joint projects
Week 5
Simon's Weblog
Monday September 1st
Today I can report a successful lifter experiment, and we are both very pleased.
We got it to climb to almost three and a half feet, which is pretty good considering how simple it is. It does look pretty good just floating in the air, although I did find Kyp’s insistence at spot lighting the lift off was a little over the top.
Still, I guess that even NASA has rather a penchant for theatricality when it comes to their launches.
With or without the spot, it still looked great, and a great deal more impressive the levitating a small magnet. This time you can hardly believe your eyes, but then again the best illusions are great because they are real.
We got hammered in the evening, and agreed to start some larger force field experiments this week, maybe take it out to the forest and try it. which is quite exciting.
However, I spent the walk home mainly dreaming of fleets of large lifters traversing the air above the streets, safely and silently winging drunks to their beds.
At the time the idea seemed to warrant a Noble Prize, but on sober reflection was a little over the top, and riddled with health and safety issues, not least of all the guarantee of drunks pissing on you from above.
A lot of good science would work if it weren’t for the people it attempts to help.
Tuesday September 2nd
Much of today was taken up with the mundane task of clearing up the lab, and making a big enough pathway through the hut to get the magnatron and generator out of the building.
Tomorrow will be quite an important day, as we are taking the mobile field unit out and conducting our first substantial Force Field Experiment.
We have found an area in the forest called Boulderwood, which seems to be a good place to go. It is secluded, has a high level of humidity and has little in the way of naturally occurring background magnetic fields.
After the clearing up, we ran safety tests on all the machines, it took a while to get it all up and running, but they were all fine.
Strangely and rather cautiously for Kip, he suggested that we did not pack up the machines until, first thing tomorrow, so we could give them a final check in the morning before we decamped.
This unwarranted act of scientific procedure is most unlike him, and makes me think that he is worried about something. He was also strangely edgy when we left the lab, and he kept on checking that all the doors were secure, and that no one could see in through the windows. Obvious precautions I admit, but not ones that usually take forty-five minutes.
He also asked for some of my notes and readings to go over tonight, which is also most out of character, as Kyp and numbers have the same sort of relationship as, well, clowns and fun.
Hopefully tomorrow’s tests will put both our minds at rest.
Wednesday September 3rd
Well today was a bit of a non-starter, as we did not actually make it out of the door with any of the equipment, which is most frustrating. Essentially, the thermostat on the humidifier seems to be malfunctioning, and so we could not take any accurate readings. Therefore, much to Kyp’s dismay I called a halt today’s activity. He wanted to go ahead and just see what happened, which I pointed out was not only pointless, as we would not know what had happened without the relevant data, but could also be highly dangerous, considering the voltage we are playing with.
Kyp finally came round to this idea, but only after he had growled on about ‘Strange forces ruining our experiments’. I tried to ignore this and get on with the job in hand,
But eventually got drawn into his strange world of blame and conspiracy.
It’s very odd how some people find these thoughts of black helicopters, reverse engineering, Government Mind control programmes (known otherwise to any reasonable person as the media) strangely comforting. I blame the collapse of the ‘Grand Narrative’ for this, but also a kind of perverse creeping existential angst, where conspiracy theorists believe that knowledge and not action is what makes them free, or as free as can be from the greys or the lizards or what ever flavour monster might be in this year.
Although, it is quite interesting, from a psychological point of view, that most alien abductees are know claiming to be whisked way by the ‘satanic’ lizards, as opposed to the more ‘angelic’ Greys.
My favourite conspiracy theory I heard recently is that The Industrial Revolution was kick started by an alien race as an exercise in terra forming the earth, to produce a more suitable, carbon monoxide rich atmosphere suitable for there breathing needs.
And there was me, thinking it was about capitalism, engineering and imperial expansion.
Many people use the terra forming idea to draw a link between the Lizards, the American Government, and their refusal to sign up to the Kyoto Agreement.
It’s amazingly creative thing the human mind when it wants to be.
Thursday September 4th
Black Thursday. Today it all went terribly wrong. There was some kind of explosion in
Shed four. I don’t want to say too much about it, as I really do not know what happened.
The explosion, although small, seems to have lead to a strange set of events inside the laboratory, which after discussing with Kyp, we have decided not to divulge.
The problem seems to have started with a malfunction in the circuit breaker in shed 4.
Luckily neither of us were hurt, and we quickly got it under control before the flames could take hold. However, it has seemed to have shorted a few important pieces of our kit, and we will need to try and find some replacements in London at the weekend.
