UFO Chapter 4

October 3rd 1953


The summer heat still lingered late into the afternoon even though it was now early October but as soon as the sun had begun to set, the evenings quickly grew cold. With just half an hour or so of light left before the darkness made tracking in the woods impossible, Jimmy and Buck decided to set up camp for the night. As they walked through the woods looking for somewhere to put up their tents the last rays of the low sun were slanting through the trees as the fiery crimson orb fell afire behind the Guyandotte mountains that lay to the West.

Jimmy scouted around the trail they had been hunting along and saw a small clearing with enough room for them to pitch their two tents set between a stand of the massive poplars, oaks, red spruce, Virginia pine and pitch pine that flourished in the hills of West Virginia.

“ Looks like a good spot over their buck”, he shouted out to his companion who was crunching his way through the trees a hundreds yards or so to his left also looking for a potential campsite.

Buck looked up and saw his friend pointing towards the right and he began to walk slowly hill towards him. The rucksack on his back was beginning to chafe his shoulders and the backs of his legs were stiffening from all the hill climbing they had done during the day. He was looking forward to a fire, coffee, food and a good night sleep. Every year the hunting trip he and Jimmy had been undertaking since their early teens grew harder. Either the hills were growing higher or else he was growing older. He suspected the latter unfortunately. Though he loved the hunting, the hiking was less enjoyable now they were both getting older. Physically he was not the man he used to be, though he would never admit that to Jimmy. Since they were fifteen years old he and Jimmy had been on regular hunting trips their whole lives. These were the years when both he and Jimmy had been overseas fighting in the war.

Both men were now feeling their age. Jimmy was also beginning to feel that the days were longer, the hills higher and his back weaker. The fragments of the German mortar shell that had exploded and peppered his shoulders and back at the siege of Bastogne in late December 1945 were now beginning to hurt again from the days exertion of climbing the hills. The straps of the rucksack sat right where the scars were deepest and the pain lay as a dull ache deep within the torn and ruptured muscle of his upper back.

He slipped the safety catch back on the pump action Remington shotgun and slung it back over his left shoulder. There would be no more hunting today.

Looking down at left his hip he surveyed the days total kill. Three small quail that he had shot on the trail were hanging from the army belt around his waist, their delicate pale grey feathers smeared with streaks of blood where the shotgun pellets had pierced the flesh. They would taste lovely he thought to himself, cooked slowly over a camp fire of maple and pine wood. His mouth already ran with the thought of the delicate smoked game taste.

By the time Buck had walked up the hill to where Jimmy was putting up his tent the first stars had already begun to appear in the sky.

A glorious scarlet sunset lay across the sky from east to west illuminated the little clusters of towns that hugged the hills of Raleigh County, whose little lights could be seen twinkling gently in the distance.

Guyandotte mountain range where they had set up camp climbs to a height of around 2,461 feet above sea level and is located within the Allegheny Plateau of southern West Virginia. The range is bordered on the east by the small town of Bolt and to the west the city of Beckley. Whilst Paint Creek Watershed lays to the north, Slab Fork Mountain lies to the south west, Coal River Mountain lays to the northeast and Guyandotte River runs along the western edge of the mountain range.

Jimmy and Buck had lived in Raleigh County all their lives and they knew every path and trail along the mountain range. The hills of the area were thick with maples, hickories, box elder and intermingled among the red spruce were massive oaks that had littered the ground beneath them with plump acorns. The trees were in their beautiful fall blush of colour and the woods resembled a vibrant psychedelic painted patchwork quilt of scarlets, russets, browns and gold. Game to hunt was always plentiful in the hills with quail, deer, pheasant, chukar and wild turkey all available for the determined hunter to track and kill.

Every early October when the weather was fine, he and Buck would set off for three days of hunting, trapping and living off the land. With the wives and kids left behind they would pack Bucks truck with their hunting gear and set off from the their homes in the suburbs of Beckley and head for the hills. With a few bottles of wild turkey whisky and cheap cigars in their rucksacks the hunting frequently had to wait until the early afternoon when the hangovers would ease, but even with a trembling hand gripping the shotgun the game was usually easy to bring down.

Buck took the rucksack off of his shoulders and threw it down on the ground with a loud groan.

Jimmy looked up from banging in the tent pegs on his tent and smiled at his old friend, “ Whats up Buck, getting a bit too much for you is it “.

With a sardonic grin Buck reached into the interior pocket of his green and brown camouflage hunting jacket and pulled out a cigar, bit the end off it and lit it with his zippo lighter. He inhaled deeply and replied, “ I am only tired because I was up early this morning, whilst you lay in bed being sick, you lightweight”.

“ The only reason I was sick Buck”, said Jimmy, “ was because of that goddamn cheap whisky you keep bringing up here with you and making me drink. If you bought some decent whisky instead of the rot gut then I would not have to lay in bed sleeping off the effects of its poison on my system”.

Buck snorted, “ That’s goddamn mans whisky that boy, no wonder your being sick on it when you drink that fancy single malt scotch all the time”.

“ What the hell do you know about good whisky jimmy, you buy the stuff by the gallon in a drum”.

Jimmy smiled, “ That’s because I actually drink whisky instead of sipping it like some old lady at a tea party. You drink like a sparrow from a bird bath, a sip at a time. That aint how you drink boy ! “.

“ No doubt you will be showing me again tonight eh Buck “.

Buck chewed on the cigar and smiled, “ That I will, that I will”.

Within ten minutes both the tents had been put up, the mosquito nets fixed in place within the tents and both Jimmy and Buck were collecting wood for the camp fire. A large pile of logs and brushwood had been deposited in the centre of the clearing and a patch of earth swept free of leaves so as to ensure no stray sparks could set the ground litter alight during the night.

With well practised skill Jimmy built a small pile of twigs and leaves and then set fire to it with his lighter. The thin grey black tendrils of wood smoke that began drifting up from the fire chased away a few of the hovering bugs that buzzed around the clearing eager for a feast of blood from any exposed skin, and after a few minutes the fire was roaring away nicely. The spit of sparks from the red hot embers and the crackle of burning wood was loud in the twilight, and as the flames were safely built upon a carpet of red hot embers, Buck threw a log of pine wood still wet with sap and allowed the smoke to bellow forth clearing the last of the mosquitoes out of the clearing.

Jimmy sat by the fire stripping the feathers from the quail in preparation for gutting and cleaning the birds ready for cooking. He had cut three branches about an inch thick and three feet long from an oak at the edge of the clearing and sharpened one end of the sticks. These were ready for the cleaned quail to be spitted on and hung over the fire. With a dash of wild turkey whisky to baste the skin and a side dish of tinned potatoes and beans, the perfect hunters feast was about to be commenced.

Buck walked over and offered Jimmy the bottle of wild turkey whisky, and jimmy wiped the blood and feathers from his fingers over his jacket, gripped the bottle and took a long swig.

He coughed and his eyes watered, “Jesus Buck “, he said with a hoarse voice, “ how can you drink that stuff ”, and carried on cleaning the guts out of the last quail carcass.

Buck stood up and stared into the fire and smiled. The cold night air had now settled in the woods and the sky above was a wondrous landscape of crystal stars that glittered through the branches of the trees that surrounded the clearing.

Buck looked down at his old friend and realised that he was in a lot of pain. He saw that Jimmy had been taking more of the prescription painkillers than usual during the day and he realised that the years, and the injuries Jimmy had sustained during the war were beginning to catch up with him.

He sat down next to Jimmy and put the bottle down.

“ Give me that Jim, I can finish that off. You go and rest for a bit”, and reached over to pick up the quail corpses.

Jimmy yawned and struggled unsteadily to his feet, wincing as the pain in his back grinded into his muscle, “ Thanks. I need to go and siphon the python anyway”, and walked stiffly into the darkness that surrounded the clearing.

Pushing a sharpened stick vertically through the length of each quail Buck positioned them carefully above the fire. He reached over and threw more maple and pine logs onto the fire and let the smoke and flame tickle the underneath of the birds, so as to gently roast them over the fire. He picked up the bottle of wild turkey and splashed it over the birds, the run off being instantly ignited by the fire with a flush of bright blue flame. The smell of the sizzling meat, skin and the aroma of the burning pine was making his stomach grumble with anticipation, and he opened his rucksack and withdrew two tins of potatoes and a large tin of beans. He opened both tins and tipped the contents into a large saucepan that he balanced on a log on the edge of the fire. Within a couple of seconds one side of the saucepan the beans had already begun to bubble and blister, throwing a hiss of steam into the air.

From out of the darkness Jimmy staggered back to the fire and sat down. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the bottle of painkillers, twisted the lid off, tipped two into his hand, threw them into his mouth and took a large swig of whisky to gulp them down.

Buck turned away from him and faced the fire. No point asking him if he was okay as he already knew the answer. The flames from the fire were leaping high into the air and illuminating the trees with a warm red glow. The smoke from the smouldering pine log lifted through the tree canopy and drifted gently downwind into the valley below. A barn owl hooted in the forest depths whilst nearby whilst a wary fox could be heard sniffing and snorting through the trees scenting prey not far from the clearing. The cold was now beginning to set in and both men moved closer to the fire to hug the warmth cast off by the flames.

The woods were now totally dark, the only light from the crescent moon that sat to the south, silvering the misty mountain tops with its effulgent moonbeams. Buck stared into the darkness of the night as Saturn, a scintillating spark of gold, rose slowly to its throne overhead. At the center of the great Winter Circle of stars was the orange star Betelgeuse in the constellation of Orion, the hunter whilst Jupiter lay to the south. The lack of artifical street lighting meant that the whole night sky was fantastically clear and he never tired of gazing at the beauty of the night.

It took him a couple of seconds before he realised he was staring at the same point in the sky, just beneath the seat of Orion, his eyes instinctively picking up on something that his conscious mind had not yet fully recognised. A small red star was moving to the south, too slow for a shooting star and too high for it to be a plane. It appeared to be moving in a straight line across the sky, at what must have been an incredible speed.

