be a sarcophagus, but I was focused on something else that he had said.

“There are symbols on the wall?” I asked, rhetorically, as I began looking around more carefully.

I guess I’d been so fixated on the large stone container in the center of the chamber that I’d failed to notice the charcoal like images that were sketched upon all four interior walls. Anyway, Dr. Carver now encouraged us to leave again, even though Greer and I didn’t wanted to go so soon. Slowly, the three of us climbed back along the tunnel, as we retraced the path we’d followed when we first entered the chamber.

Once we were back with the others, we spent hours answering a myriad of questions from them, since they wanted to know what we’d discovered. After we told them what we saw, we spent a little more time speculating about what the symbols would tell us and what might be hidden beneath the massive lid of the large, stone sarcophagus, if that’s what it truly was.

After a restless night’s sleep, which was the direct result of the anticipation we were all feeling, we made our way back into the chamber. This time, however, Dr. Carver asked his graduate assistant to join us, because he wanted her to photograph the drawings on each of the walls, as well as make a sketch of the entire chamber on a notepad. He told Greer and I that he’d be using us to help him measure the entire area, so we could give his grad assistant the precise dimensions for everything, since he’d also had us bring along a lengthy tape measure. After we’d finished that task, Dr. Carver told Greer and I that we would then help him open and investigate the stone container, so we could see what, if anything, was inside.

As the graduate assistant drew a quick diagram of the chamber, she also assigned numbers to each of the walls on her sketch, so she would know which photos she would be taking later were of which wall, while the rest of us slowly measured the area. We soon discovered that we had been fairly correct when judging the height of the chamber, which turned out to be 6 feet, 5 inches, but we had been slightly off when judging the actual dimensions of the area. This happened because we thought the sarcophagus was most likely a fairly standard six feet long, which would have accommodated most individuals of that time period, but instead it turned out to be approximately eight feet in length, four feet wide and three feet tall. Since we’d misjudged the container by so much, it had also led us to misgauge the size of the chamber, which turned out to be a nearly 12 foot square, so it was much larger than we’d first assumed,

Once the diagram had been made and the measurements had been taken, the graduate assistant began taking photographs of the figures on the four walls, while the three of us worked at prying the lid off of the sarcophagus. It was extremely heavy and quite a project for the small crowbars we had brought in with us, so after a Herculean effort on our part, we finally slid it far enough to one side so we could at least get a peek inside. After we had done that, we lifted one of the lanterns, shone its light inside and tried to see what was there. We immediately caught a glint of light reflecting off some metallic objects in the interior, and at least a few of them appeared to be made of gold, but we could also make out a skeleton, which of course we had expected might be there.

“Um, does that look normal to you or is the skull deformed?” I asked, as soon as I peered inside.

“It definitely looks strange, but the opening isn’t large enough yet for us to get a good look at it. What you’re seeing might only be the shadows that are making it look strange or there could be something else lying up against it and giving it that odd quality,” Dr. Carver replied. “We won’t be able to tell for certain until we have completely removed the lid, but we’ll have to go back out first, because we’ll need to cut some of the 2 x 4s we brought with us. We’ll then prop them between the base of the wall and the side of the sarcophagus, so we can use them to slide the lid off without damaging it or the wall too badly.”

We agreed with his suggestion, so while Greer and I were measuring what length the 2 x 4 would need to be, Dr. Carver was telling his graduate assistant to continue photographing while we were gone. He instructed her to thoroughly catalogue the images on the wall that we were going to slide the lid up against before we got back, otherwise we might cover up some of the images before she’d have time to record them. Then, the three of us crawled out again, so we could retrieve the required pieces of lumber.

After we measured and cut the 2 x 4s to the appropriate lengths, we dragged them back in with us, propped them into place and then the three of us began the taxing effort of removing the lid. Once we got it past the halfway point, gravity took over and helped us out, but before that happened we looped ropes around the corners of the lid, so the four of us could attempt to let it down gently and prevent it from slamming into the wall and cause damage. Once the lid had been completely removed, we examined the contents of the sarcophagus again, but this time more closely.

“You were correct, the skull does appear to be deformed,” Dr. Carver admitted.

“Do you think it was made that way intentionally, like they sometimes did by binding it with cloth, or did it just grow like that?” Greer followed.

The reason Greer asked that question was because the skull was extremely elongated and we had learned that some cultures thought it was a sign of beauty to bind their infants’ heads so the skull would grow this way.