I’m too tired and to tell you the truth, pissed off to write anymore.
Friday September 5th
In the morning Kyp said he had some ’business’ to take care of on his computer at the lodgings so I went to the Lab on my own.
The first thing that annoyed me was that I seemed to have lost the key to the padlock . I had definitely had it on my key ring, which makes it’s disappearance quite strange, but then after the occurrences in the lab yesterday, stranger things have happened.
It was after I had searched all my pockets to no avail that I noticed a corner of what appeared to be a manila envelope,poking out from under the door.
I bent down and eased it out and looked at the address. It merely said ‘ I.F.F.E.’
In florid hand written script.
I turned the envelope over and opened it.
Inside was, a single A5 sheet of writing paper, with a note written on it in the same handwriting as on the front of the envelope.
The note read.
‘Dear, Fellow Travellers.
You do not know me, but I feel we will meet soon.
I am very interested in your current enquires, and have been following them with great interest. Due to your secrecy, I have had to result to some rather unorthodox methods to keep up to date, but none, I hope, have interfered with your work, or that you personally have found too intrusive.
I believe I have some very interesting information for you, information which I will divulge when the time comes, which I feel could be soon.
I shall be in contact soon.
Yours,
Lucas Parkes’.
I read the note again. It could be from a mad man, as it was written in green ink.
And if he was mad, then maybe he could be some kind of stalker.
I also did not like the reference he made to ‘interfering’ with our experiments.
Mr. Parkes gave no contact details, and so was obviously not into two-way communication. And what did he mean by ‘Fellow Travellers?’.
The whole thing disturbed me, but I was pulled from my thoughts by someone approaching on the gravel drive.
It was Kyp.
I instinctively put the note in my pocket and hid if from his view.
We spent the morning cataloguing the spares and equipment we needed to re order from London, and then set of at lunchtime to catch the warehouses before they shut for the weekend.
It was on the journey back that I decided not to tell Kyp about the letter, as he seems to be getting paranoid enough about all the equipment failures, and having an interloping stranger in our midst would just set him off. No, for now I shall keep this secret, until I find out more about ‘Mr Parkes intentions’.
Kyp's Weblog
WEEK 5
Monday September 1st
Finally, when I arrived back in Sway I found Simon holding a cardboard box and grinning.
‘Here you go’, he said, ‘don’t say I never get you anything, I opened it and it was what I had been waiting for, a power supply for the lifter.
I literally ran into shed three and grabbed the lifter. I plugged the power supply into the generator and attached it .
Simon was at the generator reconfiguring the out put to 20,000 volts.
The expectation in the air was exhilarating and palpable.
I looked at the lifter, made out of balsa wood foil and a bit of gaffa tape, with no moving parts, no rotors and no wings, yet theoretically, as soon as we provide the juice it will levitate.
Simon told me that we are ready to go, and I stand back and told him ‘Let it fly’.
I heard the click of the switch, and saw the lifter stay exactly where it was.
We both waited.
Nothing. Not even a wobble.
I looked at Simon, and he looked at the generator.
‘Shit, I know what it is, sorry, this will only take a minute and ducked behind the machine and I heard a few more clicking of switches.
‘The polarity was wrong, sorry, now we it should work’.
Worried by the set back, I found myself fussing with the lifter, and trying to flatten some of the more wrinkled foil.
‘Are you ready?’ Simon said and I replied in the affirmative. Bloody yes, I am ready.
I heard a switch being flicked and the hum of electricity permeate the room.
Then it happened.
The lifter finally lived up to its name and lifted, a slow but steady five feet off the floor.
It hung in the air, with a single wire attached providing the juice.
We both stood with faces only provided by witnessing the sublime. The sublime was soon replaced by self-satisfied grins as the balsa wood structure hovered in mid air, seemingly defying gravity.
It was truly a wondrous sight.
As Simon turned of the power supply channel the dwindling voltage caused the lifter, to gracefully float back to earth, until it was within ten inches of the ground when all the juice had finally ebbed out of it and it un-ceremonially fell to the ground as if it had just been dropped.
My trance was broken by Simon saying.
‘Excellent, but it would never work in a vacuum. NASA claim to have proved that.
What followed was a long discussion on the topic of ion winds, hypothetical zero pint energy fields and the possibility of electrical fields pushing against space-time, the last topic, both of us dismissing and leading to Simon launching into a spiel about the bad physics in Star Trek, including a slightly hypocritical attack on a so called ‘Gravitron’. (Quote’ I mean what the hell is a ‘Gravitron’ what it is at home? Is that what Bill Viola programmes to make his video pieces?)’.
