The Green Stone Page 4

  Over the weekend, he took time to get to know them, to discuss their thoughts and feelings as a family confronted with the unexplained.

  On the Sunday, he sat in the living room talking to Marion and her husband, Fred. All day, Marion had felt that something might happen. Following her intuition, she had led them to a nearby field, where her children had frequently experienced strange presences and sensations. The trip was, however, uneventful and they returned to the warmth of the house to talk.

  Fred didn’t say a lot, he preferred to sit and listen. The ease with which he had accepted the bizarre claims and experiences of his family was a good sign. From the outset, he had remained objective, calmly accepting Marion’s growing interest and the visitors who came to talk to her about UFOs. He was unable to explain what had occurred, or what his children had seen, and until he could do so he would maintain an open mind.

  By now it was late evening. Upstairs the children were sound asleep. Only the voices of Andy and Marion broke the silence. Suddenly, Andy saw a flash of white light as an object arched through the air and splintered in half on the gas fire before falling onto the carpet.

  ‘It’s Darren’s tooth!’ exclaimed Fred.

  Earlier that day, their son Darren had lost a milk tooth and had put it on the mantelpiece for safe keeping. It had somehow projected of its own accord and broken on the fire.

  All three of them had seen it, of that they were certain. They searched for an answer. Maybe a passing vehicle had vibrated the tooth in such a way as to dislodge it, or heat from the fire had caused it to expand and subsequently move. Although they searched for a plausible explanation, none was forthcoming. There was simply no way it could have jumped with such power.

  Andy left Marion’s more puzzled than ever. Could it have been a trick, a hoax to impress him? No, he could not see Marion or Fred doing that, and anyway, what could they hope to achieve by such a pointless act? In the back of his mind he was concerned. For the first time in his life, he had witnessed what seemed to be a genuine poltergeist event. And that first time had been at the home of Marion Sunderland, the self-same woman who had provided him and Parasearch with two uncannily accurate psychic messages. Maybe there was more to it. The tooth episode had set him thinking. There was only one way to find out: a return visit with his Parasearch colleagues.

  The late afternoon sun streamed in through the living- room window. Outside, Marion’s children bounded playfully across the cul-de-sac, amusing themselves in the safety of the secluded close.

  Graham, Andy and Martin sat talking to Marion as she explained how her family’s experiences had prompted her to try and contact mothers in a similar position. To this end she had featured in a series of local newspaper stories, requesting other parents to come forward. (1) To her surprise a considerable number of people from the Flint area claimed similar experiences to Gaynor’s. Most were children or teenagers, and some even claimed to have had encounters around the same time as her daughter’s in July 1976.

  The Parasearch investigations had revealed an intriguing fact, that at least four close encounters of the third kind had occurred less than five miles from the site of Gaynor’s meeting with the landed UFO and its occupants. This in itself was surprising, since it was rare to find such a concentration of UFO encounters involving occupants within so small an area.

  That weekend Fred was away with the Territorial Army and they spoke openly to Marion, uncertain if she had told Fred or wanted him to know about her impressions concerning Andy and Parasearch at the conference. When asked for an explanation she seemed embarrassed at the prospect of recall, but after some hesitation explained how she had felt there was something powerful, some mysterious force which she could not explain, acting to make the woman inject finance into the magazine.

  ‘What kind of force?’ asked Graham.

  ‘I don’t know, but I... for a moment felt it at the conference,’ she said. ‘I’ve never felt anything like it before. It was wrong, very wrong.’ She fell silent and said no more.

  The three took the opportunity to change the subject, drawing Marion away from something it seemed she really did not want to remember. The question of visiting some of the UFO witnesses who had written to her was broached. She voiced no objections, and it was agreed that they would investigate one of the letters she had received. Gaynor had expressed an interest in meeting other children who claimed to have seen UFOs, and asked Marion and the investigators if she could go along. They all agreed.

  On the Sunday afternoon they drove to the holiday resort of Prestatyn to visit a concerned mother, while Graham stayed behind to watch over the children in Marion’s absence. The woman’s seven-year-old daughter said she had seen a UFO with multicoloured lights crossing the sky over her house. The object had emitted a strange buzzing sound and hovered above a car in the road outside. The girl’s claim was substantiated by her mother, who had also heard the mysterious buzzing.

  At first, she was worried by her daughter’s experience, but as she and Marion talked her fears faded, and she seemed glad to have the sympathetic ear of someone who understood what it was like to have normal children claiming abnormal experiences.

  Martin questioned several neighbours, as Andy busied himself taking photographs of the site. Gaynor tagged along, occasionally asking questions and making her own observations. A sudden change came over her as she stood next to Martin. Her smile dropped. She became subdued as if far away, staring into the sky at the rooftops opposite the girl’s house. Martin followed her gaze but saw nothing. She appeared to be watching something above the houses, her eyes travelling slowly from right to left. Martin alerted Marion and nodded silently towards Gaynor.

  ‘What is it?’ he whispered, not wanting to break her concentration. At first, she did not seem to hear. He felt he was with a stranger; her face wore the expression of someone much older.