“It’s hard to say, but my best guess is that it isn’t a normal occurrence,” Dr. Carver replied.

“Why the heck would anyone willingly do that to someone?” Greer followed. “It looks hideous, not beautiful.”

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and people usually do things like that to imitate something they’d seen and wish to honor,” Dr. Carver explained. “This practice also seems to have been common in ancient Egypt, because some sculptures, drawings and a few mummies have shown similar deformities, it makes you wonder what these cultures saw that they wanted to emulate in this fashion?”

“Do you think it was space aliens, like I’ve heard some people suggest?” Greer followed.

“As a scientist, that would be a wild and unfounded speculation, but just between us, I wouldn’t immediately rule out the idea either,” Dr. Carver explained.

While they had been talking, I was doing my own investigation.

“Fuck, the skeleton measures over seven feet tall, maybe closer to eight, if there was more than just bones and it still had skin and muscles attached to it!” I exclaimed, after checking the tape measure. “I didn’t know Mayans grew to be that tall.”

“They didn’t, at least not that I am aware of,” Dr. Carver confirmed. “We’ll have to do some follow-up testing on the skeleton later, when we get it back to the University, so we can determine why it’s so unusual.”

Now, we focused on the other items that were in with the skeleton. There were three objects that appeared to be made of gold, and I quickly discovered I had seen pictures of similar items before, in photo collections of artifacts that had been discovered at different sites. There was the golden form of what some people referred to as a bird, because it had wings, but I thought it more closely resembled the fuselage of a spacecraft and the tail looked as if it was off of an airplane, not some living creature that could fly. The second figure was what has been previously described as a turtle, and although it did seem to have the various anatomical parts, they were all pulled tightly against the body, which made it more closely resemble what I would consider to be a flying saucer. The last of these golden objects was a human form, but it was wearing some sort of strange headdress. Actually, the figure seemed to resemble someone in a spacesuit, rather than a Mayan warrior or priest.

After diagramming where each of the objects had been located inside the sarcophagus, we examined the next item that was there, which was a crystal skull. Other crystal skulls had been discovered previously, but I’d only seen one other that appeared to be as flawlessly crafted as this one, although my ability to examine it was limited.

The final artifact was a metal tablet that had been placed on the chest of the skeleton. My first guess would be to say it was made out of silver, not gold, and there was something etched into it. Dr. Carver had his graduate assistant take pictures of the tablet, so we could examine it more closely, and it appeared to be divided into four distinct sections, with various symbols etched into each area.

“Can you tell what it says or what those symbols mean?” I asked Dr. Carver.

“My impression is that they are four different styles of writing, but I’d need someone more knowledgeable in ancient languages to make that decision for certain,” Dr. Carver replied. “With my limited expertise though, the top left hand section contains Mayan logosyllabic symbols, which I am somewhat familiar with, and the top right side appears to be Egyptian hieroglyphs. The lower left section looks to be in Greek, presumably, ancient Greek, but I’m not certain what the bottom right side is.”

“I’m not positive, but I think I saw something similar to that in one of my other classes,” I responded. “It looks like Sumerian cuneiform writing.”

“That very well might be,” Dr. Carver concurred, “but it leads me to my next question. How did the ancient Mayans know about those other writing styles, since I have never heard of them having any contact with those other ancient peoples?”

That was a truly interesting point and made us begin to question everything we knew up to this point. How were we going to explain this unusual skeleton and collection of artifacts, since much of it wasn’t matching up to our previous knowledge? We now realized this was going to be a long, drawn out process, so for the rest of our time there, we made notes, took photographs, catalogued and diagramed everything we’d discovered and then packed it all up to transport back with us to the University for further study. All in all, it was a very rewarding experience and I believe Greer was glad that I had talked him into doing this.

Once we got back to the States, Greer and I took a little time off next, so we could go home and spend some time with our families before we started classes again. Throughout that entire time, however, we couldn’t stop thinking about everything we had discovered and the follow up research we were going to have to perform when we got back to school.

We both told our parents about our little adventure, although we had previously agreed not to give them too many details about what we’d found, so we didn’t cause them to stress out or worry about us. We basically just told them that it was a wonderful experience, that we’d discovered a tomb and there were some gold artifacts there, but we didn’t describe them in detail. They treated us both as if we were Howard Carter, the archeologist who’d discovered King Tut’s tomb, but we told them that honor would go to Dr. Carver, especially if this discovery proved as significant as we thought it might be.

