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[Author's Note]
This is a continuation of sections deleted from an earlier version of Falling Star. These sectionsdetailed the investigation in 1967-1970 to determine what was the anomalous signal detected bythe Navy geo-magnetic survey.The sections were deleted by me after agents, with whom I spoke, said that the differing timeperiods were confusing.Thanks for reading my effort.Phil
 
 Discovery 1967Blip...Blip...Blip.... the sound of the side scan sonar filled the darkened instrumentationroom onboard the U.S.S. Marysville as she maintained a straight heading under the skillful watchof Captain George Vander, U.S.N.Up on the bridge behind Captain Vander, Fred Evans poured over the charts with CaptainVander's navigator, Lieutenant Bo Smithers. Using dividers and rulers to plot their currentposition, Evans satisfied himself that their course was exactly the same as the transect, theLockheed P-3B Orion had flown months before. The task was not that easy.Consider trying to remotely tow a car using a cable deployed from an airplane over threemiles up and several miles ahead. A rather formidable job that challenged even the time-triedskills of George Vander, cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth and a steaming cup of hot black coffee in his weathered left hand.In the instrumentation room, several levels below decks, designed to be at the center of gravity of the vessel, Ensign Mike Liu, Lt. Commander Bob McHugh and Tom Sevson crowdedbehind the Western Light sonar technician; the greenish cathode ray tubes displayed a line byline return of the side scan sonar. Mike thought to himself, "How unlike the Lloyd Bridgesmovies or all the submarine movies he had ever seen. The sonar should sound like a ping, ping,ping sound in a gurgling background. Not blip, blip, blip.The only other sounds in the darkened room were the scratchy noises made by the penregisters as they recorded the images now being laid out on the CRTs. If it weren't for the softrolling of the Marysville, there would have been no indication that Mike was even at sea.On another cathode ray tube, an oscilloscope plotted the readings from the metastable-helium magnetometer many miles below. A pen register also recorded the magnetometerreadings on a continuous strip of chart paper. Despite Tom Sevson's concerns, the spunfiberglass housing of the magnetometer stood up to the tremendous pressures of the depths.The trace on the oscilloscope held steady, a faint greenish line followed the brightergreen dot that ran left to right across the circular screen. Except for occasional jiggles of thetrace, which could be accounted for by changes in the local magnetic background of the oceanbottom, nothing unusual had occurred."Any more theories on the magnetic anomaly, Bob?" asked Tom Sevson.The ever present half smoked cigar dangling from the corner of his mouth, Bob McHughwas adsorbed in thought. Absentmindedly, McHugh said, "Nothing radical, Tom, if it isRussian, then we are in deep trouble. We aren't able to deploy a sizeable station at that depth forany period of time. Based on the magnetometer readings this thing, whatever it is, is substantial.If your Nematode, or whatever you call it, can help us locate the source of this anomaly, we canget down there with the Trieste for a view."
 
 "Don't we have sonar arrays deployed at those depths?""No, our SOSUS nets are generally deployed at much shallower depths. No submarinesare known to be able to dive to the depths associated with the anomaly. If the Russians have asubmarine capable of that depth, they could lie in the submarine canyons off of Santa CatalinaIsland and be within thirty miles of Los Angeles and not be detected by our SOSUS nets.""Holy shit!" said Tom Sevson, sinking into a green leather chair. "God, it's Cuba all overagain!""Let's not jump to conclusions, Tom. We have no knowledge that the Russians have thatkind of technology. If they did, I think we would have heard by now.""Bob, I think you'd better see this," interrupted Mike Liu, who had been looking over theshoulder of the Western Light technician. Both McHugh and Sevson quickly clustered behindthe technician monitoring the oscilloscope. The green trace was rising steadily, not dramatic jumps, but steadily. Blip..Blip..Blip... as each trace ran across the face of the oscilloscope, thetension in the instrumentation room grew."Commander, we have a reading on the sonar," called out Sonar Technician First ClassJeff Smartt. Bob McHugh walked across the small room to stand behind Smartt. On the CRT,the greenish lines were definitely displaying something. Mike Liu and Tom Sevson joinedMcHugh. More lines were painted vertically on the screen. Each new line gave a betterindication of the shape and size of whatever the side scan sonar saw.As the object began filling the screen of the CRT, McHugh asked the operator to turn on abackup plotter. McHugh went to the plotters and what he saw was something big, as big as afootball field, and oval in cross section. This was not a natural feature like a rock outcropping orfault line.What McHugh saw would forever change history.
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