An Item of Mutual Interest

By Adam Scott Glancy, (c) 1997

Adam:

I have attached here an item of mutual interest.

This photocopied document turned up in the hands of an acquaintance of mine two days ago. He claims to have no idea where the photocopy came from or who delivered it. The fact that someone knew to give the document to him could indicate that his association with our group has been exposed.

I’ve kept a photocopy of the original for myself. If there’s anything the forensics wizards can tell us about the original, let me know. We need to determine whether this document is a fraud or not.

In any case, read though the document and let me know what you think. There are a number of familiar and unfamiliar terms here. I think I may have let slip about the Karotechia once or twice over brandies with you. My theater was mainland Asia, but I heard a few things about the Karotechia from colleagues who worked Operation LUNACY. Some of the terms mean nothing to me. Anything you can tell me about “MAJIC” or “MJ-5, Project MOONDUST” is critical. A few discreet inquires among our colleagues at the Pentagon and NASA would seem to be in order.

Be Seeing You,
Alphonse

CLASSIFICATION TOP SECRET / ORCON / MAJIC

CIRCULATION WITHIN MAJIC CHANNELS ONLY

COPY 3 OF 12
DO NOT COPY

FROM: MJ-5, PROJECT MOONDUST
SUBJECT: AKTION EISSCHLOSSE, Operational Update

Addendum “C”–The Journal

The handwritten, hardbound journal was recovered December 23, 1996, among the wreckage of a Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor, a four-engine turbo-prop transport plane manufactured by Nazi Germany. The wreckage was located at latitude 74°14′ south, longitude 4°6′ west, east of the Riiser-Larsen Ice Shelf in the Queen Maud’s Land region of Antarctica.

Forensic examination has determined that the journal dates from the same period as the aircraft and the deceased occupants. (See Addenda “A” and “B.”) The paper used is a bond typical for European bookbinders of the late 1930s. The ink is similar to inks used in other documents of the era.

The journal was severely damaged by exposure to the elements. Passages were also obscured by blood from the aircraft’s occupants. Only about 10% of the journal’s text is salvageable.

Text Follows, translated from handwritten German.

. . . his personal choice for the assignment. My youth spent high in the Bavarian alps, my years as a mining engineer, combat engineer, and amateur archæologist. And of course, the excavations we conducted under Krakow. My previous work for the Karotechia demonstrated my abilities beyond question. Such skills would be invaluable to Operation ICE PALACE. Or so said Reichsfuhrer [Himmler] . . .

. . . [As my ship] pulls away from Wilhelmshaven dock, I cannot think of this mission as anything less than a voyage into the past–a quest for the secrets of Thule, the wellspring of the Aryan race. Our destination has been referred to only as “Point 103,” but I cannot seem to think of it as anything other than ancient and hallowed Thule. How appropriate that the commerce raider that is taking us on the first leg of our journey is named “Atlantis.”

For reasons of security, I do not know my team’s ultimate destination. Not even the Captain of the Atlantis knows. We are due for a mid-ocean transfer to a U-boat, somewhere in the South Atlantic. From there the journey will be beneath the sea. The Reichsfuhrer hinted that Point 103 is only accessible from beneath the sea, cut off by the permanent ice shelf surrounding the coast of New Schwabia.

September ?: God in heaven. Still seasick.

October 2, 1941: My voyage has been nothing short of horrific. The last three weeks aboard the Atlantis, there has been little break in my violent bouts of sea sickness. I find the close, stale confines of the U-188 to be a pleasant and soothing change. Beneath the gray [waters] of the Antarctic ocean, this submersible glides effortlessly. Thank God, no more waves.

Kapitain Ostmann has said little about Point 103. He claims to have seen almost nothing of the site’s interior, his crew’s liberty being limited to what he referred to as “The Harbor,” the underwater entrance to Point 103. Ostmann claimed to have been the first U-boat commander to guide his vessel under the ice shelf and into the Harbor. The U-boats follow a sonar signal that the team inside Point 103 broadcast to guide them in. But Ostmann seems uncomfortable even talking about what little he has seen of “Ancient Thule.” He was quite taken aback by my assumption that Point 103 is Thule. Ostmann described what he saw as more like a creation of nature than a construction of man. Gargantuan. Weathered by time and the elements.