Once we returned to the University, we immediately went over to see Dr. Carver, to find out what he wanted us to do next. Before he did that though, he had some interesting news for us.

“I’ve been going over the pictures that were taken of the walls and I think I’ve figured out what they mean,” he began. “The inscriptions, as best I can make out, tell us that we found the tomb of Quetzacan, whom they claim was the son of the Star God.”

“What exactly does that mean?” I asked.

“I’m not quite sure, but it seems as if this was the tomb of a very revered figure, although I’m having trouble figuring out if he was a priest or a chieftain. He was greatly respected, however, as judged by the artifacts that had been placed in with his remains in the tomb. Not only that, but from what I can make out from the date inscriptions that were also drawn onto the wall, this would be the oldest Mayan site anyone has ever discovered and would predate every other Mayan ruin that we currently know exists.”

“Wow, that’s really impressive!” I agreed, while thinking this might have been one of the very first important Mayan leaders.

“Son of the Star God. Does that mean he was an extra-terrestrial?” Greer followed.

“I’m not going out on a limb and make a determination like that, but shortly after we got back I didn’t a bunch of things that might help us answer that question,” Dr. Carver replied. “I asked a geneticist to extract DNA from the skeleton and test it, but I also gave a photograph of the tablet to a linguist, so he could decipher the inscriptions. I gave the tablet itself to a metallurgist, because I’m not convinced it’s made of silver and I think it’s important for us to know for certain what the metal is, since that my sway our determination of its importance.

“For your assignment,” he continued, “I want you boys to scan each of the artifacts we brought back, so we’ll have an accurate 3-D image of each artifact in the computer. That way, we can manipulate the images so we can study each item in more depth to determine its significance and purpose for being placed in with the skeleton, as well as studying how each piece was crafted.”

We were eager to do as we were asked, but seeing Greer and I would also have to find time to do our studying and complete any assignments we were given, in between going to classes, it was going to take us quite a while to complete this project. Dr. Carver didn’t have a problem with this and understood our other obligations, but we did take some time out that week to scan the first item, which was the golden bird or airplane, depending on your perspective. Just as we were finishing up with that project, Dr. Carver came in to speak with us again.

“The linguist just handed me the report concerning his findings about the tablet we discovered and you were correct,” he stated, while looking at me. “The last quadrant on it was in cuneiform and each section basically stated the same thing. He interprets it to say ‘I Quetzacan, son of the Star God, command my people to watch the heavens for my father’s return. He will appear to you once more, so you may honor him and he can reward you.’ I’m not exactly sure what that is supposed to mean, but the same thing was stated in each of the four languages.”

“Like the Rosetta Stone,” Greer observed, referring to the stone tablet deciphered by Champollion, which had been written in Egyptian Hieroglyphics, Demotic script and Ancient Greek.

“It basically serves the same purpose,” Dr. Carver confirmed, “but we still have no idea how the ancient Mayans would have known about those other three languages. At least when it came to the Rosetta Stone, the Egyptians were using the hieroglyphs and Demotic script, and when the Ptolemys ruled Egypt, they would have brought with them their native tongue, which was Greek. In this case, we have no idea how the Mayans could have come across those other writing styles.”

This was indeed a mystery, but it was not something we were going to find the answer to either quickly or easily. With that in mind, Greer and I left to attend our next class.

We didn’t find another opportunity to work on the artifacts for several more days, but when we did, we started scanning the turtle or flying saucer, which ever you’d prefer to call it. We had just started our scan when Dr. Carver came rushing in, all excited.

“I’m glad you boys are here!” he exclaimed, nearly breathless. “I have enormous news to share with you about some key findings that have been made since I last saw you. First, the metallurgist ran multiple tests on the tablet and has determined that the metal is of unknown origin and there is no equivalent for it on earth.”

“Then where did it come from?” Greer wondered.

“That’s a very good question, but we only know it isn’t of this world,” Dr. Carver confirmed, “but there is more. The geneticist got the results back from his tests as well and informed me that they were completely unexpected and shocking. He explained that humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, but the skeleton we discovered had 32 pairs instead and none of the additional pairs have any correlation to anything geneticists are currently familiar with.”

“So they were extra-terrestrials,” I gasped, hardly able to believe what I was saying.

