‘You’ve read the Bible?’ Travers asked with a smile. ‘It’s all in there.’
20
‘What do you mean?’ Adams asked as they rounded yet another corner in the underground labyrinth.
‘Pretty much everything in the Torah, the original books of law from the earliest Bible, relates to the crew of the ship that stayed behind,’ Travers explained. ‘And because the Bible was built on earlier myths and tales, you can also read the history of this people in the writings of the ancient Sumerians, Babylonians and Egyptians. And because the same stories were told again by the Indians, Greeks, Romans and even the Vikings, you can read them all again in their own various religions and mythologies.’
‘It sounds like what Baranelli was telling us,’ Adams said to Lynn.
Lynn nodded. ‘Yes, we studied comparative religion at Harvard,’ she said. ‘And it’s true that there are some remarkable similarities in otherwise disparate religions all over the world. The Great Flood, for example.’
‘Exactly,’ Travers agreed. ‘And it is clear that almost all faiths describe “gods” or “angels” descending from the heavens, often in rather complex machines.’
‘And you’re saying that these “gods” were in fact men left behind after the flood, who were now based in an orbiting spacecraft?’
‘Yes. They monitored from a distance, unsure whether the Arkashians would survive, or whether the atmosphere of the earth was too compromised. And so they observed as generations came and went, until communities became established in the “cradle of civilization” as we know it, and started to farm the land.’
‘Did they send their reports back to the mother ship? To Atlantis?’ Adams asked.
‘That was the aim, but it soon transpired that their communications were for some reason not making it back to their comrades who were now in deep space, and so these people were there on their own.’
‘What became of them?’ Adams asked.
‘Aware that they had lost all contact with the rest of the Anunnaki population, and now sure that the earth was truly safe to re-inhabit, they started to visit us. They came down in small spacecraft, and were instantly perceived as gods by the ancient Sumerians. Indeed, the name “Anunnaki” for these gods is clearly preserved in Sumerian literature.
‘Of course, having been alone for so many generations, the visitors revelled in the glory and attention that they received here. In order to further their status, they began to teach those early civilizations the rudiments of reading, writing, and mathematics — not at an advanced level, but enough to whet the appetite, so to speak, in order to ensure the people’s continued worship, which they now craved.
‘Despite their advancement, they were still human, and were subject to the same human emotions as us. They therefore ended up interbreeding with us — which proves that these visitors were human, as members of different species can’t interbreed successfully — and were finally subsumed into our own populations, although with their offspring they created “royal” dynasties that lasted for hundreds, if not thousands of years. The royal line of David, for instance, can be traced back to these early visitors.
‘Their relationships were like some sort of modern-day soap opera, as you can see from the tales of the Greek gods, most of which are based on much earlier stories, originally true for the most part. Some of the stories really do have to be read to be believed. And then there are all the reports of advanced technology and weaponry. Zeus’ lightning bolt? A laser weapon brought down from the spacecraft.
‘Similar stories are found elsewhere. The spacecraft themselves are to be found described in the Indian Vedas as “vimyana”, and they came from a “star” in the sky that could be readily identified. It was of course the orbiting space station, which could indeed be seen by the naked eye in much the same way as our own international space station can.
‘In the Bible, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was based on an actual event that occurred long before the book was written, when an entire city was razed by a nuclear weapon. And there’s a lot more, throughout religious literature.’ Travers cleared his throat. ‘“When mankind had spread all over the world and girls were being born, some of the heavenly beings saw that these girls looked beautiful, so they took the ones they liked… In those days, and even later, the Nephilim were upon the earth, who were descendants of human women and the heavenly beings. They were the great heroes and famous men of long ago.” Sound like a virtual history of extraterrestrial visitation and interbreeding? It is. Genesis, chapter six, verses one through four.’
‘You’re joking,’ Adams said.
‘He’s not,’ Lynn broke in, her mind racing. ‘The Nephilim were sometimes referred to as “the giants” in other translations, but the exact meaning was never known.’ She turned to Travers. ‘So you’re saying that the Nephilim were the surviving Anunnaki?’
‘Absolutely. “Nephilim” is, in fact, a direct transliteration of “Anunnaki” into ancient Hebrew from their own language. It’s all there,’ he continued, ‘written plainly in black and white, in front of all of us. The entire history of our world. Everyone’s read it but nobody truly understands it. Some believe that the gods described are actually supernatural beings, while others believe that they are the result of drug-induced hallucinations or visions, or are merely symbolic. Nobody really takes the stories as the literal truth. The closest are those who tout the ancient astronaut theory, who say that these ancient gods were in fact aliens.
‘But the truth is even more amazing. These ancient gods, the whole basis of all religions and all faiths, were men and women. We were, and still are, worshipping humans.’
21
‘We’re here,’ Steinberg said as they rounded another corner, suddenly confronted by what looked like an elevator door. ‘This is the Roosevelt Exit,’ he explained, ‘built some time after the original construction, on presidential orders. Roosevelt — who visited us here from time to time — was a claustrophobic, and something of a paranoiac. He hated the idea of one single elevator being the sole means of escape should anything happen down here, and so ordered a secret tunnel to be built.’ Steinberg leant forward and pressed a button to the side of the elevator door. It opened smoothly, showing a standard elevator interior. ‘It was disguised as a normal lift, which has always been out of order, eventually being decommissioned as unsafe. But,’ he continued, tapping a code into the control panel on the inside wall, ‘it was never intended as an elevator at all. At least not in the normal sense.’
As he finished speaking, the rear wall of the elevator slid to one side, showing an inordinately long tunnel stretching at a slight incline as far into the distance as they could see.
Adams peered into it. ‘If we’re thirty-six storeys below ground,’ he said, ‘then at that angle, the tunnel would have to stretch—’
‘Five miles,’ Steinberg finished for him. ‘It comes out just near the “Extraterrestrial Highway”, Route 375, that runs up to the base perimeter. The tunnel exit is just outside the fence line. It’s still on US Air Force property — the whole area for hundreds of klicks around is Air Force property — but it might just be far enough for you to make it out of here.’
Adams gestured to a metal cart on the right of the tunnel, resting on what looked like a rail track. ‘What’s that?’
Steinberg smiled. ‘I would ignore that if I were you. It was intended for a quick escape but it’s sat there unattended for the last forty-plus years, and even if it did work, the G-forces probably wouldn’t do you any good at all.’