Earth by Timothy Good Read Free Book Online

operation.’
    â€œThen,” said Monnet, “the beings stopped emitting their thoughts. I was so intent on receiving these that I hadn’t noticed that an opening had appeared in front of the dome, wide enough to allow two men to enter. Inside was a white-orange light almost unbearable to look at. The four beings were there. Then—silence.
    â€œWithout saying good-bye, I turned, picked up my bike, and wheeled it back up the slope to the main road. Instantly, I was transported to the outskirts of Orange. I looked at my watch and was amazed to see that it was still 1.30 a.m. I went to compare the time with the town hall clock, which read 1.35 a.m. My watch also read 1.35 a.m. For me, it was incredible. But what was more, I could not remember the journey of eight kilometers [five miles]: it seemed as if I had not traveled at all. Also, unusually, I was not tired or out of breath because of the journey. I hadn’t noticed anything; not the headlights of passing cars, nor the passing countryside….”
    Missing Time
    â€œI had to rationalize it. Time could not have passed . Time had stopped during the journey and the meeting—which I thought had lasted about twenty minutes. If you take into account that normally I took twenty minutes to cover the whole distance, theoretically that made forty minutes unaccounted for. The thing seemed so fantastic that during the long days and sleepless nights that followed, I tried to work out what had really happened and posed myself all sorts of questions and proceeded to check it out from the beginning.
    â€œFirst, checking the time of the two clocks and my watch, I made anotherreturn journey between Orange and Courthézon. I noticed that the time on the three was exactly the same—the clock at Orange, the clock at Courthézon, and my watch. Not one of the three had stopped, gained, or lost time.
    â€œObjectively, I thought that all this could have been a particularly vivid dream. To be certain that I did not dream again, that night I woke up my mother, inventing some excuse, in the hope that she would reprimand me. The following morning I was reprimanded. Now I had the proof that I had not been dreaming. In any case, I know the difference between a dream and reality….”
    Monnet also rejected the hypotheses that he may have fallen asleep at some stage of the bicycle journey, or suffered from amnesia. Was his experience entirely subjective? Had the four aliens actually been there, in an objective sense? “To this question, I always reply that the four beings were certainly there in front of me, as large as life,” he insisted. “But on reflection, taking into account the fantastic scientific lead I know they have, my contact could have been only a perfect three-dimensional projection. This hypothesis is frightening and must bring home to us the psychic and scientific potential which they possess….
    â€œAlthough I don’t exactly remember exactly getting into the craft … after they had performed their ‘cellular regeneration’ on me I did not feel at all different. Only this one thing raises a shadow of a doubt. But despite the fantastic aspect of this regenerating operation, certain details lead me to think they told the truth. For example, at the start of the telepathic contact, the craft had no opening; however, at the end of the contact, a large opening was there, on the right of the dome. While I was ‘listening’ to their thoughts, I was perfectly aware of what I could see around me. I didn’t see this opening appear, though through it shone a whitish-orange light which was unbearable to look at. Not one of the four extraterrestrials was absent during the contact … but the telepathic contact had stopped.
    â€œLogically, all this would imply that I had momentarily lost consciousness; the opening appeared; I was transported inside and protected by some method or other against the deadly