“The evidence is mounting up that would point toward that conclusion,” Dr. Carver acknowledged. “The misshapen, elongated skull, the nearly eight-foot tall remains, the unknown metal in the tablet, the unexplained way the Mayans could have known all four languages on it, plus the multiple interpretations of the various artifacts all seem to point to an otherworldly explanation. Not only that, but I’ve also examined the crystal skull and have concluded it would have been nearly impossible for a primitive culture to produce, since it is so smooth and there are no tool marks on it at all. This would indicate that it had either been machined and polished or created by the use of laser technology, neither of which the ancient Mayans would have possessed.”

“Damn, this is getting spooky,” I noted.

Greer and I then returned to our work and scanned the last golden artifact, the human figure that appeared to be wearing a spacesuit. We now had all three of the golden artifacts scanned, so all that left was to do was the crystal skull, which we planned to scan on Saturday.

On our way back to the dorm, Greer and I began to discuss the implications of our earlier conversation with Dr. Carver and wondered if there might be other, more plausible explanations for everything. Try as we might, we kept coming back to the same conclusion we had earlier. It was looking more and more as if the Mayan gods had actually come from the stars, as the Mayan folklore had always claimed.

Saturday morning, Greer and I rushed over to the office where we’d been working, so we could begin our scan of the crystal skull. It had been going on for quite a while when something strange started to happen. The crystal skull suddenly began to glow and gave off an array of brightly colored lights.

“Jarrett, what the hell is going on?” Greer nearly screamed.

“I don’t know, but I’m going to call Dr. Carver and ask him to come over,” I answered, but I quickly discovered my cell phone wasn’t working.

“Damn, the batteries must be dead, but they shouldn’t be,” I observed, mostly for my own benefit. “I’m going into the other room and use the land line to call him.”

Greer merely nodded his head, as he continued to stare at the crystal skull. It was almost as if he was hypnotized by the brilliant colors emanating from it. I didn’t have time to think about this though and went into the other room to make my call. After explaining to Dr. Carver about what was going on, he told me that he was on his way over and would be here shortly, so I went back into the other room with Greer. When I returned, I suddenly noticed something else.

“What the hell is that on the computer screen?” I asked. “Were you doing something on the laptop while I was gone?”

“No, I haven’t touched it,” Greer replied, as a series of strange symbols continued to scroll onto the screen.

By the time Dr. Carver arrived, the laptop had already been doing this for quite some time. We had thought about trying to stop it, but Greer and I were afraid we’d lose the information and we wanted Dr. Carver to see it first, so he would not only know what was there, but he could also observe it happening. When he arrived, we quickly filled him in and then he watched what was taking place on the computer screen with us.

“I’m not sure what those symbols are,” Dr. Carver informed us, “but they bear a slight resemblance to Mayan, although at other times they appear nothing like Mayan at all.”

“I’ve heard that crystals can be used to store information, so do you think the crystal skull might be acting like a mega flash drive and feeding the laptop those images?” I wondered. “I mean, all of these strange events seemed to start happening shortly after we began scanning the crystal skull, so do you think it’s possible? Maybe we inadvertently activated some sort of program, or maybe even a whole bunch of programs, that were stored in the crystal skull when we started the scan.”

“I don’t know for sure, but I guess that might be possible,” Dr. Carver replied. “It’s as good an answer as anything I might come up with.”

We watched for another thirty minutes before something new appeared on the screen.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“I believe it’s some sort of star chart,” Dr. Carver stated. “I’m not positive, but looking at the three highlighted stars, I assume they are meant to represent Orion’s belt, so this must be the entire Orion constellation. Just to be sure, I want you to snap a photo of it, while I call someone I know who’s into astronomy.”

While I was taking the snapshot, Dr. Carver moved into the other room to make his call. When he came back, he informed us the person was on his way and would be here shortly. While we waited, the computer started doing something else.

“What the hell is going on?” I wondered.

“I’m not certain, but I’d say your laptop is tapping into the WiFi and trying to make some kind of a connection, because those look like URL protocols,” Dr. Carver stated. “From the looks of things, it seems to be searching for a fairly specific destination.”

“Should we shut it down?” I asked next.

“That might be wise,” Dr. Carver concurred, “since we’re not sure what it’s trying to do.”

I quickly moved forward and tried to shut the laptop off using the power button, but the laptop wouldn’t respond. Instead, it continued on as before.

“Damn, it won’t turn off,” I muttered, while wondering why this wasn’t working.

“Here, let me remove the battery,” Greer offered. “That should do the trick.”