What the hell is it, Buck thought to himself. He looked over at Jimmy who was sipping again at the wild turkey bottle, he called over to him.

“ Jimmy come and have a look at this”.

Jimmy laughed, “ No thanks Buck. I saw you naked in the shower once and trust me its nothing to brag about”.

Buck laughed and said, “ Good one. No, really, come and look at this”.

With a deep groan Jimmy hauled himself to his feet and stood up then walked over to where Buck stood staring into the night sky.

Buck pointed to Orion, “ Just beneath Orion there, that red star is moving “.

Jimmy stared at the spot where Buck was pointing and saw what appeared to be a shooting star streaking across the sky. He waited for a few moments for the star to flicker and die as it fell to its doom into the Earths atmosphere but it kept moving and growing brighter.

Then with a sudden streak of speed the red star dropped straight down from the sky rushing towards the ground and then vanished behind the peak of Coal River mountain to the northeast.

“ What the hell was that “, Jimmy said in a low hushed voice.

Buck shook his head, “ Damned if I know. It weren’t no plane that’s for sure. There isn’t anything that we have that can fly like that and I doubt the Russians have anything that can do that sort of manouevere either. I flew one of the Grumman F9F Panther’s just before I left the air force in ‘49 and not even the Panther can fly like that. “

As he spoke the red star that fallen from the sky lifted straight up from behind Coal River mountain, casting a dull red light on the sharp edges of the peak and down its rocky shoulders. It now appeared to be hovering a few hundred feet above the top of the mountain itself, absolutely still. The light it was casting on the scree was almost like flame, and the object seemed to pulsate and flicker.

“ Christ, that is getting closer”, Buck spoke, real fear in his voice.

The light was now moving across the tree tops of the forest that separated the two mountains, a distance of about ten miles, its light illuminating the canopy of the trees that it was slowly passing over.

He heard Jimmy move away from him, unzip his tent and then return to stand by his side. Then he heard the click of the safety catch on Jimmys pump action shotgun and the sound of a cartridge being pumped into the chamber.

The light was now less than a mile away, the red light bright enough to hurt the eyes. As it moved closer he could see the shadows of the trees sliding across the ground as the object moved forwards over them.

Buck reached into his hunting jacket, unclipped the leather shoulder holster he wore underneath it and pulled out his fathers .45 Colt automatic pistol 1911 model that he always carried with him when they went out hunting in case of encounters with black bears in the forest. He cocked the pistol, chambered a round and slipped the safety catch off.

The object was now less than a few hundred feet away and he could begin to make out more of its shape.

It was about the size of a 1950 ford truck, oval shaped with a pulsating red light at its centre. It appeared to be made of a translucent silver metal that was inlaid with dozens of small white lights. It had no cockpit nor did it appear to have any doors or entrances on the exterior of the object. The red light it was casting forth was now so bright it lit up the trees for approximately a hundred feet all around and bathed the clearing in a strange blood like glow. As it approached the clearing at a height of about fifty feet, it began to slow down until it hovered silently directly overhead.

Jimmy raised the shotgun to his shoulder, pointed it at the object and shouted out to Buck, “ What the hell is it Buck ? “.

Buck just stood there speechless, the pistol in his right hand pointed straight at the object.

Suddenly a red light, as thin as a pencil, shone out of the bottom of the object and began to move towards both Buck and Jimmy. At that exact moment both of them started firing at the thing. The bark of the shotgun firing echoed in the clearing and Buck could hear the metallic clang as the pellets impacted upon the object. His pistol recoiled in his hand and he could see the .45 slugs spark off and ricochet off of the thing. Both men continued to fire in unison as the object hung impassively in the air, seemingly impervious to the enfilade of fire directed at it. Buck emptied all seven rounds from the clip at the object and watched as Jimmy fired off all five shotgun rounds at the object.

The thin red light disappeared in an instant and the object waited in the air, hovering over the clearing at an elevation of around fifty feet. Jimmy lowered the shotgun from his shoulder and was chambering fresh rounds into it, when a small round hole appeared in the bottom of the craft and a small, round silver metal object about the size of a football fell through the air to the ground.

As it hit the ground it emitted a flash of white light and instantly both men were blown off their feet and thrown across the clearing by the impact of an explosion.

Jimmy had been thrown about ten feet and lay unconscious by the fire, blood running from his forehead, his right foot laying in the fire. Buck was thrown backwards by the blast, landed on his belly next to Jimmy and groaned as the impact knocked the air from his lungs. He rolled over onto his back and saw that Jimmy was unconscious , his head lolling and drool dripping from his open mouth. Buck pulled himself onto his knees, grabbed hold of Jimmy foot and pulled it from the fire and then rolled towards his left side and away from the flames.

As he went to stand up, his ears ringing from the explosion, he saw a small figure flit past him in the darkness on the edge of the clearing. Buck looked down to his right hand and saw that he was still somehow clutching the pistol. He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a fresh clip, loaded it into the butt of the pistol and started firing at the figure moving in the darkness.

As the second round was loaded into the chamber, the gun was snatched from his hand and thrown across the clearing, landing about four feet from where he was kneeling.

Buck looked up. Before him stood a small, naked, grey humanoid like creature with dark almond shaped eyes. About four feet tall it had long arms, hands with five fingers, short legs and large feet with five toes, wrinkled grey skin that appeared foetid and damp and an oval, oversized bald head. As he gazed into its blank, black eyes it suddenly leaned forward, then hissed like a snake straight into his face. It raised its right hand in the air and smashed a small, but powerful fist straight into his mouth. The impact knocked three of his front teeth out and threw him onto his back. The warm blood ran down his throat and he gagged as he choked on the salty liquid.

All of a sudden another small figure similar to the first rushed out of the darkness and grabbed him by his feet and began to drag him over the ground. The first creature moved away to the right and headed back to the fire. The rocks and twigs were slicing into his skin as the creature ran back towards the craft, and he could do nothing but scream as he was dragged like a child drags a doll across the rocks, roots and stones. He turned his head for a moment and saw Jimmy laying on his back by the fire. The creature that had hit him a few moments ago was sitting on Jimmy’s chest savagely tearing away the clothes from his prostate body with its hands. It carried on until Jimmy lay totally naked on the ground surrounded by the shredded rags that were once his clothes.

From the object still hovering above the clearing a long, thin, flexible silver metal tube with what appeared to be a suction cup on the end of it appeared out of a small hole and began to snake down to the ground, moving towards where Jimmy lay. The creature grasped the tube and then placed the cup over Jimmy’s crotch as another smaller metal tube appeared from the craft and slithered swiftly like a serpent across the ground towards where his friend lay. The second tube then slid between his friends buttocks and vanished into his body.

The creature that had been dragging turned round and looked down at him. Buck closed his eyes and pretended to be unconscious. It seemed to be enjoying this he thought, as its mouth curled into a vicious rictus that mimicked a smile.

Buck felt the fingers of the creature loosen around his legs and he squinted his eyes open a little and looked back at Jimmy for a moment. The two tubes had been withdrawn from Jimmy’s body and were now slithering across the clearing heading towards him. The other creature that had been holding Jimmy down was now walking slowly towards him, a malevolent grin on its evil features. As the creature holding onto his legs eased its grip on his flesh, perhaps thinking its prey was immobilised Buck slid his hand quickly into his right trouser pocket and pulled out the hunting knife he always carried on him. He pulled it out and slashed with his right hand at the creatures face, the skin of which suddenly slid apart as the razored edge of the blade sliced down its face. A black substance that reeked of decay squirted out over his face and it screamed as it let go of his feet and clutched at its bleeding face. Buck leant forward and rammed the knife straight into its right eye which popped and squirted a clear liquid over his face and neck, withdrew the knife then plunged it into the right hand side of its throat.The creature opened its small mouth revealing a row of tiny yellow teeth, screamed loudly, fell back, twitched twice and then laid still.

He saw that the creature had dragged him to where it had thrown the pistol which now lay next to him and as he grasped it the other creature ran hissing across the clearing, jumped over the fire and headed straight towards him. Buck rolled onto his belly, aimed the pistol at the creatures midriff and fired twice. The first bullet knocked the creature back three feet into the air, whilst the second sliced along the skin of its belly as it twisted in the air and disembowelled it. As it fell to the ground, a pile of steaming black viscera tumbled out of its lower body cavity and pulsated on the grass.

The metal tubes immediately stopped moving towards him and began to retract back into the craft. He stood up, lowered the pistol and fired once into the face of the creature he had stabbed that lay on the ground. Its skull exploded sending shards of pale bone splattering onto the ground, then he turned and started to run to where jimmy still lay. As he passed the second creature that he had just shot out of the air, it opened its eyes and went to clutch at his feet with its right hand whilst holding onto the guts that had spilled from its body with its left hand. Buck leant down and pressed the pistol against its left forehead and pulled the trigger. As its head was thrown back by the impact of the bullet Buck ran forward, stuffed the pistol into his right pocket, picked Jimmy up and threw his unconscious form over his right shoulder. Jimmy groaned as he lifted him and then fell straight back into unconsciousness. A deep wound was cut into his forehead and the blood was beginning to congeal and crust over it.

The andrenaline was pumping through his entire body as he ran through the trees. He could not even feel the branches that slashed at his face and neck, nor the pain from his damaged mouth. He just needed to get away and take care of Jimmy. He looked behind him and saw that the metallic tubes which had been writhing on the ground were now were lifting the two dead creatures in the air back into the craft. As he watched from behind a tree about a hundred yards away from the clearing, a hole about three feet wide appeared in the side of the object and the creatures were lifted up from the clearing and pulled into the craft.

As the hole sealed up in the hull of the object it began to move upwards away from the clearing, and then with a sudden burst of acceleration shot straight up into the sky punching a hole in the clouds above the clearing, and vanished into the darkness.