Ostmann is a Prussian and can fathom little beyond his weapons of war. The edifices of the Maya and Sumerian cultures are of a scale that . . .

October 7, 1941: We’ve been at Point 103 for seventy-two hours and I still cannot comprehend the enormity of what we have found here. At first I thought that the U-Boat had surfaced inside some kind of underground submarine pen like the ones I’d seen at Wilhemshaven. Then Kapitain Ostmann turned the conning tower’s spotlight on the ceiling of the half-flooded chamber, revealing a dome ceiling perhaps a hundred meters above us. The chamber had to be five or six kilometers across–a vast underground harbor, accessible only under the sea.

The U-188 moored at a makeshift dock at the far shore. There, under electric lights, was the camp of Operation ICE PALACE. There are a half-dozen prefabricated shelters and several more tents for supplies. The ICE PALACE personnel assisted the U-Boat crew in unloading our supplies but did not speak with them. Apparently this is part of the security [protocols].

The camp is quite cold. Dr. Walter Kluge, project leader, explained that the sub-freezing salt water keeps the air at just over zero degrees Celsius–still far better that what it would be like on the surface. New Schwabia is perhaps the most inhospitable outpost of the Reich.

Dr. Kluge has been less than gracious while giving me the tour of his domain. He’s been down here with his staff for nearly a year, and the strain and isolation are showing in him. He seems, for lack of a better word, nervous. I believe he sees my team of combat engineers as a threat to his position as project leader. If we succeed in [accelerating] this excavation where he and his archaeologists have failed, he may find himself answering to me.

Dr. Kluge derides my notion of New Schwabia being the site of ancient Thule. He claims there is no evidence these colossal stone galleries were constructed by humans. There are no stairs, which he claims indicates that the builders of these halls didn’t have articulated legs like our own. The doorways are, on average, three meters tall and are in the shape of a pentagon–a size and a shape that does not describe a human figure.

. . . five-sided motif throughout the halls is even more reminiscent of starfish anatomy. Pentagon-shaped halls, doorways, and even rooms. Equally curious is the apparent total lack of masonry. The dark primeval stone segments interlock like a titanic puzzle.

A puzzle. How appropriate.

Dr. Kluge has shown me numerous mosaics lining the walls and ceilings of these vaults. The images on these walls do not depict men. They depict the builders of these ruins as something inhuman. Things unlike any that ever walked the Earth. Kluge believes that the true builders of this underground complex were not human, or even remotely related to mammals. The mosaics show them to have a radial symmetry, like primitive invertebrates. These “masters” are shaped like upright sea cucumbers, topped with a thick, star-shaped organ. Midway down their torsos is a ring of five delicate tentacles, and at the bottom are five thick tentacles for locomotion. Some of these “masters” are equipped with wings, but there just doesn’t seem to be any way such . . .

. . . however; there are other even less wholesome things depicted in the murals. Things possessing a vile elasticity . . .

. . . [Dr. Kluge] believes that humans, or some kind of proto-humans, may have coexisted with the masters of this labyrinth, as pets, or perhaps a source of protein. Certainly there are ape-like creatures moving among the barrel-shaped masters and their shapeless [slaves] . . .

. . . Hoss is no closer to translating these disgusting pictograms and their braille-like captions than he was when he arrived a year ago. We are going to need [assistance].

December 17, 1941: Yesterday I made a trip to the surface through the original shaft that Kapitain Ritscher’s men descended on the first expedition to this buried necropolis. A winch and gondola has been added up to link the warrens with the camouflaged airfield on the surface. U-Boats bring our supplies, so the planes lie idle. Even so, the tenuous connection to the surface is important. The men come here often, just to stare up at the sky, to relieve the suffocating claustrophobia. It makes me feel like a deep-sea diver at the end of a long air-hose. But instead of the sea pressing in around me, it’s the ice of this dead continent.

The unsetting sun reminded me of our racial destiny, the sun which shall never set on our thousand-year Reich.

December 25, 1941: Merry Christmas. Point 103 has yet to reward our efforts. Blasting is out of the question. These galleries and halls will have to be excavated by hand and shored up like mine shafts. Otherwise, they will continue to collapse. The ice-choked chambers and corridors will have to be cleared with flamethrowers, or perhaps phosphorous charges. It will take dozens of men working hundreds of hours. To properly exploit Point 103, it will be necessary to call for extreme measures.

