UFO-CONTACT FROM PLANET IARGA 

POWERPOINT ON THE CASE (and here norwegian ppoint)

 

INTRODUCTION (short introfile)

 

This is a true story of a UFO contact from a planet called IARGA - by the alien astronauts visiting our Earth. They say that their Sun is about 10 light years as we count time from us, and that they have been observing us for some time.....

 

This story was first published in Dutch by Ankh-Hermes of Deventer, Netherlands in 1969 and has gone through 11 Editions and 40,000 hardbound copies in Dutch since then. It has been published as science fiction up to now because the publisher originally felt that this story would not sell as fact. Nevertheless it is a true account of real events and we are publishing it as such, here, for the first time, together with the very extensive follow-on data as the contacts continued right up to the present time. We have investigated this case extensively over the past 4 years and conclude that the facts do in reality verify and support the story. The witness is a very well educated and highly articulate master mechanical engineer and an architectural artist as well, a rare combination ideally suited for this contact if the alien visitors wanted their information to be understood and presented with any degree of accuracy.

The witness is also a well known multinational industrialist in Europe whose real name would be immediately recognized. He is the owner of several companies doing international business. To preserve his identity in order to protect his private life, we are using a pseudonym given him by the extraterrestrials themselves. They referred to him as "Stef van den Earde" (Stef of the Earth) from which Stefan Denaerde was derived. When I first met this man I was surprised by his size. He is a big man, about 6'4" tall and weighing perhaps 220 to 230 pounds.

 He dresses conservatively in expensive business suits and is very courteous and polite. He is mild mannered and introspective by nature, and speaks with almost perfect economy of words. He says what he means and means what he says. In discussions he is not given to elaboration and volunteers little information by himself He answers questions forthrightly, directly and honestly, and looks one right in the eye as he speaks. He is not known to tell fictitious stories, but is considered to be a model of truthfulness and integrity.

He lives in an upper class quiet neighborhood in a professional suburb of Den Hague. His home, on a beautiful treelined street, looks to have a $150,000 to $200,000 value, and is well maintained and beautifully landscaped. It faces a park reserve across the street from him. The neighborhood looks scrubbed dean. This man was not a UFO buff and has no collection of UFO books and journals. He does not lecture or talk on his experience publicity or privately. He does not write articles on it or give interviews. He did not believe in the phenomena and had gone to no pains to evaluate if before his own contact. He still does not believe in UFOs as such.

His experience was real AND WAS IDENTIFIED. In the long course of contact discussions, he learned a great deal about our real history, where we have been and where we are going, and how we fit into this great universe. He found that our written histories are not very accurate because of our constant revisions by different regimes. He was shown a future course of events in store for Us if we do not change our ways, and was then shown how fixed we are in our course and the improbability that we will change in time. He is saddened and discouraged by our lack of real progress, and feels that revelation of this information is a needless and ineffective burden for a self-destructive humanity. He does not see Us changing in time! The first book, "Buitenaardse Beschaving", printed in Dutch, is an account of the contact experience up to the departure of the spacecraft the following day. The contacts continued, however, and a vast amount of technical information was communicated to the witness over the next several months and even years.

The Iargans compared their society and their philosophies to ours, and described advanced technologies, man's place in the greater universe, and what is in store for all of Us in the future. These communications continued and ultimately developed into a sort of mechanical transmission from a technical device aboard the spacecraft to the mind of the witness, something like the way it was done during his visit aboard the spacecraft in the Oostscheld, except that now the pictures were transmitted to his mind instead of viewing them on a screen. Unknown to the witness however, and this will be news to him when he sees it in print for the first time, communications experts working with NATO in defense systems had picked up a strange incoming RF (radio frequency) electronic signal in the vicinity of a high security NATO defense installation in the Netherlands, and became very disturbed about the nature and purpose of this transmission. It was in an unusual bandwidth and had a strange character. It also was only detectable within a limited area in Den Hague (The Hague near where the sensitive installation is located. NATO Intelligence, believing this may be an attempt to interfere with the defense installation and its equipment, moved hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of highly sophisticated detection equipment into the area to try to find out what was happening.

It seems that this strange signal would begin about 4:00 PM and continue for an hour or more several days each week. Now, before this information came to light, my interviews with the witness had shown that his contacts were coming in several days each week on a more or less regular basis. The witness's habit was to come home from his office about 3:00 PM daily, read his personal mail and relax in his living room for a while. Often, when he was contacted, the "telepathic" transmission would begin about 4:00 PM, and would continue for an hour or more. This strange coincidence became of paramount importance when I learned that the search for the strongest signal was taking them only a few blocks from this man's home where he was receiving the contacts!

I don't know whether they have identified the source of the transmissions yet or not, and I don't know yet if there was any other transmission that may have occupied this time period by pure coincidence. In either case I am sure that I would not be advised because intelligence information usually goes only one direction. A point of particular interest in this case is the fact that this witness was told by the Iargan visitors themselves, that their group had contacted four other Earth humans in a similar manner, and had imparted similar information to each of them, and that once one of them got into print and became known, the others would make an attempt to contact him. This will certainly be a curious validation if any one of these others do in fact turn up. These contacts are still continuing on a lesser schedule and an unbelievable amount of information has been imparted to this man. !

(As the text is scanned here - there may be some wordmistakes.The book is long ago out of print. The pictures can be some enlarged by clicking on them. Some words are translated into scandinavian in () ).

 

FOREWORD FROM THE AUTHOR

This book is the account of a meeting with the crew of a spacecraft from a distant solar system in our milky-way. There are many who claim to have spoken with alien beings, often resulting in strange or garbled stories, so many in fact that their credibility has decreased to almost zero. After my own experience, I think that I understand the cause of the problem. The honesty of these people is beyond reproach, but their ability as observers may leave much to be desired. These experiences take place in the zones between our normal, material method of communication, and the immaterial method that we usually describe as thought transference or telepathy. With this, the conditioning of the observer determines the quality of the reception. For example, subjects which do not affect him personally will, within his abilities, be received with the greatest clarity; whereas anything that touches him emotionally will be strongly biased or not received at all. Due to this, even a sworn statement from a completely trustworthy observer is useless, because no guarantee can be given that he knows what really confronts him.

I realize that it must seem strange for me to warn the reader of the risks involved with this type of observer when I fall into the same category, but this is because I do not want to be just believed, partly because I know why a certain group of people refuse to believe. When you have read this book, it will be dear what I mean by this. The only means of checking the credibility of the observer is logic. Due to her cosmic isolation, humanity is ignorant in certain fields, and someone who really has communicated with a super-civilization that has evolved above the material state (the minimum demand for interstellar travel), and understood them, must have access to information that is new, logical, and that can be checked in order to be convincing. As I have said, I do not seek belief, I ask my readers to be critical, but to bear in mind that the subject is so complex that it would be unreasonable to expect my story to be faultless. The content of this book is divided into two parts; the first is a description of the planet Iarga and her inhabitants and, as such, meets the demand for an identification procedure which is a mandatory introduction to all exchanges between intelligent races. The identity of a race is determined by its planet and its history, and these must be explained.

The aim of the first part is therefore purely the identification of this alien race and is not an attempt to create some kind of picture of earthly ideals, something that we should try to emulate. Iarga is different in every way. The planet and her inhabitants have a different mentality and character, and therefore a different cycle of evolution. One difference is that Iarga is almost completely covered with water. The available area of land is. spread over numerous islands with a total surface area not much larger than Australia, and according to our standards, is much too small to feed and accommodate the billions of beings needed to reach the goal of their creation. The extreme efficiency of their planning and food production methods would be pointless on Earth, and their population density forces them to a kind of over-socialized community. Only beings that posses the ability to continually improve their mentality and eliminate all aggression, have a chance of reaching perfection on such planets. We do not have this ability, the reincarnation-selection of Iarga does not exist on Earth. Here, the weeds grow up with the corn until the harvest.

Despite the vast differences, a remarkable likeness can be detected in some things; so much so that these beings can be regarded as humans that have physically adapted to life on an alien world. Their intellectual, emotional, and creative capabilities are the same as ours, and if we had been placed in the same situation, we would have become roughly the same. When the second part of this book has been read, this will no longer cause any surprise; it will have become dear that these beings are not only our cosmic brothers and sisters, but that there also exists our ego-counterpart with which we will one day be united. With the introduction complete, the real work can begin. The reason for their visit is so strange that preliminary explanation is necessary. The human race lives in complete isolation from the other intelligent races for as long as the so-called "transformation phase" continues. The plan of creation demands that we, like all others, complete the transformation phase in ignorance of our origin and our purpose. Through this we, create our individual identity and, at the same time, have the opportunity to develop our godlike talents by exploiting our creative powers and defining them, thereby earning our immortality.

The number of talent fractions is not infinite, so the time must come that the numbers of man are fulfilled. When this happens, the transformation phase will be terminated by certain external encroachments that will subjugate the will and sovereignty of the human race. The plan of creation forbids interference in the development of an ignorant race, thus the necessity for the planting of knowledge here on Earth. This knowledge appears to be comprehensive. To begin, the complete scientifically verifiable story of the creation, from the creation of time, matter, and energy from nothing; to the goal of the creation of the universe: the cosmic integration of all the intelligent races in one all-encompassing consciousness that is beyond our understanding. In this we are given a glimpse of the wonderful future that awaits Us. Beside this, a great deal of information regarding ourselves, our origin, our development, the present transformation process, the spiritual development after death, our creation mandate, and our future is given.