Jimmy groaned on the floor beside him and Buck took his hunting jacket off and carefully wrapped him in it to keep him warm. He lifted him gently from the ground and headed slowly back to the clearing.

A BNP National Economic Plan

Comments are welcome.


The list of ideas below are the ONLY way this nation will survive and prosper through the Second Great Depression that is about to hit hard ;

1) The EU costs the UK 150 billion a year in direct subsidies and associated costs eg regulation - we must withdraw from the EU. Money saved from the EU must go into projects to build new coal mines, nuclear power plants and renewable energy projects in the UK along with massive public work schemes such as reopening the canal networks for freight and tax incentives used to shift goods from roads onto canals and railways.

2) We must scrap the entire Servile State - this means dismantling the race relations industry, the entire diversity industry, removing race relations cases from industrial tribunals and also ensuring all political correctness in public institutions is scrapped. All non-essential spending of public money on the servile state must be stopped.

3) Ban all immigration, scrap all legal fees and costs associated with legal cases related to immigration by ensuring that deportation is imposed. Legal aid to to be withdrawn for all immigation, asylum and associated legal cases eg translation costs. This will save hundreds of millions of pounds a year. All foreign prisoners to be deported, no amnesties to be imposed for illegals and the British army to be withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan and re-deployed to assist in the arrest, deportation and removal process of those illegaly in our nation. The British army to defend British borders and fight terrorism in the UK.

4) No more money to be given to the banks.

5) Banks already given tax payers money to be placed under the control of a National Bank of Reconstruction. This will be a bank whose money, assets and equity will be used to invest in national infrastructure projects such as renovating the railways, opening the canal networks and investing in atomic energy plants and renewable energy projects.

6) Prisoners to be tagged and deployed on public works schemes such as building the integrated canal network and renovating and upgrading the railways. They will be given training on the job and paid a small wage that will be used either to assist their families or to pay compensation to their victims.

7) Business taxes to be cut to around 15 % so as to allow business to be free of the tax burden at the same time as workers wages are raised by raising the minimum wage.

8) The minimum wage to be raised so as to allow workers to be able to live above the level of inflation - this extra money will be able to be used by workers to purchase commodities thereby supporting British companies.

9) Tariffs to be imposed on goods and products from China etc so as to allow British industries to be supported. If the British industries produce their goods in China but pay taxes in the UK, then tariffs will not be imposed.

10)Those British companies that employ British workers in Britain and produce British goods in Britain should pay a lower tax rate of around 5 % so as to encourage inner investment into the UK.

11) Lower rates of business and corporation tax to be imposed until the depression is over.

12) As inflation rises so must benefit payments to claimants. Public spending must be cut by dismantling political correctness, subsidies for the bankers and the servile state, not by cutting welfare payments for the unemployed.

13) Massive reform of personal taxation so that the rich pay a higher tax burden in relation to their personal income. Laws to be passed to prohibit bankers and directors of companies from claiming bonuses when the company is cutting pension payments or is claiming public assistance.

14) The removal of pensions assets from companies to be made a crime and those who have doe so in the past to face a court and their personal assets to be removed and used to fund the pensions of those who have lost out to the asset strippers.

15) The national bank of reconstruction to buy up all essential industries that are regarded as important to the national interest and that are struggling. The national bank to start to issue compulsory purchase orders against those industries that are essential to creating an integrated transport, energy and industrial base for Britain.

In the era of Peak Oil the new industrial base of the future will be based on Durable Commodities, eg goods that are designed to last a long time and which are designed to be repaired. This Durable Industries is in direct opposition to Consumerism , which is based on cheap goods that are designed to have short life spans and that are not designed to be easily repaired. In an age of resource scarcity the fridges, cars and TV's we use will have to be taken care of and repaired - and this is the basis of the future of industrial development in the future.

Along with this we require localised energy production systems based on renewable energy in order to create the Renewable Energy Economy that will replace the present petro-dollar recycling system based on fractional reserve banking.

We also require government to work with big business to build a slew of new nuclear reactors to enable us to bridge the supply gap as the renewable energy systems come on stream.

All internal DOMESTIC supply of energy for the UK must be based on local renewable energy production systems based on wind, solar, wave, hydro-electric, geo-thermal etc etc which supplies all our internal domestic energy needs for housing etc whilst the nuclear power systems must be used to supply industry and business. Contracts must be signed with business to guarantee long term energy supplies to business at a low cost so as to ensure the initial investment is not damaged by competition in the future.

At the same time we must also invest in reopening the coal mines and building coal processing plants next door to the mines so that the coal can be used for energy production. The harmful by products of the coal to energy process can be sequestered in the empty oil fields of the North Sea.

Coal will not be used for domestic energy needs, as that will be supplied by renewable energy systems locally organised and run, but will be used to supply business.

The export of British energy surplus will be the backbone of our future national economy.

Once we have in place the renewable energy systems for domestic use the excess energy we create can be sold to Europe and the rest of the world, and this income will bcome the main income for the UK in the 21st century.

In the peak oil era it will not be gold or the dollar that will be the basis of the future economics, but simply energy.

With the cheap energy systems we have created we will be able to sell our durable goods to all other nations across the world, as the main costs in the peak oil era of industry will be energy costs involved in the processing of raw materials and manufacture of goods.

The nation that puts in place the renewable energy systems for domestic supply of energy and efficient energy systems for industry will be the most productive nation on the planet in relation to the manufacture of goods - therefore because we will be able to use cheap energy to produce durable goods , the British industrial model will replace China and India in the 21st century - simply because they rely on oil to manufacture their goods and because they produce consumer goods that will increase in price as the resources used to produce those good rise ever higher in price as the resources grow scarcer.

British agricultural systems must be changed to be based on national self sufficiency, whilst the waters of the UK must be used for more sustainable fishing and other sea based agriculture.

Massive offshore wind and wave plants must be deployed to reap the renewable energy of sea and wind power off the coast of the UK. This will involve floating platforms that be linked with fisheries and other environmental projects.

The British Navy must be used to defend our waters and ensure that non-UK boats are not allowed to enter UK waters.

Our seas are our seas and our fisheries are our fisheries, not the EU's.

Travellers and Political Correctness

A few years ago a group of Irish travellers, not gypsys ( the travellers in the UK are mainly either Irish or English - virtually none of them are what can be called 'gypsys' as defined by a Romany / Indian ethnicity ) were illegaly camped out in their 60 grand caravans with 30 grand land rovers in Strood car park.

My mother went to use the public toilets and found about six of the traveller kids smashing the doors down, flooding the toilets and throwing wet toilet paper everywhere. She let rip at them and the little bastards ran off back to their caravans.

My mother promptly marched over to the caravan the kids had scuttled into and began banging on the door. After a couple of minutes an Irish woman opened the door and said ' whatdcha want ' - my mother replied ' get those brats hiding in there into the public toilets that they smashed up and have them clean them up. We pay for those toilets out of our council taxes so get them to clean the bloody mess they made. I will stay here banging on your door until they come out and get on with cleaning the mess'.

The womans jaw dropped that someone one dare confront her and her brood of brats, and she sent the sullen brats out to clean the mess they made up.

These creatures that roam Britain in untaxed motors hawking goods on the side of the road that have usually been nicked are not gypsys - they are simply Irish travellers who use the cover of being a 'gypsy' to take the piss out of everyone else in the community.

And by the way - one side of my fathers family are Irish travellers, so I know what I am talking about.

Yet again the white liberal politically correct scum in our communities put the interests of minorities before the interests of the majority.




Council disregard objections of 3,000 residents to traveller site as 'they are racist'

By Dan Newling
Last updated at 8:14 AM on 30th December 2008

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Residents objected to plans for a traveller site near their homes (file pic)

Residents objected to plans for a traveller site near their homes (file pic)

When residents were asked to provide feedback on council plans to build traveller camps on their doorstep they dutifully responded.

More than 3,000 homeowners filled in forms outlining their views, many raising concerns over a possible increase in noise, traffic, rubbish and a detrimental effect on property prices.

However, such objections were not appreciated by Mid-Bedfordshire District Council, which partially or fully rejected nearly nine in ten of the replies for including comments 'of a racist nature'.

Weeks after asking for residents' views earlier this year, the council posted an article on its website entitled 'Racist Comments Not Welcome'.

It claimed the council's 'duty of community leadership' meant it had to crack down on the use of racial stereotypes, and revealed that while 400 responses would be considered, 3,100 were in some way racist and would be rejected.

The council even sent letters to objectors telling them their views had been deemed offensive and would not be taken account of.

Retired company secretary Lucy Clarke from Stotfold - one of the six small towns and villages mooted as sites for the 25 traveller families - was astounded to receive her letter.

Mrs Clarke, a grandmother of three, said: 'As far as I am aware I objected to the camp for entirely reasonable grounds. And yet I then get this letter from the council.

'They even accused me of incitement to racial hatred. It's ridiculous - like putting me on a par with Abu Hamza.'

She added: 'I am not racist, but I am concerned about what one of these camps could do to our town.'

Even the local town council could not avoid falling foul of the censors.

Brian Collier, chairman of Stotfold council said: 'We wrote a detailed response in which we summarised locals' concerns.

'There is another gipsy site not far from here that has a well-known crime problem.

'As part of our response we echoed people's worries that the same may happen here.

'We were totally shocked when we then received a letter from the district council saying that was racist. There are lots of people here who have had the same treatment.'


The district council's attitude has been criticised by local campaigners, politicians and civil liberties groups.

Tory communities spokesman Eric Pickles said yesterday: 'I hope that they write a letter of apology to everyone they have accused of being racist. Otherwise, people simply aren't going to feel able to object to these camps without the fear of being branded racist.'

When contacted by the Daily Mail, a spokesman for Mid-Bedfordshire council admitted that it had been 'somewhat overzealous'.

He said: 'We were worried that many of the letters contained racist slurs and objectionable comments that we felt could not be published under current race relations legislation.

'We had no intention of offending those who took the time to respond to the consultation and certainly were not trying to label residents as racist.