  ‘They’re here,’ she said quietly. ‘Over there.’ She gestured towards the rooftops.

  Martin strained his eyes, seeing nothing but an impenetrable bank of rain clouds scudding across the sky. ‘What can you see?’

  ‘Nothing... but I know... I can feel them.’ She turned towards him. He was staring straight into her eyes, not the eyes of the little girl he knew. They seemed deep, knowing, almost a darker blue than usual. He felt uneasy. Something was happening, something only Gaynor could perceive.

  As quickly as she had suddenly changed, she was her normal self again. Her eyes stared up at him and blinked as she smiled.

  ‘Can you describe what you saw?’ said Marion, as she walked over.

  ‘Nope,’ came the simple characteristic reply, and without a care in the world she skipped off to join her new-found friend.

  Before they left Flint Marion told them how she felt sure that Gaynor’s UFO experience was in some way connected with what was happening, and that the presences they both sometimes felt near them were attempting to communicate something important. Although she did not say so, she gave the distinct impression that she believed these presences were one and the same as those that had imparted the message to the various psychics.

  The researchers were finding it increasingly difficult to account for the bizarre series of messages. Was something really about to happen? Could the psychics be right? Logic and common sense said no, but they could not help feeling most uneasy about the whole thing.

  On Friday, 12 October, Martin arrived at the Parasearch office in Oaks Crescent. Earlier that day over the phone Andy had explained to him how something very odd had happened, something that threw new light on the situation.

  ‘Take a look at these,’ he said, leaning forward across the table and opening his briefcase. ‘If you had some hard evidence that one, just one, of the psychics involved was somehow in communication with an intelligence would you be more inclined to accept these messages?’

  ‘Of course,’ answered Martin, ‘but I think it’s highly unlikely we’d ever find such evidence.’

  ‘You’re
right. It is highly unlikely but take a look at these.’ Andy reached into his briefcase and took out a thin negative holder. He slid out a strip of six and passed them across the table. ‘The photographs I took of the houses opposite that little girl’s house in Prestatyn,’ he stated.

  Martin held the strip up into the light. Above the rooftops, on the two frames in question, he could clearly make out a distinct white mark on the negatives.

  ‘What on earth are they?’ Martin exclaimed. ‘There must be dust or something on the film.’

  Andy took two prints of the negatives from his bag and passed them over. ‘God knows,’ he said.

  On the first was the clearly defined image of a dark circular mass with what appeared to be two lights on it. The second was the same scene from a different angle. On this was an even clearer image of a dark elongated oval shape. The object, whatever it was, seemed slightly higher in the sky and had no light patches on it like the first.

  The strange image Andy captured on film

  Andy explained how he had shown the prints and negatives to an acquaintance, a photographic technician attached to the radiology department of the local hospital, who had been unable to explain the images.

  ‘Unless there’s some other answer,’ said Andy, ‘they appear to be photographs of the same object... at a different angle and position in the sky.’

  Martin shook his head slowly, struggling to find a solution, torn between doubt and the chance that possibly they did indeed show something strange and inexplicable. He could not forget that they were taken exactly where Gaynor had said she felt the presences and at almost exactly the same time. Although Gaynor had seen nothing, she had said ‘her friends’ were there, a reference to the supposed aliens, which she still claimed contact with since her close encounter. If the pictures were as they seemed, then Gaynor really had sensed the presence of some alien intelligence that Sunday afternoon, and it had been captured on film. (2)

  Andy had phoned Marion to tell her about the photographs and found she was only mildly surprised by them. She explained how she had felt that something like this would happen to substantiate the psychic messages.

  Until then it had been psychic messages, impressions, which, although fascinating and baffling in themselves, were not objective, solid evidence. The photographs threw a new light on things, and if they were as they seemed then this was actual evidence that the strange happenings and messages were real. But how had the images appeared on the photographs? A camera cannot record something that is not there, and certainly no one had seen anything in the sky above the rooftops as they followed Gaynor’s stare that afternoon.

  The investigators had, it appeared, photographed something totally unexplained. But what did these pictures show: a strange alien craft? Or was it perhaps something even further beyond imagination?

  After they had discussed the photographs for some time, Andy told Martin about something still more bizarre that had taken place the previous evening. He had been talking with Graham and another friend, a local paranormal researcher called Stephen.

  Stephen explained how he had achieved some interesting results in increasing concentration and psychic abilities by using meditational techniques. For the purposes of furthering their research, the three decided to test these simple breathing exercises.

  Everything was going according to plan when Graham suddenly lapsed into a strange state. Andy appealed to Stephen for help, but he had mysteriously fallen asleep and despite all his efforts Andy was unable to rouse him. After a few moments, Graham fell completely silent and appeared to have stopped breathing. Thinking he might have suffered some form of seizure, Andy was about to phone the doctor when Graham began to whisper. At first, Andy could not distinguish the words, but after a short time they became clearer and slightly louder. He appeared to have fallen into some kind of trance and a secondary personality was speaking through him. Andy was shocked, since Graham was not a medium and had never before fallen into a trance. Stranger still was that the voice did not claim to be the spirit of a departed soul, but a living person; a woman calling herself Joanna, who claimed to be at that very moment alive and living somewhere in England.