The first point is the most important, only when we under-stand the creation process, and in particular the development process of man, can we understand and accept the reason for the external interference that will take place in the near future. Without this knowledge the interference would be useless and therefore undesirable. Lastly, their information includes a general description of other intelligent races and their different evolution cycles, which will enable Us to approach a determination of our unique position in the midst of an incredible number of intelligent races. The fundamental reason for this book is the abolition of Earth's isolation and the announcement of the fulfilling of the numbers of man. Our first mandate was carried out in ignorance, the second will be carried out in full consciousness. The only question that remains is to what extent does this book reach its goal of removing the Earth's cosmic isolation. The question is all the more impelling when it is said that I had to give my word never to attempt to prove the existence of Iarga, because this would damage the individual freedom of mankind. I have fought with this problem for many years, until at last the problem solved itself. Even though I shall continue to avoid giving a direct answer to the question of the veracity of this story, the immensity of Earth-alien knowledge contained in this book will serve to prove beyond a doubt that the planet Iarga is not fiction, but fact.

Stefan Denaerde and W. Stevens:

 

CONTENT

  • PART I
  • Identification
  • CHAPTER 1 Confrontation 11
  • CHAPTER 2 Aboard the Alien Spacecraft 24
  • CHAPTER 3 Planet Iarga 53
  • CHAPTER 4 Iargan Society 88
  • CHAPTER 5 Iargan Spacecraft 100
  •  
    •

      • PART 1: Identification

      This part includes the initial contact with the extraterrestrial visitors and the nearly 8 hours of events and discussions that took place aboard the alien spacecraft as the witness was shown and experienced scenes and conditions in the life of the Iargans, both on their home planet and in their spacecraft.

      CHAPTER 1

      Confrontation

      Iarga; I can talk about it now, the fascinating dusky green planet with its somber pink sky is no dream but-just a moment. I must first sort out the mass of information gamed during my astounding experiences and relate it logically and coherently.

      I need to do this for myself as well. Any explanation of my chaotic memories may help me to become my old self gain. It is difficult for me to remember the man I used to be. How I felt that beautiful summer evening on board my yacht that drifted like a huge white swan on the windless waters of the Oosterscheld (An art of the sea in the southwestern delta of the Netherlands.)

      "Hey, Dad, do you know that the compass is broken?"

      I took no notice; it was probably just one of my son's childish jokes. I sat stretched out in a deck chair, contentedly sipping my coffee and surveying the distant coast of Schouwen-Duive-land (An island in the delta.) where we planned to arrive before dark.

      On the small strip of land above the horizon, I could see the light that marked the harbor entrance at Burgsluis. "Honest, Dad, it's broken. Come and look," persisted my son. Still disbelieving, I forced myself to stand up and walked over' to where my wife, son and small daughters were standing looking at the compass as though they had never seen it before in their lives. Something was definitely wrong. The map was hanging at a crazy angle, but worse still, the north indicator was pointing in the direction of the Zeeland bridge, to the east! I looked accusingly at the discoverer of the trouble. It wasn't out of the question that my young son was playing a joke on his father with a magnet. I was disappointed to find that this was not the case and so I started a serious investigation. In the meantime, Miriam did the dishes and put the children to bed. By the time I decided to return to Burgsluis on the motor, it was getting quite dark, and the fact that I had been unable to find the cause of the trouble irritated me immensely. Miriam was right in saying that I should not let a compass spoil such a beautiful day, but I could not rest until I knew what was wrong. Ah well, I could do that in the harbor.

    • I pushed the tjalk (an old-world, flat-bottomed sailing ship) at full power through the darkness of the Oosterscheldt. There was the light buoy. I read the number automatically and turned sharply to port. In the distance lay the next buoy, marking the channel to Burgsluis. About six miles and we would be home. But things didn't go quite the way I had planned. Something unbelievable happened.

      Suddenly, out of the darkness, a strong, blue-white searchlight shone in my eyes from a point directly in front of the bow, and at the same time I heard a high-pitched whining noise above the noise of my motor. My heart pounded. It came so unexpectedly, that it must have been several seconds before I acted. Reverse, full power! Damn, it was too late! With a frightening noise the tjalk came to a standstill against something solid, but what? Who on earth would be in the middle of the channel without lights? With shaking hands I stopped the motor and in the sudden stillness saw the startled face of Miriam appear in the cabin doorway.

      "Is anyone there?" I yelled over the water. In answer the light went out, but no reply. Miriam came on deck and behind her stood the children, wide eyed with fear. "Look... there... that flat thing in the water." It looked like the hull of an overturned ship or pontoon, but we were at least thirty feet away and couldn’t possibly have hit it, whatever it was. "Is anyone there?" I called a second time. The searchlight flashed on again; the strangely small beam of light swept over the water and cast a cold glare on the side of the tjalk. I caught my breath. Floating on the incoming tide was a body, face down, apparently dead. The actions that followed were carried out at nerve-racking speed. There was only one thought in my mind: to do something quickly, before the body drifted away into the darkness.

      • picture not from book

      Instinctively, I carried out the motions that I had so often gone over in my mind in the event of one of the children falling overboard. Seconds later, I jumped overboard with the line from the lifeboat in my hand. But what now? I was standing in less than three feet of water, and my knees and ankles hurt from landing on something as hard as steel. In my confusion, I saw the line from the dinghy drifting away. I stood up and dived to catch the rope, and, swimming with the small boat behind me, managed to grab the body. It wouldn't move. How would I get such a weight into the boat? First, tie the rope around him, climb into the boat myself and pull his head above the water; yes, that was it. Just then an alarm signal began to sound somewhere in the back of my mind. What kind of a man was this? He was wearing a kind of metallic suit and around his head was a rubbery ball which reflected the blue light so strongly that I was unable to see his face. I began to think about astronauts, but how on earth did he come to be in the Oosterscheldt? I started the outboard motor and began slowly back toward the tjalk, but what now? What should I do with this strange burden beside me? Why had I gone to all this trouble? My indecision grew by the minute.

      The blue light made it plain that I must carry on. It was kept in my direction by someone who followed the rescue closely from beginning to end, but what did they want? In terrible confusion, I came at last alongside the tjalk, tied up the dinghy and stopped the outboard. In the silence, I heard the voices of Miriam and my eldest daughter. Thank goodness everything was all right there. Then my peace of mind received its death blow. There was suddenly a sea of light, a great diffused light under the surface of the water. A sound made me turn toward the strange object in the water and I saw a dark shape wading quickly toward me. It was a perfect copy of the being I had fished out of the water, with the same shiny metallic suit and a transparent ball around its head. Step by step, it came closer, and I instinctively grabbed the boat hook to defend myself. He held out an arm in a friendly gesture and turned his face toward me. I sprang back as though bitten by a snake; a wild fear cut off my breath. It was a nightmare. A terrible, indescribable feeling took hold of me. The being in front of me was not human! An animallike face, with large square pupils in the eyes, eyes which were both hypnotic and self-assured. It struck me like a thunderbolt. Here I stood, facing an alien being from a race more intelligent than my own! But why was I still so afraid? I cannot explain. If it had been a gorilla, for example, then I would have quickly sprung on board my ship and put up a fight with the boat hook to prevent the animal from coming on' board. There would have been no time for the fear that came from the feeling of helplessness in recognition of his superiority.

      The fear grew into panic, a panic which told me to get away from there as quickly as possible, before it was too late! I sprang overboard again and raced through the shallow water toward the ship as though the Devil were at my heels. Panting, I pulled myself on board and started the motor. Reverse full power. I wanted to get away from there as quickly as possible. The ship didn't move an inch. Over the bow I saw the being pull the dinghy onto the dark platform, lift the body in his arms and walk away with robotlike steps. It suddenly went dark and they were gone. With a feeling of apprehension, I stopped the motor. The situation on board was surprisingly peaceful, for they had no idea of the real drama. There was a feeling of satisfaction over father's ability as a lifesaver. My eldest daughter had developed the theory that we had rammed a submarine, which was not so unlikely, considering we were dose to a naval training area. Only Miriam realized that something was wrong. She looked at me as though I were a stranger and her uneasiness grew by the minute. She had never seen me like this before. She poured me a whisky and sent the children to bed with the excuse that we had something to talk over. The alcohol did me good, but now it seemed that I had another problem: Miriam didn't believe me! "This trip is too much for you, Stef. There are no men from Mars in the Oosterscheldt." She kept talking, perhaps to try and talk some courage into both of us. I couldn't just stay inside; I had to see what was happening outside.

      With a flashlight in one hand and a boat hook in the other, I stood on deck and let the beam of light play over the platform. It lay just above the surface of the water, a sinister4ooking dark-gray thing. Its diameter was about the same as the length of our ship, certainly fifty feet. It was resting on a ledge, which reflected the light so strongly that it looked like glass. In the middle was a pillar, slightly twisted, about six feet wide and eight feet high. The total size of the thing surprised me. I knew what was under the water. I could walk at least the length of a swimming pool without falling off the edge. Could this be one of the much talked-about flying saucers? Were they really so huge and could they also operate under water? I turned the flashlight out and began systematically probing around the ship with the boat hook. In front, by the bow, about two feet, and aft, about four feet. It was strange that each time I had to use force to pull the boat hook off the bottom, as though someone were holding it.