'Only a small proportion (around 5 per cent) of the comments were actually discounted in their entirety. The remainder were taken into consideration, either in whole or in part.'

UFO story Part 3

Tuesday March 30th 1993.



The silvern light of the moon in its first quarter phase lay glistening upon the waves as the Sally Anne, a small off shore fishing boat that had been lobster potting just off the beaches of Lundy island, chugged slowly back to Ilfracombe Harbour.

Kevin Williams, the owner of the boat and its captain, sat in the small wheelhouse smoking an Old Holborn roll up and listening to Elvis on the tape recorder he had sellotaped to the back of his seat. He had been a fisherman all of his life, having left school in 1954 at fourteen years of age and becoming a crewman on his uncles boat. Fishing was all he knew and the sea was in his veins as his wife used to say. Every day without fail he would take the boat out from Ilfracome Harbour and check and lay his lobster pots. The income he made from selling the his catch to the local restaurants was enough to keep the boat running and that was all he wanted from life. The wind was light and cold and coming from the west, with just a few pale wispy clouds visible to the east. The constellations of Cancer and Leo were now beginning to replace the winter stars and the individual stars that formed each of the constellations were shining as polished little diamonds bright against the black velvet of the night. Outside the boat in all directions no other ships could be seen. Overhead and slightly to the north he could see a satellite slipping soundlessly across the sky, a lonely dot of man made light adrift amidst the majestic celestial spectacle of the stars and planet.

Along the shoreline the lights of houses and cottages that nestled against the dunes and beaches were beginning to blink out one by one as their tired occupants were heading off to bed. He looked again at his watch and saw that it was just after midnight. The wife would be in bed by now, he thought. Time for a beer. The ebb tide would delay his return to the harbour a little bit but he estimated that he would be back home in about an hour or so. That meant he could knock back two beers before he berthed the boat and headed off to bed. He sat back, reached over to the small fridge underneath the wheel and pulled out a can of Carlsberg lager. He pulled the ring pull back, then pointed the can away from his face as it hissed and discharged a few bubbles and spits of liquid. He then put the can to his lips and sipped away the froth from the edge of the can. and sighed as cold the beer bubbles burst on his tongue and flooded his mouth with flavour.

The waves were lapping gently against the side of the boat, rocking it left and right as he drifted slowly back to port and he yawned loudly as he began to relax with his can. The tape recorder was blaring out his favourite Elvis track, Hound Dog, when the lights on the boat began to dim. For a second as the power from the engine dipped, Elvis developed a slur and all the lights on the boat flickered. He stood up from his seat and walked out from under the small roof of the wheelhouse. The engine seemed to be fine now though. He shrugged and turned to go back towards his seat when the engine went totally dead, the lights flickered out and Elvis went totally silent.

The boat lay dead in the water. As the bulbs began to dim as the last of the heat went from the filaments the darkness around the boat became absolute. Apart from a sprinkling of distant glimmering lights along the shoreline and the light from the moon, he was in total blackness. He reached into his jacket and pulled out his torch he kept in his inner pocket and flicked the switch forward. Nothing. Bloody thing. He walked into the wheelhouse and sat down. He turned the ignition switch on and off a couple of times but the main batteries of the boat seemed dead. The key clunked, but the engine and starter motor were both silent.

Out in the distance of the Bristol Channel he could discern a glow on the horizon. Through the small glass window in the wheelhouse he could see that the light was definitely growing brighter. Christ, he thought, I hope that aint another boat coming this way. The last thing that he needed was a bloody collision with another boat heading for Ilfracombe.

He reached up and pulled down the radio handset from its cradle, depressed the transmit button and shouted into the handset, “ Hello, Hello - anyone there - over “. No response. Not even a crackle of radio static emanated from the radio set to suggest any sort of signal was being transmitted to the coastguard in Ilfracombe. As he replaced the handset he noticed that the glow which had been coming through the window had moved closer and was also considerably brighter.

It appeared to be at an angle of about thirty degrees above the horizon and rising. He walked out of the wheelhouse out onto the main deck area and stared into the darkness towards the light as it grew in intensity.

Whatever it was, it was definitely getting closer to the boat. Within a few moments the glow issued by the object had begun to paint his shadow across the deck of the boat and onto the waves. The light itself was a reddish hue with a blue silver sheen around the edges. Strange, he had never seen a boat give this sort of glow off it. This wasn’t the usual sort of maritime lighting used on boats in the area. He began to feel slightly nervous now. The light was growing brighter in intensity every second and also rising higher in relation to the horizon itself. A whistling sound began to impose itself upon the silence, like the high pitched whine of a drill that had hit resistance and which grew louder with every passing second.

He noticed that the stars in the sky above the boat were slowly vanishing from view, as though a black blanket were being pulled across the sky and hiding the them beneath it.

Suddenly a bolt of intense red light appeared out of the darkness about two feet from the right hand side of the boat. It came down in a straight line like a laser beam from high in the air immediately above the boat. Kevin threw his hands across his face and screamed with pain as the glow burst into his eyes instantly blinding him. Through his closed eyelids and the gaps between his interlaced fingers he could still see the light flickering across the boat, over the wheelhouse and over the engine at the stern. It seemed to be searching for something he thought.

After a second or two adjusting to the sudden illumination he opened his eyes, removed his hands from his face and gazed out at the back of the boat. The humming was now so loud it was like a swarm of bees were surrounding the boat. The intense laser light that had blinded him a few moments ago, suddenly flicked off and vanished.

Kevin stepped gingerly out of the wheelhouse and looked straight up above the boat.

Stationary in the air about ten feet above the wheelhouse was a massive black triangular metallic object. Almost as large as a Boeing 747 jumbo jet it was hovering, absolutely still, so close he felt he could reach out and touch the thing. The exterior of the craft appeared to be made of a smooth metallic type substance that glistened as though oiled, though no seams or rivets could be seen at all anywhere on its surface. It looked to him as though it were a ceramic type material, as no part of the object appeared to be bolted to any other part of the object. It was totally smooth and appeared to be made of a single piece of material. At the rear of the object and to the left, approximately 200 feet away, a bright blue light glowed underneath the object illuminating the waves beneath it. On the other side of the object on the right hand side, also about 200 feet away, another bright blue light glowed, throwing blue beams onto the crest of the waves. About ten feet away towards the prow of his boat and directly in front of him a red light appeared to be pulsating and glowing deep within the metal skin of the craft, as though the metal itself were somehow illuminated from within. The red light was shining through the metal as though the material of the object was translucent.

He could feel himself shaking with fear as the object began to move forwards slowly over the boat.

He felt terrified that the object, which must have weighed hundreds of tons, would suddenly fall down upon him and crush him and the boat with its weight. With no obvious source of power, he could not understand how the craft was able to stay motionless in the air. Every now and then the red light near to the boat would issue from the surface of the object and then plunge straight down into the dark waters beneath it, the light penetrating down to the sea bed about twenty five feet below. The object and the light seemed to be searching for something in the water or on the sea bed for as the craft moved forwards the light slipped to and forth beneath it with an almost surgical efficiency, sweeping to and fro in order to cover every inch of the sea bed. Within half a minute or so the entire mass of the object had passed over the boat and was now moving slowly towards the shore. Once it had moved totally over the boat the radio began to crackle and the lights on the boat began to flicker on for a moment or two and then fade away.

Kevin stood on the deck of the boat and watched the object moving slowly away. Elvis suddenly began to sing’ And you aint no friend of mine’ from the tape recorder and the engine on the boat spluttered back into life. He almost fell over the side with fright at the tape recorder coming on. Christ, he thought, almost Elvis almost gave him a bloody heart attack. He ran back into the wheelhouse, flicked on the main boat light and directed it towards the craft. It was now over a hundred feet away moving in complete silence towards the beach. He grabbed the radio and keyed the mike. Silence. He pressed the mike again and screamed into it, “ Ilfracombe are you there come in”. Silence. Though the lights had come back on the boat, it appeared the object was still blocking the radio signal.

He stood in the wheelhouse and watched the laser lights from the craft flickering back and forth as the object moved slowly into the distance. With trembling hands he reached into the pocket of his combat trousers, pulled out his baccy tin and quickly rolled another cigarette then lit it with a match. His fingers trembled and most of the tobacco he had stuffed into the dog eared roll up spilled the floor. A few strands of the tobacco managed to stay alight as he applied the match and this allowed him to draw a thin cloud of smoke deep into his lungs. For the first time in his whole life he felt afraid of being out on the water. He pushed the throttle handle down and the engine throbbed as it surged forward. The object was now just a sheet of darkness that was darker than the sky around it, visible in the distance only because it blocked out the stars above it. The boat began to push its pointed snout through the low waves, furrowing its way forward and he gunned the engine to its maximum speed and headed straight towards Ilfracombe harbour.

The radio crackled and the voice of mike in the coastguard office at Ilfracombe burst out of the speaker, “ Come in Sally Anne, are you there over “.

Kevin took the handset off the cradle of the radio and keyed the microphone, he coughed and tried to calm the fear he knew was in his voice, “ Sally Anne here over”. The voice on the other end of the radio replied, “ Hi Kev, we got a garbled message from you about ten minutes ago - are you o.k over “.

He looked back out across the waters. The object had now vanished out of sight overland. What should he say. He thought of what the lads in the pub would say if he said anything about this. If he reported seeing a UFO they would rip the piss out of him forever. He pressed the microphone, “ Yeah sorry mark - the engine cut out and I thought I might need a tow - everything o.k. now over “.

“ O.K mate “, the coastguard officer replied, “ If you need any help just let us know over and out “.

Kevin put the handset back and gazed towards the shore. He shivered, though whether with cold or fear he was no longer sure.