However we were both in very good spirits and we celebrated by going to the pub, and discussed the main business at hand, the force field.
Tuesday September 2nd
We are going to conduct our first major force field experiment tomorrow.
Inspired by yesterday’s performance of the lifter, we really have a grasp of what heavily ionised air can produce,
We are sure of where to start. Good job we ditched the cold plasma idea, and stuck with good old fashioned static. We have cleared the lab to make way for a test, before taking the mobile generator and magnatron into the Forest, and bigging up the juice away from people, structures and the national grid. With the readings we get there we should be able to ascertain whether we can use the national grid and safely replicate it in a built up area.
Today was another mundane day of checks and, on Simons demand, ‘rigorous safety, and scientific procedures’. All rather unnecessary in my opinion, but if it gets the job done, then so be it.
Only one thing left me feeling uneasy today.
Last thing, I took some readings from the dew point analyser, and Simon ‘accidentally’ spilt some coffee over them, and rubbed it down with the sleeve of his lab coat.
Now, I don’t want to appear paranoid, but I’m sure the figures I had originally written down had been altered and down sized.
Simon also seemed to be acting strangely, as if he was up to something.
I think, just to prove myself, wrong I need to keep a close eye on him and his readings.
I think, I shall double-check all the results.
I’ll put it down to peer review. He will like that.
Wednesday September 3rd
A slight, but never the less highly annoying set back.
The temperature reading on the humidifier seems to have gone tits up.
Simon refuses to carry on with the experiment until it is fixed.
I’m sure he is just trying to frustrate me, but I guess he is right. It would be pointless in carrying on if we did not know what we were doing.
I spent the rest of the day on the phone to the local electricity board, as I am sure that our current is fluctuating to a ridiculous level. Tesla claimed that you could send a current through the earth safely without the use of cabling and wires.
If that’s true then you must be able to disrupt the flow of power using the same means.
That thought might be important. What possibly happened to North America and London might be happening to us. These may not be accidents, but designs.
Thursday September 4th
Jesus what a day. At about 3.15 we heard a huge bang from shed four, and the lights went out. Now, we guessed it was not the lights and ran into shed four to find the sheath vortex oscillator smouldering, and various pieces of kit wired into it arcing electricity.
Simon ran out to cut off the electricity, and I waited for his call and I threw a fire blanket over the oscillator. This seemed to calm down the small licks of flame that were starting to appear. By the time Simon ran back in, the room was full of smoke, and so visibility was quite poor, but something happened. God knows why, but Jesus, did we seem to get a result. Simon does not want us to disclose the details yet, as the details even our versions of what we saw are hazy and slightly contradictory.
However, I am now thoroughly convinced that someone is tampering with our kit in some way in an attempt to scupper the experiments. There is just too much evidence, too many accidents, for it all not to be connected. Look at last week’s false alarm. I am now of the opinion this was the direct result of someone trying to tamper with the system remotely.
As for Simon, I don’t think he is part of this, but I have learnt over the years to trust no one, and you never know he might have been duped into the attack unwittingly. And so for now I will launch my own personal investigations and introduce a special security system, that way dismissing or confirming his involvement in this plot.
The first thing I need to do is get Simon’s copy of the padlock key, which should give me sole control over who enters.
Drastic measures, but these are increasingly worrying times.
Friday September 5th
I got up early this morning and went down stairs to Simons bag. I found his keys and removed the one for the padlock. I felt strangely bad doing this, but I need to if I am to eliminate him from my suspicions.
I thought it would be better if I were not there when he made the discovery and so made some excuses about having to stay at home for ten minutes to finish something off on the computer.
When I arrived at the lab, he was standing at the door, and when he told me he had lost his key he obviously did not expect me at all.
The day was spent making an inventory of all the pieces and spares we needed to get sent up from London. Luckily the damage was quite localised, and only extended to four pieces of equipment. This will still put us out of action for a couple of days, but it could have been far worse.
We jumped on the train back to London at lunchtime, but only after I had safely secured the sheds, and did the sellotape trick again. This time I made a very small puncture mark in the tape with a compass, which left a tiny indentation in the wood. If these were not aligned when I got back, I’ll have proof that I am dealing with a very clever interloper, strategies for which I will mull over at the weekend.