      Suddenly I remembered the strange trouble with the compass-magnetism! We had collided with a huge, magnetic monster! We were imprisoned, stuck fast on a huge magnet. In the grip of strange, unearthly beings. The only possibility of escape was the plastic dinghy. In case of emergency there was room for all of us. The dinghy still lay in the same place on the platform, and in the peaceful stillness of this complete isolation a daring plan was born in me. After all, the dinghy was only about thirty feet away from me. For the third time that evening I jumped into the water, waded as quickly as I could to the boat and pulled it free. Within half a minute I was back on board with the dinghy alongside. So, that was that! I began to regain some of my self-confidence. But my uncertainty came flooding back as I heard a scraping, hissing sound. I grabbed the searchlight and shone the beam on the platform. On the edge, a sort of lid hinged open slowly and steadily. Out of the hole crawled two figures, dressed in the now familiar space suits, who pulled out some objects after them which were joined together by cables or wires. Their movements reminded me of the old-time silent films, fast and jerky. What were they doing now?

      They stood on the platform and, with one hand against their ball-shaped helmets at about the height where their foreheads would be, made slow, respectful bowing movements in my direction. I understood. What a relief. It was a greeting, a friendly, respectful greeting. With quick, short paces they walked to the edge of the platform, where the bowing was repeated and emphasized, and then they stood like statues in the light of my flashlight. A strange and dramatic scene; on the Oosterscheldt a man is confronted with an alien intelligence. But the man was poorly prepared for the meeting; he was nothing more than a sailor in difficulty who could feel his legs trembling in his wet clothes. The two figures in front of me were about five feet tall and from a distance looked deceptively human-arms, head and legs, all in their proper places-but their legs were shorter than ours so that their arms reached down to their knees. Their metallic costumes were smooth and seamless. Only by the shoulders and elbows were folds to be seen. The short, heavy legs ended in broad feet that also stuck out behind, and the front part of their footwear was split in the middle. The hands were covered by supple, ribbed gloves; these were different from ours too in that not only the thumb but also the second finger was enclosed. They were heavy, clawlike hands.

      A broad, gold-colored belt around each of their middles, sewn with motifs and tools, was particularly noticeable, one piece of which was dearly a hammer with a sharp striking edge. And on their right side was something that vaguely resembled a pistol. A kind of drum, wound with thin glistening thread, rested on the middle of their stomachs. The remainder of their equipment was unknown to me. I gamed the impression of immense physical strength, not only from their long, heavy arms and enormous shoulders, but also from their quick movements. The round ornaments around their heads were less transparent than I had originally thought. When the beam from my flashlight fell on them, they changed into glistening Christmas-tree balls, and only with more indirect light was it possible to vaguely make out their heads.

      The silent confrontation was suddenly broken by a bud voice. "Do you understand English?" I nearly jumped out of my skin. Owing to my surprise that they could speak English, I didn't realize that they had asked me a question. The voice was totally devoid of any questioning tone. It sounded more like a statement.

      "Do you understand English?" The same statement floated over the water.

      "Yes, I do." "We want to thank you for the rescue of our crew member."

      ....... of course. Who are you?"

      "We come from another solar system."

      "My God," I called back. The situation was so strange that at that moment I couldn't think of anything else to say. There followed a short silence and I wondered about that strange accent which, in fact, wasn't English at all. To my ears it sounded more like Dutch, my own language. I could understand it perfectly, but I couldn't repeat a single word of what they actually said. The voice came again, and over the still dark water an unbelievable conversation began. "Is your ship damaged?"

      "No, I don't think so." "Will you turn the light out?"

      "All right."

      "Thanks. Does the ship belong to you?"

      "Have you a radio transmitter on board?"

      "We would like to show our appreciation for the rescue of our crew member."

      "You can do that by simply explaining some of this to me. It's just too much. How long have you been here?"

      "We have been near Earth for some time."

      "Why do you hide? Why haven't you tried to make contact with us?"

      "Our reason is that you do not know the laws of a higher civilization."

      "I don't understand."

      "There is still a great deal that the people of this planet do not understand." I hesitated. How much did they know about us? "You know us well, then?"

      "We have studied you for some time."

      "You don't have a very high opinion of us, I gather."

      "Your remark shows some insight."

      "Are your people more intelligent than mine?"

      "No, only more developed."

      "If that's so, then I don't understand why you haven't made contact with us. You could help us."

      "That would constitute a breach of the laws of nature." I shrugged my shoulders. Despite the strange situation, I began to feel more at ease. This was an unimaginably important meeting, and I began wondering how I could manage to squeeze some information out of these beings. I could learn things that man, for centuries, has only been able to guess at, and I could find out about their spaceships!

      "We wish to give you something as a token of our thanks. If we give you an object with which you can prove our existence, it will surely also be worth a great deal of money. We hope that you will accept it. It is sterilized."

      "What is it?"

      "It is a block of inert metal that is many times stronger than your best steel and only half as heavy. It has a superconductive structure that is so straight that current can only flow through it when a positive pole is placed directly opposite a negative pole, in line with the structure of the metal. If one of the electrodes is moved only one-thousandth of an inch, the current ceases to flow. With this structure it is possible, with correctly placed electrodes, to form a spiral current pattern, the result being that when a direct current is connected to two feed wires, a supermagnet is created with a negligible current consumption. Also, the metal has a melting point much higher? than anything known on Earth. We use this metal for the outer skin of our spacecraft. That is the gift. We hope you will accept it."

      I was greatly impressed. "This is incredible. I am grateful. I expected no gifts for saving your crew member, but I imagine that your intention is to help us and I accept it with heartfelt thanks."

      "We admire your unselfishness, but we must point out that the block of metal represents a far too advanced technique to be of any use to you in your research. Technically speaking, it is useless, but you are right in thinking that something else is behind it. We wish to give you proof that you are being observed by intelligent alien races, who know you so well that they are able to communicate with you, but refrain from doing so. We live in the perhaps desperate hope that people exist who, with this information, will be able to understand the reason for our reluctance."

      "And what is the reason?"

      "You do not have the values, the ethics, of a developed civilization. Because of this, the human race has, as yet, no chance of eternal survival. It blocks the way to cosmic integration."

      I shrugged my shoulders. I had never heard of "cosmic integration." They also began to irritate me. I found them a little too arrogant.

      "You regard us as children, then?"

      "No. An adult does not blame a child for the fact that he is not yet grown up."

      "But you do blame us for something?"

      "And what is that?"

      "Any English-speaking Negro, Chinese or American Indian can give you the answer."

      The conversation was not going exactly the way I had imagined. I had to think of something else, and at the same time be careful that the contact was not broken. I was afraid that they would climb back into their saucer and that I would never see them again.

      "I think I understand what you mean. May I ask a couple more questions? This is a once-in-a lifetime experience." "That is correct. The present generation will not have the chance again."

      "Answers to my questions seem to me to be much more important than the block of metal."

      "Your insight surprises us. The answer to carefully selected questions is certainly much more important."

      I was surprised that they agreed to my request so quickly and easily; they suddenly seemed much more friendly.

      "In that case, I would like to know what your spacecraft looks like, and, more important, how it is powered."

      "You disappoint us with this question about technical knowledge. The most dangerous natural law governing the development of an intelligent people states: a highly technological society does away with all discrimination or self-destructs. To supply technical information to a people like yourselves is a serious crime against the cosmic laws. The last thing that you need is technological information to increase the gap between your intellectual development and your almost nonexistent social development. Carry on playing with your Mars 'probes for the moment, as half of your world's population lives in poverty and hunger. The only information you need lies in the field of societal standards."

      I was terribly disappointed. There went my dream of learning breathtaking technical discoveries.

      "I am afraid that very few people would be interested in that kind of information."

      "We are afraid so too."

      "When do you think that the time will be ripe to give us information about space travel?"

      "The cosmic isolation of an intelligent race can only be lifted when the minimum culture level has been reached; we call it 'social stability."

      "Hmm... and this conversation, then?"

      "We feel ourselves justified, because of your actions, in supplying certain small pieces of information which will set the present generation to thinking."

      "What do you call a socially stable culture?"

      "We could give you the answer, but we doubt that you would understand it."

      "I will take that chance. It seems to be important."

      "Be sure that you know what you want. This answer demands an explanation in word and vision for at least two days. Furthermore, you must choose between the material gift-the block of metal-and the immaterial gift in the form of information. We cannot give you both."

      "I don't understand what one has to do with the other."

      "There is still so much that you do not understand, but after our explanation, this question will also be answered for you.

      "Are you really prepared to spend two days explaining this to me?" My tone dearly showed my surprise.

      "We are, for at least two days. A conversation of shorter duration would have no point; it is the minimum time in which we can give you the necessary information. We have all the time in the world-space travelers are never in a hurry-but we must warn you: we doubt that the information that we will give you will make your life happier, so be sure that you know what you are doing."

      I shrugged my shoulders. It was dear to me that these beings were devious, but I did not intend to let this one chance in a million slip through my fingers.

      "All right, what do I have to do?"

      "We have a small, sterilized decompression chamber, and only from there will you be able to hear us and see our screen. Food and drink you will have to bring from your ship, which should stay here. We must warn you again: you will become wiser for this experience but not happier."

      "We can leave with our ship whenever we want, right?"

      "Naturally, but if you leave us it is for good, and with our blessing. All we ask now is a solemn vow from you and your wife that as long as we are here you will not contact anyone else and will do everything in your power to keep our presence a secret."

      "I need to talk it over with my wife."

      "Naturally." But my decision had already been made. I will not tire you with Miriam's arguments, nor with the latter part of my conversation with the aliens, which consisted only of a number of instructions regarding anchoring, lighting, knock signals and so on. The visit itself was to begin early the following morning, for which preparations were needed.