Valkyrie And The Last Great Taboo

Have you ever wondered why it is that Hollywood churns out endless films about the Holocaust, endless films and documentaries about Hitler and the Nazis and endless films about World War Two filled with evil blonde Nazis strutting around in SS uniforms shooting innocent Jews - but why a film like Valkyrie by Tom Cruise which addressed the issue of German resistance to Hitler was so viciously attacked by Hollywood, media critics and film critics - EVEN BEFORE IT WAS RELEASED !!! ?

Hollywood, as is well known, is run primarily by Jews. All of the major studio heads are Jewish. If all the major studio heads were Bantu Pygmys then we could, and would say that Hollywood is run by Bantu Pygmys.

But there are no Bantu Pygmy studio heads in Hollywood.

There is of course nothing wrong with the fact that Hollywood is run primarily by Jews, but the fact is that those Jews in Hollywood have a vested interest in constantly reinforcing the idea that the Holocaust was a unique evil in human history.

It wasnt of course as the genocide of the Armenians, the massacres by Tamerlaine, the Killing Fields of Pol Pot, the Soviet Holocaust and the black on black genocide of Rwanda all demonstrate that the planned systematic slaughter of millions of people for a variety of reasons is something that permeates all of human history.

The reason why the Holocaust is so well known, and so well propagandised, is simply because the Jews in Hollywood and the Liberal Left politicians in the West all see the issue of the Holocaust as useful politically and communally to them - the Jews in America use the Holocaust to consolidate their power over the political, economic and media systems and to inculcate guilt in Europeans and Christians for the crime of the Holocaust and the Liberal left elite use the Holocaust as a way to attack Nationalism, nationalist politics and anything that dares stand against their politically correct multi-cultural society. Anything that is against political correctness and multi-culturalism can therefore be equated with 'nazism'.

In order for this conditioning trick to work then the Holocaust must be 'resold' to every generation via movies, books and popular culture in order to condition them into regarding Nationalism = Nazis = Holocaust.

This is why every few years a remake of the same stories are made, such as the Anne Frank story or a new Schindlers List or the Boy In The Striped Pyjamas or The Pianist etc etc.

Every generation gets sold their own Holocaust - and each time with better special effects and made more horrific in order to burn the event in the psyche of both Jews and non-Jews.

The recent attacks on the film Valkyrie directed by Tom Cruise that was denigrated by critics was attacked primarily on two grounds - first that Cruise as a Scientologist was somehow 'sinister' and also that the film was wrong as it portrayed what has become known as the 'good nazis' - those who were against Hitler.

Scientology is a threat to many powerful Jews in Hollywood as it is popular with many Jewish and non-Jewish people who are choosing to reject their Jewish racial and religious background, and Christian backgrounds, and adopt Scientology as a religion - which thereby weakens the hold the Jewish elite have on Hollywood.

Tom Cruise and the scientologists are the rising power elite in Hollywood who threaten the Jewish elites power grip over the film making, and hence conditioning, process.

Thereby the media demonises scientologists as a cult.

The other issue is lot deeper than simple power politics.

The very notion of the 'Good Nazi' brings with it the obverse, that of the Jews who through their actions facilitated the rise of the Nazis to power in pre-war Germany.

Simply put - the whole focus on history has been solely on German culpability for Hitler and not ever Jewish responsibility for the rise of anti-semitism in pre-war Germany and how their actions as individuals and a community assisted the rise of the Nazis to power.

The staple of the majority of Hollywood films, and hence conditioning, over the last 70 years since the end of the nazi regime is that ALL Germans were Nazis and hence all germans were evil. This perception of unique German evil was essential in order to ensure that the idea that any Jews in pre-war Germany, who may have been somehow also responsible for the rise of Hitler, could never even be regarded as existing.

If all germans were evil nazis then this meant that the Jews of Germany were absolved from any role in the rise of Hitler.

This was always utter rubbish - as shown by the many germans who fought against Hitler, housed Jewish refugees, who died in Concentration camps and who died organising attacks on Hitler.

The idea that all germans were bad nazis is a calumny that has been accepted only because people have been cowed into silence by the media.

The issue of Jewish responsibility for the rise of Hitler has NEVER been debated, spoken about or even addressed - let alone in a movie !

Valkyrie, the movie, challenges the great myth that all Germans were Nazis, all German were evil and therefore opens the door to the other issue - that not all Jews were simply 'victims' of the Germans and also what exactly was their role in the atmosphere of the times that generated such anti-semitism in German society and therefore that led to the rise of the Nazis.

One of the issues that dare not ever be debated is simply this - every year we see another legal claim for billions of dollars worth of reparations for artworks stolen by the nazis from german jews, land stolen by the nazis from the german jews, money stolen by the nazis from the german jews etc etc - yet no-one ever asks the questions - how was it that a minority of Jews in pre-nazi Germany managed to accumulate such vast wealth.

The question that goes along with this must also be - what effect did it have on poor, mainly working class Germans who suffered in the Great Depression who saw this tiny community with such massive wealth, power and privilege ?

It is this issue, and the many associated issues such as ;

1) How did the Jewish community in pre-Nazi Germany accrue such wealth, power and privilege in pre-nazi germany ?

2) How did ordinary Germans regard the wealth and power of the Jews in Germany ?

3) How did the Jews use their wealth, power and privilege in pre-nazi Germany ?

4) Was anti-semitism the cause of the rise of Nazism, or was Nazism the cause of the rise of anti-semitism ?

5) How aware were ordinary Germans as to the wealth and power of Jews in pre-nazi germany and how did this affct both their perceptions of the Jews and their feelings toward Nazism and Hitler ?

These are issues that Hollywood has barely addressed. The film Max, with John Cusak, where Hitler is shown as a poverty stricken artist jealous of the wealth and talent of Max, a wealthy Jewish art gallery owner, touched on the issue but never explored it - instead it was once again the issue of simple jealousy that was used as the motivation for Hitlers anti-semitism.

Yet the question - how did Max and his family accrue such wealth, power and privilege in the midst of such poverty that afflicted ordinary Germans, was not addressed.

It is this question, the issue of Jewish culpability in the rise of the Nazis, that is the last great taboo.

This is where the Marxists Are

At the end of the Cold War the ideology that Communism was totally defeated.

Its economic theories were revealed as false by the conquest of Capitalism and the failure of immiseration to occur, the theory of Dialectical Materialism was proved as bogus by the failure of the Working Class to rise up and create the Communist state, Quantum Physics proved that the theory of Dialectical materialsm based on it being a science was bogus and therefore that the problem of Self Refutation destroyed Marxism by it having to accept it was also a victim of False Consciousness, as its ideological basis as a science ( bogus in itself as it is an ideology) was destroyed by chaos theory and understandings of the chaos and randomness at the heart of the quantum universe.

All that was left for the Marxists to do was begin their Culture War against the West with Political Correctness and Multi-Culturalism.

The latest emanation of this Culture War is the 'diversity agenda' and the demand by Marxists in the Fire Brigade for Quotas.

Quotas are racist - they impact ONLY upon indigenous White British people.

Those that call for quotas are directly discriminating against the ethnic majority in order not to support ethnic minorities, but to continue and promote their culture war against the West.



Politically correct brigade demands one woman on each fire engine
Fire engines will have to have at least one firewoman on board in order to meet diversity guidelines, town hall leaders claim.

By Ben Leach
Last Updated: 2:26AM GMT 29 Dec 2008

The Local Government Association (LGA) has said that at at least 15 per cent of those in operational roles should be female.

That means they will fill one of the five or six places for crew on each engine.

The LGA said an increased number of firewomen is necessary "to meet the needs of local people".

But critics warned that political correctness was being put above the ability to save lives.

Susie Squire, of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: "Introducing this sort of quota to the fire service is a big mistake.

"If ever there was a job that should be awarded on merit and physical fitness, it is that of a firefighter.

"This quota system will not only cost taxpayers money by introducing additional and unnecessary administration, but could risk the safety of all of us in the long run."

At present fewer than one in ten firefighters are female.

In future local councillors who are appointed to serve on the fire authorities will be asked to sign up to the "diversity charter".

One of the pledges they are expected to make is to "work to achieve recruitment targets of at least 15 per cent for women in operational roles".

Anthony Duggan, head of fire services at the LGA, said: "The fire service needs to be representative of the area it serves.

"It is important that the fire service attracts more women and ethnic minorities so that it can work more effectively in partnership with local authorities and other organisations to meet the needs of local people."

The Tale of Harry Cannab

This is a poem based on an old folk tale of the Clent Hills where my cousin used to live.





The Tale Of Harry Cannab.



At Yule when the veil between worlds is thin,
The dead may rise and roam amongst men,
Criminals unpunished bolt tight their doors,
As the Wild Hunt rides with its devils abroad.

A baying pack of infernal black hounds,
Hunt down their quarry if gone to ground,
Muzzles dripping sparks and molten lead,
Red eyes ablaze with the hell fires of death.

From demonic depths the hounds have risen,
Summoned forth to do their masters bidding,
Swift as bats awing through the starry night,
The dead awaken as the phantoms take flight.

In Halesowen police sirens scream and wail,
As baying bloodhounds sniff and scent a trail,
Upon a bloody street a man lays killed,
As a fugitive flees into the dark Clent Hills.

Two friends had fought for a fey girls kiss,
A pistol was raised before a proffered fist,
One shot rang out and a man left dead,
Laid cold on the ground as the other fled.

Through bramble and gorse, thorny furze,
The snags and snarls of winters curse,
The hunted man runs, slips and slides,
Seeking in the misted hills a place to hide.

Wet bracken black as a widows veil,
Slick with slime, clags and assails,
The trees conspire to block his way,
Soon the path is lost and he is led astray .

He rests awhile beneath the horned moon,
That rises from the foggy forest gloom,
Soaked to the skin his teeth chatter,
As he hears nearby a ghostly clatter.

Through the trees he sees the phantoms fly,
Corpses on horseback, the wild hunt rides
Spectral steeds whose hooves flash sparks,
And a pack of hounds that scream, not bark.

The master cracks his whip upon their backs,
That devil known hereabouts as Harry Cannab,
In the distance now he can hear a tolling bell,
As the black gates open to the depths of hell.

