40 miles north of Tucson, Ariz., was the town of Camillero, established in 1869 by Juan Esquivel as a refuge for La Dualidad, a cult who believed the world would end on June 14, 1873. The world did end on that date, according to Esquivel -- in a "parallel" universe. "The gods have granted us a reprieve," he said. "But our work isn't over. Only La Dualidad can avert such doom again in the year 2003."

The US Army annexed the town of Camillero and the surrounding land in 1920, ostensively for use as an artillery range; other sources claimed that Thos. Edison had urged the Army to investigate strange lights seen in the area. When the Army came to evict them, the four remaining adherents of La Dualidad chained themselves to the doors of their church to protest what they called "the unlawful seizure of our land." The commanding officer, Col. Emory, ordered that the chains be cut.

Pvt. Christopher, who worked on the chains with a spike and hammer, said that Esquivel threatened to "call down the gods," if this continued. "I felt sorry for the old man," said Christopher, "but I had a job to do."

Just as he broke a link in the chain, Christopher was struck down "as if by lightning" and in the resulting violence Esquivel and his followers were killed.

Whoever or whatever struck Christopher paralyzed the right side of his body. The Army has called the deaths of Esquivel and his followers "regrettable," and have no comment regarding the strange lights seen over what is now McKinley Proving Grounds. The Army discovered technology under the church, according to one source, which it has been trying to duplicate. "They are trying to transmit electrical power through the air," says another.

The circumstances surrounding this case warrant further investigation.

Rudolf Kranz
Westinghouse Electric Company
Pittsburgh, Penn., December 7, 1941

20 years of dust covered my desk, and I found this paper (above) in one of my drawers. I would have thrown it out if I hadn't noticed the date.

"December seventh, 1941, a date which will live in infamy..."

I was only 8 years old at the time, and frustrated that the president had interrupted my favorite program. My family gathered around the radio to listen. I wanted to find out if Captain Lightspeed could get out of the clutches of the dreaded Kraken in time to save Molly Evelyn, but the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

The next day my older brother Rick ran off to join the marines, and a year later he was MIA on Guadalcanal. Captain Lightspeed never returned to the airwaves, and they never found my brother.

The paper must have been misplaced on account of the war -- Westinghouse started doing a lot of work for the Department of Defense.

Rudolf Kranz died overseas while installing some kind of radar on the island of Attu. There's a picture of him in the hall, on the way to the restroom.

I suppose they never did investigate those lights around the McKinley Proving Grounds. Maybe they should, but it all sounds like something out of Captain Lightspeed. I'm sending this paper along to you, because I know you like this sort of thing. Maybe you can make some sense out of it.

Yours truly,

Frank Boucher
Westinghouse Electric Company
Pittsburgh, Penn., November 22, 1963

These papers turned up at the inquest. While the first shares a date with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the second too has historical significance.

On November 22, 1963, President Nixon gave his "Hands off!" speech on the island of Cuba, committing the US to a more active role in Latin America. "There will be no expansion of Communism into the Western Hemisphere," he said. This policy culminated in the firebombing of San Salvador in 1967, in which more than 114,000 men, women, and children lost their lives.

Westinghouse Electric Company developed the "smart bomb" technology used in various conflicts throughout the region.

Perhaps the first paper _should_ sound "like something out of Captain Lightspeed." Rudolf Kranz did some ghostwriting for that program, a scientifiction serial, broadcast by Pittsburgh radio station KDKA. He considered the fields of electronics and scientifiction inextricably linked. "I grew up reading Modern Electronics," he said, in a 1939 interview, "where scientifiction took shape in the capable hands of Hugo Gernsbach, as a novel way to popularize science and technology. I started reading the magazine for the scientifiction, and soon found myself building a ham radio..."

Regarding the Adventures of Captain Lightspeed, Kranz said, "I want to educate my listeners, as well as entertain them."

He found the producers at KDKA enthusiastic about this brand of scientifiction.

One producer recalled, "Ours was the first commercial radio station in the world, established by Westinghouse in 1920. It continued to be owned and operated by Westinghouse until it went off the air in 1978. The head guys always wanted us to advertise _between_ commercials. 'Product placement,' they called it. 'Scientifiction,' Kranz told us, 'is uniquely suited for product placement.'

"I first met him in 1936. 'My God!' I thought, shaking his hand, 'It's the ghost of Abe Lincoln!'

"He wrote 216 episodes of 'The Adventures of Captain Lightspeed.' It wasn't unusual for Westinghouse employees to moonlight as ghostwriters at KDKA, before the war. They needed the money. Especially Kranz! They say he had a marijuana habit..."

It has become increasingly difficult to judge the authenticity of the first paper. The Army annexed "a ghost town," according to Military records, "and forcibly removed some Mexican vagrants."

Kranz apparently got his information about Juan Esquivel and his cult from the Spanish language paper El Vaquero Dará a Luz, which is notorious for tales of vampires, ghosts, and miracles.

Kranz himself, as Frank Boucher pointed out, died on the island of Attu. In June of 1949 he was installing particle beam weapons (not radar equipment) to defend the Aleutians from a Soviet invasion.

If the Soviets crossed the 38th parallel in Japan, the air base on Attu would play a pivotal role in the conflict. Of course, the Soviets did not attack; Kranz died of alcohol poisoning.

The strange lights seen over the McKinley Proving Grounds were, presumably, the prototypes of those particle beam weapons. The US Army has made no comment.

Lois Crampon
Edison Electric Corporation
Detroit, Mich., March 31, 1981

Those strange lights were indeed the prototypes of particle beam weapons. Edison and Westinghouse fought for control of this technology, which had saved the world in 1873.

Westinghouse soon brought in Tesla, who made short work of the marvels that Esquivel had left behind.

In 1923, Tesla demonstrated a scaled-down "death ray."

In 1927, Tesla demonstrated a thought projector.

He used this thought projector, which transmits images from the brain onto a screen, in a 1933 presentation to the Rooservelt administration. One member called it "a Picasso set in motion."

"A Hollywood stunt," said another, "meant to distract us from the Great Depression."

Tesla continued to develop this technology for Westinghouse, while deciphering Esquivel's notebooks.

In a 1940 interview with the New York Times, Tesla proposed a full-sized "death ray," which could "melt airplane motors at a distance of 250 miles... and ignite the explosives aboard any bomber."

"A series of these death rays," he said, "placed along the coast of the United States, would become an invisible Shield of Defense against any enemy attack from the air."

The Rooservelt administration took notice sometime after Pearl Harbor, when the Germans appeared on the verge of this technology--

Which is finally going to serve its real purpose this year. The asteroids, predicted more than a century ago by Esquivel, are in our sights.

Ernest Dahl
DiQuantum Information Systems
Madison, Wis., May 14, 2003

The End

Bio

Andy Miller's writing has appeared in Strange Horizons, Space & Time, Ideomancer, and other publications online and in print. He lives in Virginia.