      The two statues turned about and, laden with their apparatus, disappeared as quickly as they had come. As if sleepwalking, I went slowly to the bow and, as agreed, let the anchor fall onto the hard metal bottom complete with an extra piece of chain.

      Soon afterwards the platform sank with a bud zooming noise under the surface of the water. A dull shock followed and the ship floated in its element once again. A short time later my brain received yet another jolt. The dead stillness of the night was broken by a terrible noise, a bud zooming combined with the screaming, howling tone of a circular saw. The anchor chain jerked tight and the surface of the water became strangely disturbed. The spaceship was acting as a submarine. We were pulled forward over a broad foam track which was lit from beneath a dull yellow-green light. The noise was unearthly and frightening. I stood, fascinated, and began to wonder what I had let myself in for.

      CHAPTER 2

      Aboard the Alien Spacecraft

      "Good God!" Miriam's exclamation so early in the morning reflected both surprise and repulsion. In answer to my repeated knocking signals, the huge, round platform had risen again above the surface of the water and now, in broad daylight, the sight was much more impressive. The slightly domed platform lay, just as it had yesterday evening, with its edge level with the surface of the water. Its surface was for the most part as smooth as polished stone and dark gray in color with scattered patches of off white which made it appear as though someone had been throwing around bags of flour. Over this otherwise perfectly smooth surface ran innumerable ragged, charred grooves which ended in a small crater, as though something had exploded there. Nearly all the scratches and grooves ran in one direction and gave the impression that the spaceship had been grazed by enemy fire or that someone had been at work with a blow torch. All in all, it was an ominous sight, and Miriam's reaction was not very reasoning.

      "Stef, please don't go. Something as alien as that can only spell trouble for Us all."

      She was right, of course. There was something wrong about entering this thing, but even the latent fear from last evening and the leaden feeling in my stomach brought on by the sight of this forbidding platform were not enough to hold me back. A few moments later I was sitting on the edge of the platform, drying my feet after wading through the water, I donned my shoes and socks and, armed with sandwiches, thermos and note paper, I began to look for the opening that they had described. I had hardly taken a couple of steps when a round, safelike door slowly began to open near the edge and a small quantity of sand and water which had settied in the jomt was blown away by a stream of compressed air. I went closer and looked down through a round hole, about three feet in diameter, into a cubeshaped space about eight feet across. Once again, I heard the voice.

      "Welcome on board. Be careful as you come below. The ladder is dangerous for you."

      Indeed, the "ladder" was nothing more than a pole with staggered steps on either side formed to place my feet. I stopped in my descent and waved to Miriam, saying, "Don't worry. I'll be back around five o'clock. The reception has been very friendly, and it's really quite cozy in here."

      Once below, I cast my eyes around the room. Unimaginably complicated equipment lined the walls and the ceiling. The only things that were vaguely familiar were huge reels and drums, wound with every possible size of cable and pipe. In the floors was a metal door that looked remarkably earthly, with a round knob in the middle over which I nearly stumbled. In one corner stood a kind of desk with rows of knobs, and above, a panoramic screen, about five feet long and three feet high, that glowed with a soft green fluorescent light. Behind the desk stood a strangely normal-looking chair with a metal frame and leather upholstery.

      The voice invited me to sit and explained that the seat had unlimited possibilities for adjustment but that certain instructions from the voice would be necessary before I could be comfortably seated. "Yes, thank you. What happens now?"

      "Introductions would seem to be the best way to start. Will you answer a few questions?"

      "Yes, of course."

      "How should we address you?" "Call me Stef."

      "All right, Stef. The language we speak is not your own language, although it seems to be. It is the language of all living species in this universe. Even a plant or an animal will understand it. This language was spoken on Earth before the Babylonian confusion of tongues. You don't hear words but sounds that are directly reflected by your emotional structure, the life-field. Therefore, don't try to understand words, but listen to the reflections of your soul."

      "Is that a kind of thought transference?"

      "Not exactly, but you can compare it with that."

      "I understand."

      "How old are you?"

      "I am forty-three."

      "Are you in good health?"

      "Yes, perfect."

      "Have you a high social function?"

      "High? What do you mean by high? I am the director of a business with a few hundred employees."

      "So you are a representative of the directing class of the Westblock?" (husk møtet skjedde på 60-tallet)

      "I don't quite understand the question. What do you mean by Westblock?"

      "Let Us ask, then: are you a supporter of a free economy?"

      "Yes, without a doubt."

      "Now it is your turn. Would you perhaps like to see Us from dose up?"

      I tensed involuntarily, and my heart began to beat faster. "I am afraid that I will get a shock if I see you."

      "That is true. Nothing is more intense than a visual confrontation with another intelligent race. Do you feel strong enough not to panic?"

      "Now that I know that I have nothing to fear from you, I will not panic."

      "You certainly have nothing to fear from us; on the contrary, we are indebted to you. Look through the window to the right of the screen. When we turn on the light, you will be able to look into our navigation room. Ready? Right, then, here we go."

      I looked into a huge, round chamber, about forty-five feet across and nine feet high. From the decompression chamber I could see over the greatest part of the navigation area, with its vast contents of instruments and control panels. Strangely, all the instruments and panels were mounted on the floor with walkways alongside and separated by vertical metal grills that reached the roof. Everything was dark blue in color, almost black, causing a very strange lighting effect. The dominating blue-black surfaces acted as an almost invisible background against which all the white or polished metal knobs, handles and instruments stood out in dear relief as though luminous. The encompassing vertical wall of the dome looked as though it was made of glass; the highly polished material reflected strongly and gave a very strange lighting effect from the reflections. On many of the panels diversely colored lights burned, interposed by dark transparent strips on which flashes or darting lines could be seen. An imposing piece of technology. I suddenly realized that there was no sign of life whatsoever. "Well, where are you, then?"

      "Prepare yourself. You may see Us now." A light came on illuminating an area directly in front of the window. I sprang back! In spite of my mental preparation, the paralyzing fear had returned quite suddenly and cold shivers ran over my scalp, through my neck and over my shoulders. On the other side of the window, in a half circle as though at a conference table, sat eight strange humanoid beings. Their faces and forms radiated as much primitive animal power as haughty intelligence superiority. I felt again the uncertainty of yesterday, a reaction to their obvious superiority and self-assurance. I am convinced that any intelligent man would have felt the same, and that this reaction is a part of our makeup. The same feeling that I did not belong here, that even these steel walls could not protect me from the mental impact made by this intelligent "pressure group" from a much higher level of civilization and development, with their fantastic knowledge, belonging to a strange, distant world. Their unearthly, somewhat animal, faces, with a dynamic expressive ability, emphasized the difference in our places of origin to such an extent that I am convinced it touches areas that to Us are still taboo, and which have been since time began. When you are unable to draw, how on earth can you expect someone else to draw a face that he has never dreamed existed? How can you create a portrait with words? My friend, Rudolf Das, who accepted the task of drawing the pictures of this book, was driven nearly to distraction by my dubious attempts to produce a good likeness, one which would demonstrate their superiority. He finally convinced me that even a photograph would not effectively convey what I had in mind. The facial expressions must be left, unhappily, to the imagination of the reader.

      It was the hypnotic effect of their eyes, with their large, rectangular pupils) that made the deepest impression on me. They were the thoughtful, peaceful eyes of deep philosophical thinkers that were studying me with quizzical friendliness. Their heads were about the same size as ours, only slightly deeper toward the back; and in the middle of the skull was a bony ridge that changed into a deep groove in the center of the forehead. It gave the impression of a skull divided into two separate compartments. Toward the back of their heads the ridge ended in a semicircular muscle formation that ran down the neck and into the shoulders, making the side view of the neck much heavier looking than ours. The same is true of the whole construction of their bodies. They were much more solidly built than we are. Their arms and shoulders, although of much the same proportions as ours, were much heavier and more muscular and, combined with the clawlike hands, gave an impression of strength that would have come a dose second to a bench vise. All this combined with their broad chests and short stocky legs made them look as though they would not even step out of the path of a gorilla!

      Their muscle tissue also seemed to be different, more like solid rubber, and their thin skin followed the contours of their muscles more closely than ours. The top of the head to the back of the neck was covered with short, smooth hair that shone like the coat of a smooth, furry animal. The color of this hair was different with each of them; rust-brown, gold and silver-gray showed either separately or mixed. Their hairless skin had a pale, glasslike sheen to it. Along the edges of the face the skin showed slightly darker gray-brown than in the middle. As they turned their heads, the skin seemed to reflect the light and shade of their surroundings. This changing color effect was something that caught my attention many times. Their teeth were two seamless white strips, above and below, that closed in a scissorlike fashion. Both their teeth and the yellow-white of their eyes reflected the strange lighting in such a way that their faces looked slightly artificial. Their movements were also strange.

      They could sit or stand perfectly still for much longer periods and more often than we would even attempt, but when in action, their movements were lightning fast and emphasized their tremendous strength. They were like volcanoes. After a period of rest, they would erupt into a wave of energy and temperament that would have made a Spaniard jealous. They were wearing a kind of uniform in the form of dark-blue, silky overalls, with three-quarter sleeves and a deep V neck. Under this was a white shirt with a rather old fashioned high collar around the back of the neck. Around their waists was a broad, gold-colored belt, decorated with what seemed to be atom formations, which ran along the edge of the deep V in the neck as well, incorporating, however, still other motifs in its design. (cont.under)

      The following is text for the picture of the humanoid from Iarga: Humanoid from the planet Iarga, which is a little more than ten light-years away from Earth. Although these beings have the same origin and identity as man, and their physique is comparable in many ways, there appear to be many great differences which result from the different planetary conditions. Their planet is larger, the gravity is nearly 3g, and the atmosphere pressure is more than 7 bar with higher nitrogen and ammonia contents than our air. The average wind speed is less than ours; but the denser atmosphere in combination with heavy rains and the higher terminal velocities, sometimes cause storms that an unprotected human could not survive. To withstand these conditions, they have a short, compact physique with well-developed muscles, especially the legs; armored skulls, and deep-set eyes. Their darting movements are interposed with periods of rest, during which they only move their heads. They walk stiffly, with short steps, as if they are walking on ice.