Bella in the wych elm screams with glee,
As the wild hunt passes and sets her free,
Her fingernails black with sodden bark,
She runs with the pack in the forest dark.


Headless saint Kenelm joins the fray,
His severed skull left where its lays,
Over all seven hills the wild hunt rides,
Seeking the guilty and taking their lives.


Closer come the hounds upon his trail,
Faster and faster he runs but to no avail,
He can feel their fiery breath upon his heels,
As the blood in his veins begins to congeal.

Then a tree root makes him stumble,
He falls hard and takes a tumble,
In a moment the pack swift surround,
Their trapped quarry and gather round.

In a circle of despair the killer awaits,
Not knowing what will be his fate,
The black dogs gather and drool with glee,
Hungering for his flesh, their savage feed.

Rotting corpses gather to laugh and point,
With fingers formed of skeletal bone joints,
Maggots writhe free upon their tongues,
The flesh rancid green from being long hung.

Centurions with their limbs hacked off by Kelt axe,
Stand beside Saxons felled in war with seax,
Ghosts of the English civil war with rusty muskets,
Assemble beside the foul fruit of the iron gibbets.

Harry Cannab steps down from his black horse,
Puts a chain round his slaves neck and ties it taut,
Remounts the demonic steed and whips its flank,
And drags the killer down the mossy banks.

As ravens rise from carrion the pack takes flight,
Dragging him screaming through the wintry night,
The rusted chain tightens hard around his neck,
But for him there will never be the peace of death.

Over the frost rimed hills the wild hunt rides,
As country folk in their cottages pray and hide,
Red hot cinders fall on their roofs of thatch,
As the pack returns to hell with their catch.

In the morning the locals all know the score,
That the killer in the hills will be seen no more,
So the local copper decides to close the case,
And orders an end to the pointless chase.

US Military Junta Rule

En Route to Military Rule
by William Norman Grigg
by William Norman Grigg


DIGG THIS

Part I
Part II
Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. The violent destruction of life and property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.

~ Federalist Paper No. 8, in which Alexander Hamilton displayed an atypical ardor to defend liberty against state power.

"We no longer have a civilian-led government."

This ominous conclusion comes to us from Thomas A. Schweich, who held the title of deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement affairs in the Bush Regime, by way of a December 21 Washington Post op-ed column. Lamenting "the silent military coup d’etat that has been steadily gaining ground below the radar screen of most Americans and the media," Schweich describes the infusion of the military "into a striking number of aspects of civilian government" as "the most unnerving legacy of the Bush administration."

Schweich is not an advocate of limited-government who managed to burrow deeply into the Bu’ushist Welfare/Warfare State; he is an advocate of "soft power" imperialism, the supposedly benign variety that focuses more on hectoring foreigners about their shortcomings, rather than unceremoniously bombing them into blood pudding. Oh, sure – even "soft power" imperialism involves the threat and occasional practice of bombing, but usually only amid cries of anguished reluctance following the performance of the proper multilateralist sacraments. (For useful examples, consult the Clinton-era bombing campaigns in the former Yugoslavia.)

Schweich seems particularly miffed that the military shouldered aside the State Department’s efforts to train civilian "law enforcement" personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the Pentagon’s habit of Bogarting all of the boodle set aside for "reconstruction" projects.

But even though his protests have the sectarian flavor of bureaucratic in-fighting, Scweich validates his shocking announcement of the demise of civilian government with some very solid examples. For instance, the military’s domination of law enforcement training in Iraq and Afghanistan have created police forces that "have been unnecessarily militarized – producing police officers who look more like militia members than ordinary beat cops. These forces now risk becoming paramilitary groups, well armed with US equipment, that could run roughshod" over civilian governments.

While this and other "military takeovers of civilian functions" took place "a long distance from home," Schweich elaborates, the same all-devouring militarism is at work here as well.

Witness the huge and expanding role played by the military in narcotics enforcement, including the hugely expensive "Merida Initiative" through which the Bush Regime has collaborated with Mexico’s narcotics syndicates (which are, to use a common term on this side of the border, public-private partnerships) to propagate unprecedented violence and misery in that country.

The most important example Schweich lists is the Pentagon’s plan "to deploy 20,000 U.S. soldiers inside our borders by 2011, ostensibly to help state and local officials respond to terrorist attacks or other catastrophes. But that mission could easily spill over from emergency counterterrorism work into border-patrol efforts, intelligence gathering and law enforcement efforts – which would run smack into the Posse Comitatus Act…. So the generals are not only dominating our government activities abroad, at our borders and in Washington, but they also seem to intend to spread out across the heartland of America."

While Schweich’s concern and candor do him credit, his warnings are tantamount to urging that we secure the barn door long after the prize stallion has fled, been butchered, and graced a Frenchman’s dinner table.

The military "spill-over" into domestic law enforcement that he warns against began as a trickle in 1981 with passage of the Military Cooperation with Civilian Law Enforcement Act. That trickle is now a cascade as voluminous and consistent of any found in Niagara Falls. Once again, this is chiefly – but not entirely – due to the so-called War on Drugs.


The eyes of the military are upon you: Active-duty military personnel collect photographs of anti-war activists during a 2002 Washington, D.C. protest against the then-impending Iraq war.

For some time, military involvement in domestic intelligence gathering has included personal surveillance of political activists; more recently, this has expanded to the use of spy satellites to monitor political protests on behalf of militarized law enforcement bodies. While Schweich is properly alarmed by the way the Pentagon has created Iraqi and Afghan police forces that are little more than miniature armies of occupation, he apparently hasn’t noticed that the same process is well underway here in the United States as well.

In some ways, Schweich’s jeremiad is a good update and companion piece to Brig. Gen. Charles J. Dunlap’s prescient essay "The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012," published in the Winter 1992–93 issue of the U.S. Army War College journal Parameters.

Written in the form of a smuggled prison letter composed by "Prisoner 222305759," condemned to death for "treason" by the American military junta of Gen. E.T. Brutus, Dunlap’s essay described many trends that he feared would culminate in "a military that controls [the American] government and one that, ironically, can’t fight."

As government corruption and ineptitude grew, "The one institution of government in which people retained faith was the military," explained Dunlap’s literary stand-in. The military was thus burdened with countless tasks unrelated to warfare – from law enforcement, to supplementing the work of doctors and teachers, from environmental preservation efforts to bolstering the financially stricken airline industry. (Dunlap, incidentally, extensively documents how the military was either active, or planning to become involved, in all of those missions by the early 1990s.)

Likewise, the military’s missions abroad were increasingly Operations Other Than War (OOTW), a term that came into vogue subsequent to publication of Dunlap’s essay. At the same time, a cultural dissonance grew between the military and the public it was supposedly serving.

The structural defects in this new model military were displayed to painful effect in what the author describes (by way of prediction, remember) as "the wretched performance of our forces in the Second Gulf War," particularly following Iran’s intervention in 2010: "Preoccupation with humanitarian duties, narcotics interdiction, and all the rest of the peripheral missions left the military unfit to engage an authentic military opponent."

While the military was no longer well-suited to fight and win wars (including, of course, patently unjust wars of aggression), its subtle and thoroughgoing integration into every element of domestic life made it perfectly suited to carry out a coup: "Eventually, people became acclimated to seeing uniformed military personnel patrolling their neighborhood. Now troops are an adjunct to almost all police forces in the country. In many of the areas where much of our burgeoning population of elderly Americans live – [military dictator] Brutus calls them 'National Security Zones’ – the military is often the only law enforcement agency. Consequently, the military was ideally positioned in thousands of communities to support the coup."

Very little of consequence separates the speculative world described by Dunlap from the one in which we presently live. One institutional impediment is the Posse Comitatus Act (or whatever remains of it), which was intended to prevent direct involvement of the military in domestic law enforcement.

But this measure, which was always a tissue-paper barricade at best, is all but extinct as we near the end of the Bush era. And the ranks of military scholars are planted thickly with people devising arguments to destroy whatever may remain of the Posse Comitatus proscriptions.

In a paper published by the US Army War College in early 2006, Lt. Col. Mark C. Weston of the U.S. Air Force Reserve points out that the Posse Comitatus Act has been perforated with "exceptions" practically since it was passed in 1878. (Just weeks after signing the act – passage of which was part of a deal that ensured his presidency – Rutherford B. Hayes deployed the Army to carry out police functions in New Mexico.)

One of the biggest exceptions deals with what could be called the use of "civilian" police as military proxies, since the Pentagon is permitted "to provide equipment, transportation, training, supplies, and services to law enforcement officials as long as it does not directly and actively participate in law enforcement tasks," writes Weston. Which is to say that it’s permissible to militarize the police, as long as troops aren’t actually the ones pulling triggers and conducting arrests. This is, once again, exactly the same procedure being used to create the Afghan and Iraqi "militias" described by Thomas Schweich.

There are six formal exceptions to the Posse Comitatus Act listed in Title 32, Sec. 215.4 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Weston writes. To that list, he rather audaciously adds "One final exception worthy of discussion [namely] the concept of martial law." Referring to the Supreme Court’s 1866 Ex Parte Milligan decision, Weston insists that martial law can properly be said to exist only in "the absence of order, courts, and constitution…. Martial law is the use of force by the military to maintain order by acting as the police, the court, and the legislature…. If the courts are open then [use of the term] martial law is not appropriate."

Most domestic deployments of the military don't cross the threshold of martial law, Weston maintains, and he eagerly recommends making it easier for the military to carry out such missions by repealing the Posse Comitatus Act (or PCA). From Weston’s perspective, the PCA, which was never a good idea, has long since fallen into desuetude. He insists that the Act should either be repealed outright or modified in such a fashion as to make it entirely inconsequential.

Posse Comitatus, Weston writes, is "a significant obstacle to unified action on homeland security … an impediment to agility and adaptability of the military to national defense … [a hindrance to] national values and national purpose." Yet he prefers to "modify" the Act rather than abolish it, apparently to maintain – for now – the useful fiction that military and police powers remain separate, with civilian officials firmly in control of the former.