January 1, 1942: I have dispatched the U-boat to take our request back to the Reichsfuhrer himself. Perhaps the new vault will offer up something of interest besides rubble and ice.
. . . some kind of mechanical apparatus, although its function has yet to be [determined] . . .

. . . while it is too large to be removed from the chamber, it has solved our power requirements. The megawatt output is comparable to what I’d expect from a hydro-electric dam.

As if it weren’t beyond belief that this generator functions after tens of millions of years of inactivity, without any discernible fuel source, it also broadcasts the power it generates like radio waves. When we activated it, every piece of electronic equipment in the camp surged to life. Power flowed through the air and lit up the electronic circuitry of radios, electric torches, power tools, everything. It was like nothing I could even have imagined had I not seen it.

With this much power at our disposal, Operation ICE PALACE will be able to support a labor force of any size necessary to [exploit] . . .

. . . [I am] not comfortable with the number of Jews they have sent us. This can only lead to trouble. There are sufficient Waffen SS troops to keep them in line, but Jews have a corruptive influence. Having them in our proximity just seems unsanitary. After all . . .

. . . Hoss’s translation efforts have been increasingly successful. The book he calls The G’harne Fragments has proven to be the key. But the problem with the Thule Generator is not mechanical.

It is biological.

It needs to be fed.

Literally.

I detailed a couple of trusted guards to shoot some laborers in order to provide the Thule [Generator with fuel] . . .

. . . hurling them into the generator’s “mouth.” Five laborers seem to keep the generator running at power levels sufficient for our purposes for a week. Undoubtedly we would need hundreds more if we were to really light a city. It is a shame we have not found more of these generators. It would simultaneously solve the Fatherland’s power problems and clear out our ghettos and concentration camps. When I think of all the effort and energy wasted on crematoria and mass [graves] . . .

August 12, 1942: The history of the Thulian race is becoming increasingly clear to us. Their civilization rose and fell before mankind came down from the trees, pre-dating even the dinosaurs. During the aeons of their rule they fought numerous wars with other non-terrestrial civilizations. At least three of these civilizations appear in the mosaics, including a community of conical time travelers centered in Australia, crustacean-like entities who mined Earth’s highest mountain ranges, and semi-aquatic octopoid creatures whose home was a now-submerged continent in the Pacific. The wars fought with these other empires were conducted with weapons of incredible destructive power. This is what we must find. Our buried treasure. Our Grail.

. . . [the Thulians] used it to sink the continent of Mu, the fabled Atlantis of the Pacific, except the Thulians called it Rel Yeh, as far as we can tell, according to a brief corresponding passage in the G’Harne Fragments. This superweapon was also used to cut the land bridge between Australia and Antarctica, which ended the war between the Thulians and the conical time travelers, although this seems to have been part of a negotiated peace settlement to separate their respective spheres of influence.

Once this weapon is recovered, we shall have the ability to effortlessly obliterate the enemies of the Reich. But the galleries and halls we have so far explored give the impression that they were cleared out with studied deliberation. Almost nothing remains, except what could not be . . .

. . . [efforts] of my engineers. Dr. Kluge has not acquiesced gracefully to the change of command. His objections to deeper excavation are becoming obstructive to our efforts. He rails that there still exists life in the bowels of this tomb-city, and that our digging will free it. I fear his hysterics are beginning to affect the staff.

. . . [Ostmann keeps] asking what we are doing with so many prisoners. Ostmann has noticed that the food supplies his U-Boat brings to Point 103 are nowhere near sufficient to support our laborers. I’m sending a message back to headquarters with Ostmann, Reichsfuhrer Himmler’s Eyes Only. The message recommends Ostmann’s execution as a security risk. The next U-Boat officer they assign to ICE PALACE should be a party member. Ostmann is asking too many questions.

. . . [U-188 was] sunk by American warplanes. It is just as well. A new U-boat will be dispatched soon. It should be here by October.

. . . unquestionably an act of sabotage. We executed a dozen of the weakest laborers as an example, but I suspect that we will find our saboteur elsewhere than the slave pens.