      They were originally amphibians, and really belong in the water. Their bodies are as streamlined as that of a seal, and are covered with short smooth hair, like an otter. Their hands and feet are large and broad, and they have webs between their fingers and toes. We could not possibly compete with them in a swimming race. They are capable of killing a small whale-sort by ramming it like a torpedo, a group will then tow the catch back to the shore. (swimming).

      Their sex drives are different from ours, and they find sex less important; partly because they derive less pleasure from it than we do. The population growth is slow, and they lack the sex signals of humans, such as full lips, ear lobes, pointed nose, protruding female breasts and the external male sex organ. This is why it is not necessary for them to cover their bodies as we do, their reproduction impulse is born of love and not lust. We seem to be abnormal in this respect. Their weak point is the development of their individuality. They do almost everything in groups (tribes), they think collectively and they obey the laws of their society to the letter. They live for and through the friendship and love within the group.

       

      cont. from above: .....I decided to end the silent confrontation. "I'm sorry that it's taken so long to get used to the sight of you."

      "We have only compliments for you. You have remarkable self-control. You demonstrated the same quality with your rescue of our crewman, for which we would once more like to offer our thanks."

      "Oh, that was nothing. When I see all the technical capabilities at your disposal, I wonder if my help was really necessary?"

      "The value of an unselfish deed cannot in any way be influenced by asking afterwards if it could not have been done in some other way. As a matter of fact, your help came so quickly and efficiently that it would have been impossible for Us to have managed it in a shorter time. It was precisely this speed and efficiency that gave Us the idea that you could possibly be a man with whom we could communicate, the first communication with a representative of this world. Make sure that you realize what this conversation will demand of you. You will be speaking with a race that is far ahead of yours in evolution. This means not only an enormous technical lead, but also the same lead in mental development and inner culture. This last is the most difficult to explain and yet we must make it dear if you are to understand what social stability represents.

      "We will therefore lead you, step by step, through the secrets of a highly developed culture, and we will do this by means of a holographic film which will take you to our planet Iarga. We will let you see what the world 'civilization' really means. It will be an interesting experience for you, the value of which is impossible for you to judge at this moment. But what you also cannot judge is the personal danger involved. We know the dangers and will protect you against them. The most important thing for Us is to ensure that your freedom of thought is not damaged. Freedom of thought is the essence of humanity, and if we were to damage that we would, according to our ethics, be committing a crime. Therefore, we will only convey knowledge to you, and not convictions.

      "We wish no discussions. We will only answer questions when you do not understand something, and we will remain silent when you do not agree with Us. We will help you to climb the ladder of knowledge, rung by rung, first to social stability, then to the super culture and, if you can follow this, to the misty heights of cosmic integration. "We will only give you knowledge. You must remain free to do with this knowledge what you will. If as a result of this knowledge you should find yourself forming any convictions, do so with care. Make sure that they are lasting convictions, born of independent creative thinking, and not the sort of passing convictions that the impact of strenuous visual emotions tend to provoke. These pseudo convictions paralyze individual freedom and make men rigid and dogmatic.

      "Knowledge is a material part of the human condition and, as with all material things, it can be mechanized or automated. We have at our disposal a method of teaching that utilizes a certain type of radiation. This takes place at a speed of which you never dreamed. Above your head we have fitted one of these radiation reflectors. It makes the spoken word unnecessary to a great extent. On the screen in front of you we will show our explanation in the form of a picture story, the words of which serve only to direct your attention in a certain direction; we call this fixing the concentration, but the true source of information is the radiation. You do not have to take notes; information gamed through radiation remains locked in the memory forever.

      "Experience this adventure with an open mind. Anything else will disturb your concentration. Do not become angry if we say something that goes against your principles. We have no intention of antagonizing you. If we do so, understand that it is purely a result of our ignorance regarding the many taboos and prejudices of western man."

      They started the radiation device working with the film. At first I was not quite sure what was happening. I felt cold and somewhat lightheaded suddenly, a feeling comparable to having had a little too much wine. You believe you can think very dearly but you feel somewhat removed from reality. The fantastic film projection was accompanied by a rather childish description of what was to be seen. Now and then a few words brought my attention to the size of something-the height, the speed, the form or the connection between two things, and so on. An endless stream of words and short sentences formed a slender thread of explanation. The essence, the real information, reached me unnoticed, and that was a weird experience. The knowledge that these beings, through their machine, could feed information directly into my brain, strengthened my feeling that

      I did not belong here. The difference between Us was too great. I was defenseless. As far as I can gather, radiated information is a combination of visual stimulants and thought transference, all of which takes place at fantastic speed. The images came in such rapid succession that at first it made me irritable, and only after some considerable time did it become dear what was expected of me. I had only to act as a relaxed spectator, who observes with interest what is happening; they did the rest. It is understandable that this type of information is not suited to the written word and therefore I have attempted to relate everything in the form of a two-sided conversation. This tends to give the impression that I was a partner in an animated discussion, but nothing is further from the truth. My function during this meeting can be compared with that of a tape recorder. The authenticity of the hologram was so fantastic that it could no longer be describe as a picture.

       

      As long as I kept my head in the correct position, it was just like looking through a window. The three-dimensional, panoramic, color screen offered so persuasive an illusion of reality that after the first few minutes I looked behind the screen to make sure that nothing was there. The adjustment of the picture was controlled by several of the many knobs and handles on the desk in front of me. My first experience with the radiation took the form of knowing, without further instruction, which of the knobs I had to use to adjust, for example, the focus or the position of the picture on the screen. The test card, a jungle of vertical stripes, vanished and I looked into a great, black hole in the middle of which hung a blinding ball. I recoiled involuntarily, at which the picture blurred, but I quickly got control of myself. The hole was very deep; I was looking into the endlessness of the cosmos. Against the black, somewhat violet background, sewn with thousands of stars, a gigantic, pink-white ball hung in stately beauty. The planet Iarga.

       

      The sight was very moving. I felt as through I was really present in space and a strange emotion began to flow through me. The cloud formation was, in contrast with that of Earth, unbroken, with small, swirling patterns that caught the sunlight. The pink patches occurred where the sun was able to penetrate deeper into the clouds. Most remarkable were two gigantic, flat, concentric rings which formed a halo around the planet. They were rather like the rings of our Saturn, except that these consisted of a small inner ring and a much broader outer ring, both casting a sharp band of shadow on the clouds. There was also a large moon to be seen, with the same pockmarked surface as ours. Iarga, the home of these astronauts, is a planet in another solar system, not much more than ten light years away from US. More details of the location of the planet they would not tell me. The diameter and mass are much greater than the Earth's; the gravitational force is greater and the atmosphere is much thicker. The speed of rotation is much slower than that of Earth, so that the duration of day and night is longer, but the regular tilting of the rings around the planet change certain days into nights and certain nights into days, due to the fact that the rings reflect the sunlight.

      As a result, Iarga does not have the regular pattern of day and night that we know. Because of the thicker atmosphere and higher air-pressure, which is of a different composition than ours, Iarga knows no bright sunlight, and sees nothing of the moon or stars. A permanent layer of mist exists at the higher levels of the atmosphere which filters the sunlight. The color blue only appears in lighter tints and green is more pronounced there than here, which may account for the fact that they seem to have a preference for blue in their artificial lighting. They describe the Earth as the blue planet with the blinding light, and, in contrast, Iarga as the green planet with the misty light. The living conditions are very different from those on Earth. Temperature extremes are much less than here, but when you hear that the wind speed can reach three times our maximum, and that ram and snowfall can be as much as ten times greater, and you combine this with the fact that the terminal velocity is much higher, it becomes dear that it would be very unwise for any of Us to be caught in a rainstorm on Iarga! After being informed that a fall from a height of six feet was fatal, I began to understand a little more of the reason for the physical appearance of these Iargans.

      The rubbery muscle formations, armored skulls and long arms were products of very different climatic conditions than ours. There earthquakes also seemed to occur with more intensity and frequency than ours. Just as I was beginning to ask myself what the buildings on such a planet would be like, the picture changed and showed the view from a fast-moving spaceship that had just passed through the outer layer of mist around the planet. Initially, I saw only clouds: above me, the pink layer of mist that I had seen earlier; then a second, broken cloud layer which was primarily responsible for the strange, diffused light on the planet. We passed through this layer at a height of about twenty miles, and viewed from the underside it was a mixture of yellow-gray, brown and greenish clouds that gave a very somber and threatening impression. Lastly came a cloud layer that in height, form and color, closely resembled ours, and after passing through this, I had an unobstructed view of the surface. We flew over a bright-green ocean with white wave crests.

      Above the water ran an orange strip as straight as an arrow, which, separated by a white-beached horse-shoe-shaped island, split and continued in different directions. It was only when the spaceship came steadily lower that I realized what this strip was. A railway bridge! On long, slim towers, high above the water, ran a bridge as far as the eye could see. Along this bridge slim shining torpedoes moved in both directions. Their speed was only slightly less than that of the spaceship and there were far too many of them for me to count. The distance between the torpedoes was about ten times their own length, all spaced exactly alike along an eight4rack system which was divided into two layers, one above the other. I had little time to study the trains further, for we moved on.