In an October 2000 essay entitled "The Myth of Posse Comitatus," Major Craig T. Trebilcock, a JAG officer in the U.S. Army Reserve offers an assessment quite similar to that of Lt. Col. Weston: The PCA is useless but not harmless, and best ignored if it can’t be dispensed with.

The only value of the PCA, according to Trebilcock, is the fact that "it remains a deterrent to prevent the unauthorized deployment of troops at the local level in response to what is purely a civilian law enforcement matter." For example, it can result in administrative punishment or even criminal prosecution of "a lower-level commander who uses military forces to pursue a common felon or to conduct sobriety checkpoints off of a federal military post."

As of December 12 – when active-duty U.S. Marines conducted a joint highway sobriety checkpoint with California Highway Patrol officers – that example can be crossed off Trebilcock’s list.

In his book An Empire Wilderness, Robert D. Kaplan describes a strategic planning session held at Ft. Leavenworth’s Battle Command Training Program shortly after the April 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing (a tragedy directly facilitated by several of the Regime’s three-letter agencies). One of the participants, a Marine Major named Craig Tucker, predicted that the threat of terrorism and domestic turmoil suggested that the military would have to "go domestic."

While that prediction has been fulfilled, the process has yet to be fully consummated. On the continuum described by none other than Gen. George S. Patton – who considered domestic military deployment as the "most distasteful" form of service – we are presently somewhere between routine involvement of military personnel "in connection with Domestic Disturbances" and "Martial Law." That continuum ends with "Military Government," which differs from Martial Law in that it represents the complete abolition of civilian authority, as opposed to the enforcement of a civilian ruling elite’s will through direct military force.


In administering either Martial Law or Military Government, Patton – predictably enough – prescribed the pitiless application of lethal force. He digested his doctrine of domestic military missions into what he called "The Law and the Prophets of Riot Duty," a canon that includes the following directives:

"Take no orders from civil officials – federal, state, or municipal."
"You may and should cooperate with police or state troops who may be present; but you and not they are the judge of the amount and character of this cooperation."
"Should some orator start haranguing the crowd and inciting them to violence, grab him even if it brings on a local, small fight. Small fights are better than big ones. Words cunningly chosen change crowds into mobs."

"Warn newspapers, theaters, and churches that if they encourage the mob, they are guilty of aiding them and that their leaders will be held personally accountable. Freedom of the press cannot be construed as 'license to encourage’ the armed enemies of the United States of America. An armed mob resisting federal troops is an armed enemy. To aid an enemy is TREASON. This may not be the 'law,’ but it is fact. When blood starts running, the law stops."

"If you have captured a dangerous agitator and some 'misguided’ federal judge issues a writ of Habeas Corpus for him, try to see the judge to find out what he is liable to do…. There’s always the danger that the man might attempt to escape. If he does, see that he at least falls out of ranks before you shoot him. To be soft hearted might mean death to your men. After all, WAR IS WAR."

"As in all military operations, information is vital. By the use of detectives, soldiers in civilian clothes, and friendly citizens, get all possible information about the condition within the city."

"The use of gas is paramount…. While tear gas is effective, it should be backed up with vomiting gas."

"Although white phosphorous is incendiary, it is useful in forming a screen for the attack of barricades and defended houses."

"If you must fire, DO A GOOD JOB. A few casualties become martyrs; a large number becomes an object lesson."

These admonitions, remember, were issued with respect to the use of military force against American citizens by a man revered as a patriotic hero by millions (including some lately given to second thoughts) – and who, ironically enough, was almost certainly assassinated by the same State he served with such ruthlessness.

Patton's model for a domestic counter-insurgency "war" during the last depression would probably resemble the approach used by the military in dealing with serious internal upheaval in the depression that has just begun.

Significantly, Patton’s tactics track very closely with those employed to enforce US occupation of Iraq – including the use of hideous white phosphorous munitions. That occupation is supposedly slated to end in 2011 – the same year, incidentally, when the military’s 20,000-man Homeland Security force is supposed to be fully deployed.

If the conclusion voiced by Thomas Schweich and other very credible analysts is correct – if, indeed, we are living under a de facto military junta, the nature of which will become clear as the economic collapse strips away all politically comfortable pretenses – we may soon learn, in the most painful way possible, that our military missions abroad have been carefully training the occupation force that will extinguish whatever remains of our liberty.


December 27, 2008

NOT A BLOODY PENNY MORE !!!!!!

Why the hell are we giving India and Pakistan humanitarian aid when they can afford to build armies and weapons like this !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



The Dangers Of An India-Pakistan War
By Lord Stirling
12-27-8

War tensions are being racketed up in the Indian subcontinent, between India and Pakistan. They have fought three major wars since what was once called India in the British Empire obtained its freedom and India and Pakistan split apart. There is great distrust and hate between Hindu India and Islamic Pakistan. The real danger comes from the fact that both are now nuclear armed neighboring states with very short warning times. It has been estimated that the leadership of both India and Pakistan would have as short as two minutes warning once enemy nuclear armed missiles are spotted and confirmed, before first impacts/detonations . That tends to put things on a 'hair trigger'. A surprise nuclear attack would be aimed at dramatically reducing the opposing state's ability to strike back with weapons of mass destruction giving the nation striking first a strong advantage. The response to this is to fire at first warning a full counter battery nuclear attack.

A war could easily escalate from a Indian 'limited non-nuclear surgical strike' into a all out nuclear war targeting not only enemy military sites but also enemy population centers.

A review of Indian and Pakistani weapons of mass destruction and delivery systems shows just how scary the Indian subcontinent is at this present time.

Pakistan's nuclear weapon program dates back to at least 1974 and is very advanced, although not as advanced as larger and richer India's is. Since 1987 Pakistan's nuclear weapons have been miniaturized to allow delivery by Pakistan's Air Force fighters and by its IRBMs (intermediate range ballistic missiles) and cruise missiles (including ground/air/naval surface/submarine launched versions).

Pakistan uses both highly enriched uranium and plutonium for its nuclear weapons. The Khushab nuclear site has sufficient plutonium production for 40 to 50 warheads a year by itself. This site is coming on line and is a major expansion of Pakistani plutonium reprocessing capabilities; a fact that concerns a number of nations including America, India, and Israel. In 2000, US military intelligence reportedly estimated Pakistani nuclear weapons at approximately 100 in number. A number of 200 in late 2008/early 2009 is very probable.

The sixth Pakistani nuclear test (May 30, 1998) at Kharan was a successful test of a sophisticated, compact, but powerful bomb designed to be carried by missiles. The Pakistanis are believed to be spiking their plutonium based nuclear weapons with tritium. Only a few grams of tritium can result in an increase of the explosive yield by 300% to 400%.

The Pakistani strategic capable missiles include the following: the Hatf-X (also called Tipu), 4000 km + range (new, unknown number in service); the M-11, 300 km range (new, unknown number in service); the Hatf-VIII (also called Ra'ad), an air launched cruise missile (new, unknown number in service); the Hatf-VII (also called Babur), a naval submarine launched and surface launched and ground launched cruise missile, 700 km range (up to 1,000 in service); the Hatf-VI (also called the Shaheen-II), 2500 km + range (over 200 in service); the Hatf-VA (also called the Ghauri-II), 2400 km + range (over 100 in service); the Hatf-V (Ghauri-I), up to 1500 km range (approximately 300 in service); the Hatf-VI (Shaheen-I), 750 km range (150 or so in service) the Hatf-III (Ghaznavi), 290 km range (100+ in service); Hatf-I and IA, up to 100 km range (over 100 in service).

In addition to nuclear weapons, these missiles can carry advanced biological warheads, chemical warheads, advanced conventional weapons, and high explosive conventional warheads.

The Pakistani Air Force has the following aircraft types capable of delivering nuclear warheads, as well as a full range of NBC/advanced conventional/conventional weapons: The Chinese A-5s, JF-17s (FC-1), J-10s; the French Mirage IIIs and Vs; the American F-16s.

India's first nuclear weapons test occurred on May 18, 1974. Numbers of actual Indian nuclear weapons vary but assembled weapons are thought to be in the low hundreds with India having perhaps 4200 kg of reactor grade plutonium - enough to build 1000 additional nuclear weapons.

The Indian strategic delivery systems are extensive and include land based IRBMs and cruise missiles (with true ICBMs under development), sea based surface and submarine launched cruise missiles and naval air launched weapons from Indian aircraft carriers, and air launched missiles and bombs.

Indian ballistic missiles include: Prithvi I, Army version with 150 km range and in-flight maneuvering capabilities; Prithvi II, Air Force version with 250 km range; Prithvi III Navy version with 350 km range; the Agni missile family (Agni I, II, III, IISL and the coming V ICBM version) with ranges up to 5000 km. The Agni family of missiles have demonstrated an advanced maneuvering warhead (endo-atmospheric evasive maneuvers, terminal guidance reentry vehicles).

Indian cruse missiles include the: Russian 3M-54 Klub, 250-300 km range with subsonic to Mach 2.9 speeds,; the Israeli Popeye, the Russian P-70 Ametist; the very dangerous Russian Moskit (also called Sunburn). Additionally, the Indian Akash air defense SAM can use nuclear warheads.

The Indian Navy is one of the most powerful navies on earth with nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers and a wide assortment of quality surface and subsurface vessels.

India is one of only four nations (including the USA, Russia, and China) still flying long range nuclear strategic bombers with 17 in service including the Tupolev Tu-142 (naval version of the Tu-95 Bear bomber), the Tupolev Tu-22M3 "Backfire", and the II-38. Fighter jets capable of nuclear missions include the advanced Russian Sukhoi Su-30MKI, the Mig-27M, the Mig-29 and Mig-29K (Indian Naval version), the French Dassault Mirage 2000, the French-British Jaguar, and the Indian HAL Tejas.