  This voice, this Joanna, told Andy that the psychic impressions people had been having were connected with an important task that must soon be undertaken. This was the culmination of events which had begun centuries ago with the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten during the early fourteenth century BC. When Joanna said she must leave, Graham awoke, remembering nothing of what had occurred. At first, he even thought Andy was having him on, believing he had merely fallen asleep. Andy assured him he had not, and to prove it played Graham the tape recording he had made. Much to Andy’s surprise, it had not recorded, except for a short section at the beginning, and this was strangest of all.

  Andy switched on the tape for Martin to listen to. For a few seconds there was silence, before Graham’s voice broke in loud and clear. It sounded as if the voice, although only a whisper, was echoing through a large hall. Over and over it slowly repeated the name Akhenaten, until after several repetitions it gradually faded. Andy explained how at no time during the trance had Graham repeated the name Akhenaten in this way.

  Along with the messages and the evidence of the photographs there was now this, Graham falling into a trance and a voice speaking through him claiming to be a living woman.

  ‘So you’re the only witness,’ said Martin.

  ‘Yes, that’s why I want you with me tonight,’ answered Andy. ‘Joanna said she was coming back...’

  Chapter 4

  Remember, Remember...

  Andy and Martin discussed this latest development with Graham, who found it very difficult to accept that he had fallen into an involuntary trance, during which a mysterious voice had spoken through him. They talked for hours, but still they could not resolve what had taken place the previous evening.

  At around 9 pm, Andy suggested that Graham lie down and attempt the meditation exercise once again, since both of them felt it was this that had in some way prompted the episode. Graham lay on the couch and relaxed as Andy readied his cassette. A second recorder was to be used in case Andy’s failed again. At Graham’s request, the lights were dimmed.

  For some minutes there was silence. Only Graham’s deep rhythmic breathing could be heard in the darkened room. After a time, he began to turn from side to side.

  ‘Andy,’ Martin whispered, ‘are you sure he’s okay?’

  ‘It’s the same as last night,’ he whispered back, gesturing for Martin to be silent.

  Graham’s body relaxed, leaving him motionless and silent. The two waited in the darkness, tense and nervous.

  Seconds passed, and Graham showed no signs of breathing. Andy drew nearer. Martin’s heart beat faster, his body reacting to the fear he felt. The silence was broken as Graham began to breathe again, deeply and regularly. Still he made no signs of movement.

  ‘Joanna?’ said Andy apprehensively.

  ‘Yes,’ came the whispered reply.

  ‘D’you mind us trying to contact you again?’

  ‘It was meant to happen this way,’ answered the whispering voice. ‘I have a great deal to explain to you.’

  ‘Is Graham coming to any harm by you speaking through him?’

  ‘No harm at all. Please do not worry, no harm will be allowed to befall him.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ queried Andy.

  ‘He may be a little tired, but nothing more,’ Joanna reassured him.

  Martin and Andy sat next to the couch in silence, transfixed as the voice spoke without interruption for over half an hour. As he spoke, they noticed slight inflexions in the voice that made it sound different to Graham’s usual way of speaking.

  Could they possibly be listening to the words of a woman at that very moment alive somewhere on earth, or was the voice a secondary personality of Graham’s? They simply did not know.

  Joanna was relating a fascinating historical saga which began in ancient Egyp
t some 3,000 years ago.

  At that time the country was ruled by the brilliant, but inexperienced Pharaoh Amonhotep IV, a dreamy but well- meaning young man whom fate had decreed to govern one of the most powerful nations on earth.

  It was to this man that the leaders of a race once great but now in decline looked as a beneficiary to their own great wisdom. They saw in Amonhotep the qualities of one who could infuse their knowledge, not only into his nation but into the entire civilised world; by reason, argument and example, and not by force, which they found abhorrent.

  This dying race were the Megalithic peoples of Britain and Northern Europe, a race whose greatest achievements were the impressive monuments of Stonehenge and the Avebury stone circle. Joanna claimed that these peoples had possessed great wisdom, which had eventually been misused.

  So it was that the last guardians of their secret knowledge journeyed to the civilised lands of the Middle East, trusting their wisdom to Amonhotep, who founded a new religion based on belief in the existence of only a single God. It was then that Amonhotep changed his name to Akhenaten to display his conversion.

  This new religion was so unpopular to many in Akhenaten’s Egypt that it divided the nation. The king therefore built a new city, a centre of learning, where his devotees could practice their beliefs unhindered and live a new way of life. Akhenaten eventually moved his court to this new city, so isolating himself further from many of his subjects.

  After his death, those living in the new city were outlawed when the old religion, a belief in many gods, was reinstated.

  Judging their situation as inevitably hopeless, Akhenaten’s successors mounted a quest to leave Egypt and travel northwards in search of the land from where their knowledge had originated. This they did, apparently reaching Britain in the last decade of the fourteenth century BC.

  And so, in the cold, damp forests of central England, they founded a new colony to follow the old lore. In the course of time the colony expanded, as a number of the early Celtic migrants from Europe joined them.