      Land came into view - a low-lying coast, split by a broad river with large adjoining lakes-and before my astonished eyes a strange, unearthly panorama unfolded. For as far as the eye could see, the land was divided by the orange railway into regular rectangles. The long torpedoes moved between huge, glass, oiltank like constructions with shiny dome-shaped roofs. Areas of green on either side of the railway looked something like prehistoric forests. The longer I studied this landscape, the more I became aware that this was ribbon development in its extreme form. The area between the buildings seemed to be used namely for agriculture, only now and then making way for an industrial complex. The camera sped on. The landscape changed and became undulating, split by walls into huge terraces which compared with the wine fields of Italy. Behind this lay mountains, and in a great bowl between the peaks a red-brown lake came into view. The machine tilted its nose steadily lower until I was able to see vertically below. Around the shores of the lake, numerous buildings were to be seen, among which were several gigantic combs.

      In three places, powerful blue-white lights, flanked by orange lights, flashed. Everything pointed to the fact that the spaceship was going to land here, and just at the last second, before the picture vanished, I saw something that made me catch my breath. On the right side of the screen, low above the lake, three shiny discs hung like sentries in the air. They had the form of perfect, streamlined discuses. "I saw flying saucers!"

      "You saw three of our aircraft."

      "In the form of a saucer?"

      "Exactly. And if you are interested, we will let you see them."

      "I certainly am. Did you come here in something like that?"

      "No. These aircraft have about as much in common with our spacecraft as an Indian arrow has with your Mars probe. We hope that you have more important questions to ask than about aircraft."

      "Of course. Am I to understand that the glass tanks are your houses?"

      "Yes, We call them house rings because they are in fact built in the form of a ring with a covered central recreation area."

      "Is the whole planet built in this way?"

      "Yes, all areas that are suitable for living are built in this manner." The screen showed a view of a living area from a great height."

      "So you all live in the same type of house?"

      "From the outside they are all the same, but inside there is great variation."

      "The uniformity appalls me. Do your top men also live in the cylinders?" I had an idea, judging from the length of the trains, which I guessed were about one hundred and fifty feet, that these buildings were enormous, at least nine hundred feet in diameter and more than three hundred feet high.

      "The words 'top men' suggest something of the Earth's ideas of status; you surely do not imagine that in a higher civilization, standards of justice can exist that allow status to play a part?"

      "I don't see what status has to do with more variation in house building. Why not simpler, smaller houses with more privacy?" "Small houses with separate pieces of land form a system that you call 'towns,' and such inefficiency is unthinkable to Us. "Why inefficient? When you have our problem of overpopulation, you must build large cities to house all the people. We cannot afford the luxury of large areas of woodland as you can."

      "What do you call overpopulation?"

      "Our small country has more than three hundred people to the square kilometer, which in my opinion is quite dense." "Compared to Earth's average of twenty-five to the square kilometer, that is indeed dense. Estimate the number of people living in the area that you see here. Every ring houses about ten thousand. Work it out per rectangle."

      "Ten thousand per ring?"

      "Yes, and we have more square meters per person than you have." I did a quick calculation. Each rectangle contained thirty-six rings, so thirty-six times ten thousand is . . . heavens! Three hundred and sixty thousand! I hadn't expected that. It made each rectangle a complete city! But, then, it was also a lot of land. "How long is the rectangle?"

      "Roughly ten kilometers." I judged that the width must then be in the region of six kilometers, so that an area was then sixty square kilometers and therefore my solution must be 600 people per square kilometer. "I was certainly mistaken about your population - 600 per square kilometer. That's double ours. I was under the impression that it was much less. When I see the space that you have left, I must admit that it is a very clever solution."

      "Your answer amuses Us because you have made a small mistake. You have the decimal point in the wrong place." I calculated again and came to the ridiculous total of six thousand. "It can't be six thousand."

      "It is, Stef. What you see here houses a population of six thousand people to the square kilometer."

      "But that's ridiculous. How can you do it? That's twenty times as many as our overpopulated land."

      "Your word 'overpopulation' is pure nonsense. Our planet has a population density at least one hundred times greater than yours and we do not speak of overpopulation."

      I began to feel uneasy, that was madness. I knew it. I should never have started this conversation. It was leading nowhere. I stared with new interest at the picture in front of me and tried to calculate the living space of these people. Strange as it may seem, there were no signs of overpopulation. On the contrary, there was room enough, round the cylinders, and the roads that ran through the woodland areas were in no way obstructed with people or traffic. "This is so incomparable with anything that we know that I am at a loss for words."

      "That is the right attitude. With this confrontation with a totally different world, with totally different standards and a totally different philosophy, we are trying to make it dear that you must not draw comparisons. Doing so prevents you from understanding this world and its level of civilization. Forget your own world and try to understand what is happening here. Try, without prejudice, to follow our explanation, as this alone will be difficult enough. "The reason for our dense population is the small area of dry-land on our planet. Iarga is almost completely covered with water forming deep oceans, which leaves Us with a surface area of dry-land which can be compared to the area of Australia, and this is distributed over numerous islands. We were faced with the problem of feeding and housing the billions of beings which we needed in order to achieve our creation goal, on the smallest possible area of land. This imposed the greatest demands on our planning and social systems; these demands do not occur on Earth, you have room to spare.

      "What we needed to create a high level of culture were three things: freedom, justice and efficiency. We will explain these concepts one at a time, beginning with the last, efficiency. "You are shocked by the size of our population, but the space surprises you. Strange, eh? It is not so strange when you realize that you are not shocked by the number of people but by the space that is left over in what to you is a ridiculously overpopulated world. You are shocked by our efficiency. To Us, it is the most normal thing in the world, because without this concept, we simply could not exist. Without efficiency, our world would immediately collapse. You will continually come up against this concept in our explanations because we must make it dear to you how carefully each of the three concepts-freedom, justice and efficiency - we had to employ to reach the level of civilization that can be called stable. "Also, justice is a condition for efficiency.

      For example, if houses play a part in showing a difference in status between people, then justice fails, and efficiency in a setting such as this is impossible. It demands, therefore, a different, more social way of life." This was roughly the beginning of the explanation of the concept of efficiency, and I absorbed it with some difficulty. Who would expect the description of a super culture to begin with a lecture on efficiency? Anything but that! And it is almost impossible to relate just how efficient they were. Take, for example, their method of planning. It is simply based on the maximum number of people that a given land-area can accommodate. The housing and the roadways take up the smallest possible area-not more than five percent-in order to leave a maximum of land for farming and natural beauty. The farming areas produce the maximum in food that their technique allows, in order to support their huge population. The woodland areas are necessary to maintain a sufficient quantity of oxygen in the atmosphere and also serve as recreation areas. Everything is used to maximum advantage.

      What would you imagine to be the mode of transport of a super culture? You think perhaps supersonic aircraft or rockets, and hovercraft type ships or hover-cars? Out of the question. Anything so inefficient, with so many moving parts which can wear out and require so much maintenance, would be madness on Iarga. What do they use, then? Very simple. A fully automatic, robot rail system. Slim torpedo trains that move without creating friction, the only component requiring servicing being the doors, and these are made of such a high quality that they can last at least one hundred years. As a well-brought-up Earth man, I didn't give up too easily and pointed out that our aircraft, so fast and comfortable, were surely much better than trains that can only reach a speed of about four hundred kilometers per hour. I got the most surprising answers. An aircraft is not only inefficient but is downright antisocial!

      They only appear on a planet where status still exists, and they are only for the upper classes, because they are useless as a medium of mass transport and the cost per passenger-kilometer is at least ten times that of their rail system. They began to talk about transport capacity. The six-lane rail system between the house blocks (only the upper layer) can transport one million persons per hour operating at maximum capacity. Did I think that aircraft could compete with this?

      No, I did not. Confronted with such astronomical figures as these, further argument is pointless. They were not yet finished. Did I really think that their transport was slower than ours? Yes, I did get that impression. Well, I was very wrong. I must think in terms of average speed, and the hours that we wasted waiting for connections, delays caused by unservice-ability or bad weather and our wonderfully inefficient trafficjams! Having thought of all this, I was readily prepared to believe them when they said that their average speed of all transport systems together was about five times higher than ours - inclusive aircraft. Had I mentioned something about comfort? Yes, I had.Wonderful, because comfort was also an aspect of efficiency. Trains had proven to be the cheapest form of transportation, and the only problem that remained was to get as many people as possible to leave their cars at home and use the tram. The only way to do this was through comfort, and this comfort was really something.

      These trains were shock free and silent, apart from wind noise. Due to their position high above the ground and their large windows, they offered a breathtaking view of the surrounding countryside, and the interior was so luxurious that it left nothing to be desired. They were unaffected by weather conditions and one hundred percent reliable. The frequency was so high that timetables were unnecessary. Did I now know enough? Absolutely not! It had gradually become dear to me that their understanding of efficiency was totally different from ours. It influenced their very souls. Efficiency had become almost a religion. One of the most imposing visions on the screen was their trans-oceanic rail connections. A wonderful, orange-colored construction, about seventy-five feet above the restless green water, crossing the ocean in a dead straight line. I thought at first, perhaps a little naively, that the support towers stood on the ocean floor, but no-nothing so primitive. The whole construction floated, supported by huge balls under the towers which were anchored to the sea bed by adjustable cables.