Global Effects of a regional India-Pakistan War: A nuclear war involving the use of only 50 Hiroshima-sized weapons could cause a "Nuclear Winter" over large areas of North America and Eurasia with catastrophic climatic effects for years. The 'Proceedings of the National Academy of Science' in 2008 published a study that found a war including a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan could create a near-global ozone hole with column ozone losses at over 20% globally, 25-45% at mid-latitudes and 50-70% at northern high latitudes persisting for five years with continuing substantial losses for five additional years.

As the world has kept its attention on several other things lately, like the US Presidential election and transition, the global economic Crash of 2008, Christmas, etc., the old trouble spot of the Indian subcontinent has suddenly gone 'warm' if not 'hot'. If it goes 'hot', the entire planet and all life on our Earth, could be in real trouble.

Stirling

earlofstirling@yahoo.com

Israel Attacks Hamas

Its nothing to do with us - so if one set of nutters wants to kill another set of nutters then let them get on with it.

Spare me the crocodile tears for both Palestinians and Israelis - neither of them would shed a single tear for us.

Keep Britain out of foreign wars - and foreign wars out of Britain.

Israel is not our front line against Islamist terrorism - our front line is Bradford, Oldham, Tower Hamlets and the rest of the Occupied Territories in the UK that have been taken over by alien colonists.

The only occupied territories that should concern us are the ones in Britain filled with Islamists and their supporters.

The only people worth weeping over are the kids who have not yet become indoctrinated as nutters, though give it time the kids on both sides would do.

UFO story chapter 2

It was moments like these that Jim Wilson loved the most.

There were few jobs in this world that could compare with the buzz of going into action sitting in the back of an Artctic 28 RIB, an 8.5 meter long ribbed boat powered by two 250hp outboard motors with a top speed of around 50 knots, as it ploughed and pranced through the choppy waters of the North Sea.

He had been in the Special Boat Squadron for five years after having been in the Royal Marines for three years. He had done two tours of action in Iraq and was now glad to be back in the UK with his family nearby and very few bullets being fired at him. Days like this were jam for him. A warm wife and a cold beer awaiting for him back in barracks at the end of every day was what he called comfort. A few more years of this and he could apply for a full time training job with the regiment. Thats why he enjoyed these moments of action for he could enjoy the buzz without the usual danger attached to such events.

He was wearing the standard issue SBS assault uniform of a black flame-retardent nomex suit, black flame-retardent balaclava, inflatable life jacket, SF10 respirator and kevlar helmet. For armaments he was carrying an mp5 a3 9mm sub machine gun, a sig sauer p226 9mm pistol on his right hip, a sawn-off remington 960 loaded with breaching rounds over his right shoulder and four flashbang stun grenades on a belt around his waist. Beside him sat six other members of the eight man Special Boat Squadron insertion team. Whilst one of the team piloted the boat and another sat at the rear of the boat monitoring the engines, the rest of the crew were busy going through final weapons and equipment checks.

The waters of the North Sea through which they were travelling were an ominous black green, and as the boat carved its way across the waves white flecks of sea spume were thrown over the prow and covered the crew in the body of the boat. The sun lay low in the East as the first rays of the dawn began to break through below a line of dark louring clouds. The throb of the engines could be felt as the boat lifted and rose from the waves as it crested a peak then crashed back onto the water. Like a skittish pony the boat needed a firm hand when the waters were as choppy as this. He knew they were in good hands though, few people on the planet were as skilled with a rib as Robbie up front. He could pilot the rib through a pod of dolphins and they wouldnt even know we were here. Though they had been dropped off about a mile from the platform by the Royal Navy frigate that was waiting for them to return, the journey to the platform would take a while as the waves were so high.

The Frigate sat in a quarantine zone a mile or so from the platform awaiting further orders.

The Brent Delta Platform the eight man SBS unit were heading too is situated about 186km, around 116 miles north-east of Lerwick in Scotland. With a maximum operational range of 200 Nautical Miles for the boat, this meant the target location was just about in the upper limits of the boats operational abilities in case something went wrong and the crew had to head back to shore under their own power.

They were approaching ten knots as they drew closer to the platform that loomed in the distance. The boat driver pulled the throttle back and moved the boat gently around to the rear of the platform. Then he pulled the boat back quickly at full throttle out into open water and circled the platform twice. Jim looked up through the steel struts that were laced together on the underside of the platform looking for any movement of the crew as they moved around the platform itself, but the whole platform appeared deserted.

With a single massive webbed steel chimney that jutted about a hundred feet above the main raised platform that constantly burned off gouts of excess gas prssure, the platform was cloaked in an fiery orange, red glow that flickered in the early morning light. The glow from the flames gouting from the chimney illuminated the platform with an nimbus that made it look almost menacing. Jim did not like the place. It creeped him out.

The Brent field supplies oil via the Brent System pipeline to the oil refining terminal at Sullom Voe, while North Sea gas is piped through the FLAGS pipeline until it comes ashore at St. Fergus on the north east coast of Scotland. The first platform put in place in the Brent Field was the concrete legged "Condeep" Brent Bravo in 1975 and this was followed by the oil platform the Brent Delta. The platform produces an average of 10,000 barrels per day of oil and 16 million cubic feet of gas per day. The waters in which it sits are around 40m deep ,460feet.


The platform itself looked like a collection of steel boxes haphazardly welded together by a drunk and then set atop three massive concrete legs that plunged straight down into the waves below. Painted a gaudy red and sickly orange with streaks of russet rust running down virtually every exposed surface, it looked something Lego had built and then abandoned to the elements. The main living accommodation for the crew was set within the interior of the platform just below and to the right of the helicopter pad. The concrete legs that supported the main body of the platform were blackened with rust and encrusted with a sheath of glistening seaweed that made it look as it if were wearing wrinkled tights. All manner of gantrys, walkways, platforms, access points, ladders and appendages protruded from almost every part of it. From the boat it looked like a massive version of the game Mousetrap, a mass of interlocked and intersecting sections that appeared and disappeared into the interior and exterior without any apparent meaning to their placement.

On one of the rear concrete legs a steel ladder in a steel cage ran down from the main platform to an embarkation point just above sea level where boats could moor and people could climb up into the main area itself in case of emergency evacuation.

About a hundred yards from the platform on its right hand side a white and red painted trawler boat could be seen moored up, its anchor chain disappearing down into the dark waters. The name Woden was painted on its side and it bobbed merrily as the waves lapped against its sides. A small bottom trawling boat it was used to catch fish on or near the seafloor, including the prawn and cod that were the basis of the fishing in the area. It was the staple of the North Sea fishing industry, one of hundreds of similar craft that every day were busy harvesting the frigid waters for a reasonably profitable return.

The voice of Karl Fuller, one of the team, crackled in his ear piece, “ Jim, the trawler that radioed in the emergency code to the rig yesterday morning looks deserted. “

Jim nodded and said, “ Doesn’t seem to be anyone on board. The emergency call the coastguard received from the boat said that four of the crew were sick and that the other three crew were taking them for emergency treatment to the nearest rig. They must have made it off the boat and then got on the platform”.

Karl replied, “ Both the boat and the rig has been out of radio contact now for over eight hours so we have to assume that what had made the fishermen sick has also made the platform crew sick. Jesus mate, what sort of fucking disease could make over a hundred men so sick that they cant even answer a radio call”.

Jim looked at over at the platform and shrugged “ The coastguard plane that flew over the platform this morning said that something has damaged the helicopter landing platform, possibly a small blow out from one of gas supply pipes, but that the rest of the rig looked structurally sound. We have to assume that whatever the fishermen brought on board the platform is highly contagious. If any of the platform crew had been able to stop the explosion then they would have done so, so that must mean the entire crew is incapacitated”.

Karl inserted a magazine clip into his mp5 a3 9mm sub machine gun and said, “ We have to assume that whatever it was the trawler dredged up from the sea bed was some sort of Word War 2 biological weapon, possibly an anthrax or nerve gas weapon. The other option is that this is an WMD attack of some kind. The intelligence on this is limited, so we go in with safety catches on. But if our own safety is compromised then we are authorised for deadly force but only in self defence o.k “.

Jim nodded. This wasn’t the sort of mission he was used too. Hiding in the darkness of the marshes that line the Shatt al-Arab waterway where the border sits between Iraq and Iran on the edge of the Persian Gulf, exchanging bullets with Iranian special forces teams in the dirty war that followed the invasion of Iraq was what he was used too. Not this kind of thing. The thought that some kind of biological weapon had been used on the rig terrified him. He was up to date with all the current inoculations for most of the known biological and nerve weapons available to terrorists in the world today, but that did not mean he was safe. Far from it. Any nutter with a chemistry set and a degree in chemistry or genetic engineering could download DNA code segments off of the internet and build their own biological weapon these days. You could even order DNA segments of diseases such as smallpox and make your own versions of the disease if you wanted too. God knows what could be waiting for them on the platform.

Karl looked at Jim and shook his head, “ I don’t like this mate. Something doesn’t feel right. The platform hasn’t pumped any oil since around midnight last night, so someone must have shut the platform off, and that means this was a deliberate shutdown. The damage to the helipad suggests someone doesn’t want us here, so be ready for anything once we get topside “.

They were now directly under the main body of the platform and as the boat pulled up alongside the concrete leg with the steel ladder on it, one of the team jumped onto the platform. One by one six of the team dismounted the boat whilst the driver expertly manoeuvred the boat in time with the waves that crashed around them.

Jim tensed himself and as the water rose he jumped onto the platform, as Karl followed. Two of the crew stayed behind with the boat.

He watched one of the team clamber deftly up the ladder and as Karl grasped the bottom ring with one hand and pulled himself up the steps, he followed him.

The silence on the platform was eerie. None of machinery was running and no lights could be seen. It was though the entire platform were dead.

A cold chill ran up his spine as he moved up the ladder into the underbelly of the platform itself.