. . . caught him in the act. I had suspected as much for months. I suppose I should have ordered him sent home months ago, but it was far more satisfying having the old fraud fed into the Thule Generator. Kluge doesn’t appear to have been working with or for anyone. His motivation for sabotaging our excavation seems to be nothing more than the result of his complete mental collapse. The isolation, the claustrophia, and, of course, my wresting command away from him broke his mind. He must not have wanted us to succeed unless the glory could be his and his alone.
As it stands now, it is mine. The name Ohlendorf shall be inexorably tied to the salvation of the German people.

. . . will begin tomorrow.

February 23, 1943: Our first test of the weapon was only partially successful. A weapon designed to be aimed and fired by a five-armed, radially symmetrical being with twenty-five sub-digits proved impossible for just one human to activate. It took three of Stahlecker’s technicians to trigger the ring-shaped weapon. The weapon vaporized several dozen cubic meters of matter in the blink of an eye. Unfortunately that included most everything in the lab, including six of Stahlecker’s staff. I suppose I should have seen it coming. A radially symmetrical being could mean a weapon that can fire in five different directions at once. Which it did. The next test will be conducted up on the surface.

The process by which the contents of the lab were turned into hot gas remains unknown. Stahlecker has speculated that the weapon breaks matter down into its component atomic particles. But again, we are like ants trying to contemplate a telephone.

I have forbidden any tampering with the thing Hoss has called “a sphere of Nath.” Hoss speculates that it may have the destructive power to remove an entire city from the face of the Earth.

March 2, 1943: Berlin has made the decision to send the experts to Point 103 rather than send the artifacts back to Germany. There’s less chance of the material being lost or hijacked, and with all the researchers here at Point 103 the possibility of a spy or a leak is reduced.

. . . fleet, [including] a “Milk-Cow” U-boat tanker, three of the newest Type XXI U-Boats, and two Type-X minelayers converted to cargo carriers arrived today. Their orders were to begin turning Point 103 into a site from which to launch a superweapon strike at the Americans. I had no idea things were so bad at home that Point 103 could be considered more secure than our facilities under the Harz mountains.
Several dozen officers and technicians from the V-2 Rocket facility at Peenemunde arrived as well, along with their equipment. There is some hope that we can combine the V-2 delivery system with the Nath Sphere . . .

August 28, 1944: The V-3 launch facility should be ready in about six months. The shaft to the surface has proven to be an excellent site to erect their launch scaffolding. One V-3. One Sphere. The question now is, What to target?

The hypothetical range for this V-3 is only 6000 kilometers. They’ll be lucky if their rocket reaches the equator. That leaves Australia, New Zealand, maybe some of the English possessions in Africa. They are wasting my time and limited resources with this distraction.

September 4, 1944: U-boats continue bringing supplies, but our excavations into the lowest galleries are far behind schedule. As is the V-3. My men are driving the slaves to exhaustion, and yet the entryway into that sunless sea, the site of the “last city” spoken of in the inscriptions, remains hidden. The mortality rate among the workers is growing too high. Not to mention the generator’s appetite. We cannot be assured of new shipments of labor from Europe. Stahlecker has suggested trying to arrange a trade with Perón. The Atlantic blockade doesn’t extend far south of the equator, so there’s a chance one of the U-boats could make it to Buenos Aires. Still, the English presence on South George’s and the Maldives would make any such mission perilous in the extreme. Regardless, I have vetoed that option for the time being. That opportunistic little monkey might try to seize Point 103 for himself. Instead we will follow Kapitain Koller’s plan and acquire new labor from . . .

. . . [the passengers and crew] of the liner are proving nearly worthless as laborers. However, the Generator’s hunger is sated, and that will do for now.

May 3, 1945: The Fuhrer is dead. But as I do not worship Hitler, I am not hopeless. National Socialism is not dead. Germany is not dead.

The BBC began broadcasting the news about the Fuhrer yesterday. Shooting the radio operator on duty was the only thing to do. If the others knew, or suspected, my command would disintegrate, and we are so close. So very close to unlocking the secrets of grand and mystic Thule. The Thulians waged wars millions of years ago on a scale so savage it would wither the hearts of the fiercest men. If only we could find the weapon they used to sink their Muvian enemies to the bottom of the sea.