      The balls were placed at a depth where the water always was comparatively peaceful, unaffected by the conditions on the surface. The question that intrigued me was how the trains could function without friction and wear. I discovered that it was not so difficult once superconductive materials and supermagnets, the same sort of materials that were used for the outer skin of their spaceships, were used. The train was supported on magnetic shoes over its whole length which ran in a hollow rail. Through the polarity and the strength of the magnetic field, the shoes were held floating in the middle of the rail. A fantastic piece of construction. The system was controlled from large electronic control centers and was almost fully automatic. Optical signaling was not used, so that the speed was unaffected by even the thickest fog. Their cargo trains intrigued me the most, for they were in fact nothing more or less than self-homing containers. The route program was plugged into the nose of the unit and the ghost train left on its journey without a living sour on board, finding its own way over the rail network to its destination, silent and vibrationless, and without lighting at night.

      Some things were rather amusing. There seemed to be a rather popular pastime that they called traveling in hotel trains. A group of about twenty-five people would order a unit that was fitted out as a self-service hotel and simply go where the mood took them. Everywhere in the beauty spots were "campings," where the trains could stay for a couple of days or more, and all you needed to do to travel further was to program the unit for its next destination. Traveling this way, often at night, they could cover enormous distances. As soon as I asked a question that fell outside the program, I received more of their strange answers. "Can everyone afford to go on in this way?"

      "No, nobody can afford it, because we have no money, but everyone can go on holiday in this way if they wish."

      At my request, they showed me one of their cars. In front of one of their huge, glass living cylinders stood a highly streamlined vehicle on ridiculously small wheels; nevertheless, it could be classed as a motor car. My enthusiasm for motor cars was suddenly diverted by the sight of two Iargan women who, accompanied by four small children, were to demonstrate the car. I sat staring at those strange exotic beings so intensely that the explanation about the car was for the most part lost on me. Their faces were smoother and finer than the astronauts' and they were made up with white and purple stripes on their fore heads and around their eyes. It made me think of Indians on the warpath, and this thought was strengthened by the colorful motifs on their clothing. This 'clothing' seemed to be more for decoration than anything else. It was just a broad piece of cloth with a hole in the middle that fell over the head and was fastened at the waist with a broad belt, leaving the arms and the sides of the body uncovered. Under this garment, they wore a pair of silky trousers which fastened tightly around the ankles. The shoes over the wide naked feet were open sandals. They carried themselves as refined models would, demonstrating the peculiarities of the car with lightening fast movements. The strangest thing was that their explanation, which I found inaudible, was directed at me, and due to the perfection of the picture I felt as though I was actually present and the center of their attention. "Is this the way your women normally dress?"

      "We are showing you two mothers with their children, on their way to a recreation area, and we will follow them with the camera. They are wearing holiday clothing, fitting for a day out. We do not find clothes so important and as we do not have any other films on this subject, please confine your attention to the automobile."

      The ladies had, in the mean time, entered the car with their restless offspring, and were demonstrating the maneuverability of the vehicle on its tiny wheels. These wheels only served the purpose of transporting the car from the cylinders to the rail system where, in contrast to the trains, they hung on magnetic shoes under the rails instead of above. This explained the large glass panel that extended under the feet of the occupants of the front seat, giving the vehicle the appearance of a helicopter from a frontal view. The interior was luxurious-two wide three-seat benches, and behind, the baggage space. There was only one sliding door on one side, and nowhere could I discover any access to the motor. After this demonstration, the ladies rode away along a broad, ocher- colored road, to where the huge central rail system ran between the house cylinders. The huge "motorways," which looked like thin orange lines from the air, were in fact a three-level road and rail system carrying heavy traffic at unimaginable speeds. The top level was a six-track rail system which carried the long torpedoes, the four inside tracks for fast, long-distance traffic, and the two outer tracks for local traffic.

      The other two levels were for the cars, again using the outer tracks for slow, local traffic and the inner tracks for higher speeds and longer distances. The stations were huge, cross-shaped buildings through which the car-tram tracks passed in tunnels. At ground level, around these stations, was a huge bading terminal for the transfer of freight from the rail containers to the wheeled transport. The camera continued to follow the fantastic journey along the rails and the two ladies who were at the moment playing with their children. The voice called my attention to the house cylinders. The first thing noticeable from dose up is the perfectly smooth exterior, with neither grooves nor joints in evidence. The different floors were visible only as creamy-white bands of about three feet in height, on which rested glass panels about fifteen feet high and sixty feet wide. The panels were met by anthracite-gray pillars that ran from top to bottom throughout the whole building. "Isn't it rather warm, all that glass in your houses, cars and trains?"

      "No, because it is not ordinary glass at all, but a combination of glass and plastic. It contains two electrically conductive layers with which the transparency can be regulated to give a greater or lesser reflective quality." The hologram images crossed a broad river, and I could see thousands of Iargans walking along its banks. I also saw hundreds of small boats braving the strong winds and stormy water. They were catamaran type constructions, with streamlined cabins supported on legs above the water. The hulls were almost completely submerged, and the strangest thing was that the rough water seemed to have no effect on them. They were fast and made no bow waves.

      ( Picture text: Cross cross-section of one of the floating and rotating house-cylinders. The construction is so stable that despite the heavy Iargan earthquakes, the framework (base, wall, and roof) has a minimum useful life of more than a thousand years. The plastic flats (apartments)(20 x 20 x 6 meter) are removable horizontally. The diameter of the building is more than 300 meters, the height is 135 meters. It provides housing for 10,000 persons, each with so m2 to themselves, plus a part of the heated communal garden. The smooth exterior is necessary in connection with the strong winds and the rainfall. Comfort and labor saving have been perfected to such a point that the housewife is freed from housework, but the protection and comfort of the house-cylinders has become subordinate to the creation of the possibility of numerous "human" contacts in the utmost freedom.)

      The camera allowed me no time for further study. The landscape changed, the ground became undulating and in the distance high mountains borne in the misty, liazy light of Iarga. The cylinders in their oblong formations continued as far as the eye could see into the foothills and even beyond where the ground was terraced off with long, high walls. As the ground became more mountainous, the buildings stopped, as did the roadway, but the railway continued on through the wild and rocky landscape. The rest of the journey became real science fiction. Like a giant snake, the railway wended its way around mountain peaks and over deep ravines, across fantastic suspension bridges and along vertical rock walls, now over gaping depths and then over grassy, woody plateaus, and in every suitable spot were the stations and the parking areas for the cars. This was one huge recreation area, with its rugged mountains and beautiful waterfalls.

      Just as we were approaching a large, green mountain lake with nearby buildings, the picture faded and was replaced by the now familiar view of the Iargans' living areas, but I saw it now through different eyes, eyes which had begun to notice the wonderful perfection of this strange world; a world that sustained its huge population through utmost efficiency; a world without refuse, smells, exhaust gases, traffic jams and noise.

      I also began to understand a little of something else, and that was the justice that they were always talking about. Although I had only just begun to become acquainted with this distant culture, I understood that everyone here had equal rights. They lived in the same houses, rode in the same cars and stepped into the same trains. There were neither rich nor poor; there was no separation between nationalities, races or colors.

      This must be a universally governed planet, but seemingly so strictly governed that everything was streamlined and standardized. What a terrible thought! I had no idea then that my horror at the thought of such monotony was soon to change into longing.... I began to wonder what the millions of miles of railroad must have cost; it was certainly a triumph of engineering. "Can you give me some idea of what such a transport system costs?"

      "That is difficult. We know roughly what a dollar represents in production ability, but to translate that into the cost of a transport system... well, we can only guess. For one billion dollars you would not get much farther than three miles."

      "Can't it be done for less?"

      "Naturally, but then we would have to make concessions with quality, and that is not our method of working. Such a system can only exist if it is built to last for centuries, otherwise we would constantly be repairing it."

      "We'd never be able to afford such quality."

      "You see it in front of you. What you need is not a vault full of banknotes, but production capacity. Only a society with a completely efficient economic system can realize such things for itself."

      "But can all this be compared to the communist system that we have on Earth?"

      "Our cosmic universal economic system can be compared to both communism and the capitalist Western economy. One can also say that our cosmic economics can't be compared with either."

      "If we don't have this system on Earth, how can you call it universal?"

      "It is only through this system that a race can achieve a cultural level of social stability. And from there onward toward immortality. It is the cosmic condition, based on natural laws."

      "What's your definition of culture, then, exactly? I'm beginning to think that we define the word differently."

      "That's a very important question, Stef. Culture is the measure through which a society caters to the least fortunate man. The measure in which the sick, invalid, old or poor people are taken care of. In short, the measure of collective unselfishness." "But what has this got to do with immortality?"

      "Just this, that unselfishness makes an intelligent race immortal. But before you can understand this, you will first have to climb the ladder with Us to the misty heights of comic integration."

      "Unbelievable! I thought that you practiced efficiency as a sort of religion, but now I see that your economic system is a religion of sorts as well."

      "You are beginning to understand, but the word 'religion' is not well chosen."

      "Something like it, then?"

      "Correct."

      "Do you mean that to start with we should build a world with this standard of efficiency and quality?"

      "We do not remember ever having suggested that you should build rail systems and cylindrical houses, nor have we said that your population should become as large as ours. You are again needlessly creating comparisons, which you should not do, for it leads you nowhere. Try only to understand how we have used the three essentials of higher culture-freedom, justice and efficiency-in our world, and what culture really is to Us. Only then will you be able to understand our answer to the great question that you have asked."