However, when he attempted to do that, Greer received a shock that seemed to be much stronger than he should have received from just a battery. If I were to guess why, I would say the laptop seemed to be drawing power from some other nearby electrical source as well.

“Damn, that hurt,” Greer complained, after getting knocked to the floor.

When he got up, he was shaking his arm, since it was still tingling. At the same time, Dr. Carver and I were attempting to come up with another way to disconnect the laptop when Dr. Carver’s astronomy contact showed up.

“I’d like you to look at this photo and tell me what constellation it represents,” Dr. Carver announced. “My guess is Orion.”

“I can see why you might think that,” the man agreed, “but it’s not the Orion constellation. This configuration is Cygnus, or the swan constellation.”

“But aren’t the three highlighted stars from Orion’s belt,” Dr. Carver pressed.

“They are very similar in size and how they are positioned next to each other, but those three stars connect the wings to the body of the swan. That’s why some astronomers argue these three stars more closely represent the alignment of the three major pyramids in Egypt, rather than the stars in Orion’s belt. If you use the stars in Orion’s belt to explain why the pyramids were built where they were, you’d have to invert the location of the pyramids, or turn the constellation upside down in order to have them align correctly.”

Damn, we were learning a lot and I believe we now knew where these ancient astronauts might have come from. As Greer and I were thinking about this, Dr. Carver was saying goodbye to his friend and then we went back to trying to determine how to correct our current predicament.

“Crap, something else is happening now!” Greer exclaimed, which caused Dr. Carver and I to look toward the screen at the same time.

“It appears it has connected to something, although I’m not sure to what,” Dr. Carver announced, “but it’s now doing something else, possibly sending some sort of a message.”

We watched what was going on for another half-hour before there was an unexpected knock at the door to the office. Dr. Carver went over to answer it and discovered two State Police officers standing on the other side.

“Yes, may I help you?” Dr. Carver asked.

“We received a phone call from NASA telling us that someone at this location was hacking into their system,” one of the officers informed us.

“Is that what it’s doing,” Dr. Carver mused aloud. “We had no idea.”

“Then who is doing it, if you don’t know what’s happening?” the other officer asked, confused.

“We’re not sure, but we’ve been unable to disconnect it,” Dr. Carver stated. “I’m not sure if someone else from outside the University has hacked into us or if something else is involved, but it’s freaky.”

Dr. Carver then went on to explain to the two individuals about our archeological discoveries, the unexplained findings and what happened when we were scanning the crystal skull. I could almost hear the ‘Twilight Zone’ or ‘X Files’ theme songs going off in their heads at this point, because both officers were looking at us very skeptically. I think one of them was about to say something, when the shoulder radio he was wearing went off.

“Why haven’t you disabled the transmission,” the voice asked.

“No one here seems to know what’s going on,” the officer replied.

“NASA has reported that someone is using their equipment to send a transmission into outer space, but they are unable to decipher what it is saying,” the voice stated. “NASA says you must stop it now.”

There was a brief discussion between the State Police officers and Dr. Carver, before the officer radioed back.

“One of the professors here wants to know exactly where this transmission is being sent, because he says it might help him figure out who is responsible and how to end the transmission,” the officer replied.

There was a brief lull in the conversation until the voice on the other end spoke again.

“NASA reports it is directed toward a star or group of stars in the constellation… I think he called it sigma,” the voice answered.

“I believe he means Cygnus,” Dr. Carver corrected. “That would mean the message is definitely originating from this laptop, but we don’t know how to stop it. We’ve tried everything to turn it off, but nothing works.”

“Stand back then,” the officer suddenly ordered, as he drew his service revolver and fired several shots into the laptop.

It was enough to kill the laptop and end the transmission, but had we reacted in time? Did the message reach its destination or did we prevent it from happening? If it had been received, was the message advising those on the other end that we had advanced sufficiently for direct contact or was it warning them we were now technologically sophisticated enough to have become a threat? Should we be preparing for an ambassador extending universal friendship or will it be an invasion force bent on destroying the Earth? What if neither happens? Would that indicate there is no longer another civilization out there, if there ever was one? I guess all we can do is wait and see what happens next and pray we haven’t just opened up a can of worms.

The End

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this story, so please leave a comment or make a post in my forum. I would greatly appreciate hearing from you.

If you aren’t familiar with the phrase ‘can of worms,’ here’s a link to explain it to you. http://www.wisegeek.org/what-does-it-mean-to-open-a-can-of-worms.htm