We are the Reich now. We of the Karotechia. And with the tools of ancient Thule, we will drown Germany’s enemies beneath the boiling sea. What will it matter if Germany lies in ruins, when all the world becomes a watery graveyard?

May 14, 1945: Hoss was beginning to suspect the war is over. I shot him this morning. This is a setback. Hoss was fluent in the language of ancient Thule, and my own command is so much feebler.

We are rapidly running out of workers to feed the Thule Generator. I think perhaps I shall need to prioritize my staff.

June 1, 1945: I can scarcely believe it. I have been buried in this ice-bound tomb for over three and a half years, toiling in the ice and blackness. Now we have won. We have won it all!

We have the weapon. The Tectonic Agitator. The Navel of the World. From this dead city we can reach out and sink continents or raise new ones.

The power to reshape the face of the Earth! Where shall I begin? Where shall I draw my finger and erase the works of God?

June 15, 1945: Lt. Schaeffer, Corporal Mueller, Sergeant Recke, and myself are the only ones to escape. It must have been one of the Jews, or perhaps we pushed the Thule Generator too far. Somehow the biological motor tore free of its bonds. Power was lost. The tunnels plunged into impenetrable blackness. Then it boiled out of the generator room with a loathsome mobility I could never have imagined from something with no skeletal structure.

It tore into the slave pens and rolled through the vaults swallowing my men in the dark. Sucking them apart. Howling that strange cry, “Teckelly lee! Teckelly lee!” over and over again. The crack of impotent gunfire. And the echoing screams.

I don’t know how many died before we activated the backup generator, got the lights back on. Dozens? More? The surviving Jews fell on us like wild animals and much time was wasted trying to beat them back. I saw a pack of them, malnourished and sickly, bring down Stahlecker with their teeth and nails.

I screamed, I bellowed, I even shot them. No one paid attention. No one followed orders. They ran, mindlessly screaming. Most began fighting and killing each other for space on the U-Boats, hoping to escape by sea. Even amidst the chaos and insanity, one U-Boat got its diesel engines up and running before the thing from the generator burst into the harbor.

Like a boiling froth of iridescent black slime, it surged down the hallway, filling it from wall to wall, from floor to ceiling. It rolled like an avalanche, burying the men in its loathsome bulk. I could see them, submerged in its mass, screaming soundlessly as their flesh and bones were pulled apart. The men shot it. Hurled hand grenades into it. Nothing slowed it. Nothing distracted it. It latched itself on to the hull of the U-1406 and burst its deck open, flooding its interior and spilling its fuel into the water. The U-boat sank in minutes, taking all aboard to the bottom. Somehow the fuel ignited, and the harbor became an inferno. Remembering the fat tanks of fuel on the U-boat tanker, I fled the harbor, running for the shaft to the surface. Behind me were only the screams and the thudding explosions as the fuel tanks went up one after another.

Fleeing blindly, four of us squeezed into the gondola, Zundel and another man, badly burned, clung desperately to the outside of the cage. The burned man lost his grip almost immediately. The fall, I would guess, did little more than break his legs. Then Zundel lost his grip about halfway up, died as soon as he hit the stone floor.

From below, we heard it, wailing.

And the screams of the men.

We scrambled after Schaeffer to the Condor and piled in. He had us airborne before I could calm myself enough to focus. It was only then that I realized what I had lost.

So close. A few more weeks and the shadow of my hand would have fallen across the face of the Earth.

The power to remake the world . . .

The handwritten German text in ink ends. The last page is painted in human blood. The blood type is matched to that of the corpse now identified as SS Standartenfuhrer Karl Ohlendorf (see Addendum “B”). The following is an approximate translation of the text:

FORGIVE ME, BELOVED GERMANY. I FAILED YOU.

Analysis of the aircraft (see Addendum “A”) indicates that its fuel tanks were dry on impact. The maximum operation range for a Focke-Wulf Condor is 2,210 miles. Therefore, the aircraft could have been launched from any point on the Antarctic continent, or even Tierra del Fuego in South America. The journal hints that the airfield is located in Neu Schwabenland, or New Schwabia, an area of Antarctica claimed by Nazi Germany following the 1938-1939 German Antarctic Naval Expedition. All MOONDUST search operations are concentrated in that area. We are, however, no closer to discovering the location of Point 103 than we were four months ago.

The search for Point 103 continues.

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