      CHAPTER 3

      Planet Iarga

      After the Iargans had explained their concept of efficiency, they turned without pause to their ideas of justice. In the same relentless and efficient manner, I was pumped full of the laws upon which they based their social and economic system in a very short time. The main theme was the same: the efficiency of the justice. It's interesting to fully understand what a cosmic universal economic system is. They explain it as follows: an economic plan, aimed at efficiently satisfying man's needs so that he is released from the tyranny of material things over his daily life. In other words, if everyone has everything at his disposal, then the acquisition of material goods is no longer of paramount importance. This can only be achieved by providing "equal shares for everyone"; otherwise envy will always exist. The culture then becomes more or less stable. I nodded in agreement; mankind released from material problems, no envy or greed, that was an answer.

      Only one small problem: how is it done? A little magic perhaps? There are only two solutions: everyone must own the same; or no one must own anything. The last is the most efficient. I sat bolt upright in my chair. Were they telling me, a well-to-do company director, that I must dispense with personal property? These beings were pure communists! It was useless to carry on this conversation; it was getting me nowhere. I sat wondering if I should voice my displeasure, but the explanation continued with the following hypothesis: consequently, because money is an unmistakable form of property, it should be abolished. They went even further. Personal property is an indication of a very primitive level of culture. We had enough intelligence to build rockets, but not enough to see that the laws of the survival of the fittest and might is right must be abolished. Perhaps I could explain to them how I thought we could survive with such a system. Because though ours was a highly interesting system, what they had found here in discrimination beat anything that they had ever encountered before.

      Earth people seem to be continually occupied with thinking of new discriminations, and using them as solutions to the ones that already exist. Someone could not formulate any social or political plan without someone else immediately attacking it. I really must not blame the spacemen when they said that all this useless talking, the continual working against one another, made them laugh. On the other hand, it was more terrifying than amusing that power had now been added to this difference in insight in the form of an atomic-weapon arsenal which had an unimaginable destructive and poisonous effect. And all this under the control of a few buttons! How was it possible that we could still sleep peacefully? One learns to live with things that are impossible to change. What a foolish idea; of course it was possible to change things. All we had to do was to stop discriminating, simply change our laws. The concept of private property, of course, stood in our way. But surely we could sort that out. .... .1 didn't think so. Abolish personal possessions? Never would that work. While we are all quite willing to improve the world, it had to begin with our neighbor.

      Surely even a selfish man can understand that a world without discrimination would be a better place in which to live. Perhaps we could even create a prosperity that, universally speaking, could be ten times better than that of the present? That they could understand. It was a pity that the communistic ideals were lost in inefficiency, otherwise they could have done a lot of good. It was a case of state-controlled economic leaders making the decisions. My humor improved considerably; they were not communists after all. But what were they, then? I will try, briefly, to explain their system, as far as I was able to understand it.

      The total production of goods and services is, on Iarga, in the hands of a very small number of huge companies, the "trusts." These are huge organizations with millions of employees, active over their whole planet. There are primary trusts, which distribute directly to the consumer, and secondary trusts, which supply the primary. Nothing is paid for on Iarga, only registered. What a consumer uses is registered in the computer center in each of the house cylinders, and this may not exceed that to which he has a right. These computers are coupled to the huge shopping centers in each of the cylinders. You cannot buy anything. Large and expensive things, such as houses, cars, boats, valuable artifacts, and so on, can only be hired. They call this the right of acquisition. Less expensive things are not hired because that is not efficient. They are registered for their total value and the right of use remains for life. This is almost the same as personal ownership, except that in the event of death, the goods are returned to the trusts. The last category is articles for consumption and public services. Their total value is registered, at which point right of usage becomes yours.

      As far as goods are concerned, you may not have more "in stock" than is reasonable for your own use, otherwise the surplus can be confiscated. It is practically the same sort of thing as a bank account, except that they place the control on the expenditure, whereas we place it on the income. This difference is worth a lot of thought. Legally, all the goods remain the property of the trusts that supplied them. This means not only that the trust is responsible for the upkeep, repair and the guarantee of a certain minimum life, but they also take the total risk of loss or destruction. Thus, all the articles are made to such a high standard that repair is never necessary; repairs are not only expensive but terribly inefficient. Insurance companies and repair firms would make a poor living on Iarga! The trusts work on a cost-price basis whereby our term "profit" is replaced by "the cost of continuation." Each trust was constantly occupied with improving and expanding its production. Their economy was as stable as a rock. They showed me two of their fully automatic factory complexes, one that produced cars and another that produced the trans-oceanic rail bridges.

      The star-shaped building had a diameter of about one kilometer and the area around the factory was a maze of rails supporting hundreds of their freighttorpedos which entered the building at the points of the star. The film then moved to the factory's interior. The points of the star contained the automatic unbading system that emptied the trains of their raw materials, and this was the first time that I was able to hear original sounds. Strange hollow knocking, interposed with screeches and clicks, it was an inferno of noise that echoed strangely in the small metal chamber in which I was sitting. The same realistic effect as the film itself; left, right, above, below; I heard the sounds exactly as if I had been present when they were made, and I began to hear exactly which machine was making a particular noise. The size of the machine park was indescribable. Boilers, collectors, hinging lids, ovens with white-hot metal, presses that belched steam each time they opened; huge horseshoe shaped sections with high-voltage insulators and spark-spitting machines. Small, delicate machines turned, twisted or juggled with their products.

      I saw a few Iargans at work, dressed in orange colored overalls with space-suit like helmets on their hs which left only the mouth and nose uncovered; there were never more than about 40 workers outside the control room. The production lines converged towards the middle of the factory and it became dear that this factory produced automobiles. The most sinister, I found, were the metal claws that functioned exactly the same way as a human hand and arm. They were mounted on a system of arms and made movements exactly as a living being would; large ones moved slowly, and small ones moved at lightening speed, exactly synchronized with the placing of a part. The machine completed its task piece for piece until a complete product emerged at the end of the line, faultless, fast, and untouched by "human" hand. It was mostly the claws that gave the impression that this monster with all its noise, had an intellect of its own. The two production lines joined exactly in the middle of the star, the complete under section of the car, complete with wheels, seats, steering and controls was joined in one operation to the upper section with glass, doors and the rail skis. Here I saw the most impressive battery of arms and claws, the finished automobiles were picked up by the skis, swung round, and placed onto the rail system exactly next to the previous one, with only a few millimeters between them.

      The camera rested for a while on this end phase, and it began to dawn on me just exactly what this machine was capable of doing. This kilometer long monster that knew no failure, turned raw material into a finished automobile at the rate of one every twenty seconds! or four thousand five hundred per day. When my noise-numbed brain registered this, I got a rather strange feeling in my stomach; this was inhuman! They were also "kind" enough to show me another factory that produced the trans-oceanic rail bridges, but I will spare you the details. The need to continually write in superlatives tends to bring aversion, my comments can be condensed into one word, terrible! How the Iargans can develop and build such mechanical monsters is a mystery to me. They also thought it desirable to show me the robot production of the houses; even a nonefficient Earth man could surely under-stand something of the advantages of standardization. I thanked them kindly for the offer, but I had seen enough of all that automation, where Iargans only checked to see that everything was working properly. I was quite prepared to accept the fact that they could build houses fully automatically. They were disappointed, but perhaps I would like to see how they assembled the units into the huge cylinders? Okay, the, just to please them.

      •  

      How do Iargans build their houses? This efficiency began to tickle my sense of humor. They began by building a factory, on site, and placed in it one of the mechanical monsters that produced the complete, ready-for-use, plastic housing units. Each unit was roughly sixty by sixty feet and eighteen feet high, completely finished with glass, furniture, household machines, communication system, and so on, divided into two layers or floors. On the site itself lay, in the ground, a huge, star-shaped rib construction with a diameter of more than nine hundred feet. Just as the roofs of the cylinders were domed, so was the foundation, but with the convex side under, like a half discus. The ribs were joined in the middle to a huge ring, the depth of the ribs at this point being approximately sixty feet. The plating on the under-side of the ribs was dark grey and looked rather like the skin of their spaceships. On this "saucer" foundation a massive cylinder with a steel frame was built, filled in with something that looked like black concrete, the whole construction having a diameter of approximately eight hundred feet and a wall thickness of approximately nine feet. The whole construction was covered by the domed roof which seemed to be almost as strong as the foundations, only this roof was covered by glass.

      On the out side of this cylindrical wall were rows of heavy support beams, onto which the house units were placed, each unit fitting perfectly against the insulated surfaces of its neighbor. If one of the units should be damaged at any time, for example by fire, then it was simply removed and a new one put in its place. A wonderful piece of engineering. The "working life" of these constructions was calculated to be at least one thousand years.

      "When I hear you continually talking about quality and a useful life of thousands of years, and a rail system that can stand for hundreds of years, I get the feeling that your plans for the future make ours, which only take into account the next twenty or thirty years, look like child's play," I told them during a break in the film.

      "The explanation is not difficult," a spokesman answered calmly. "A race that lives under the constant threat of war and destruction does not logically make any plans for the distant future. For an absolute race, that is different. The continual improvement of our mental capacity directs our thoughts more and more into the future. We have created a planet on which our race can survive for an eternity. We live in a stable world on a clean planet, where the balance of nature can be maintained for unlimited time. We live for the future, because we expect great things from it. We are constantly occupied with making our world a better place to live in. The Earth, on the other hand, lives for the present and the past, and does not worry about the future generations."

      "Remarkable, this farsighted concern for future generations."

      "When you understand what a super culture represents, you will share our concern."

      I was delighted when they agreed to my request to see one of their flying saucers. I cherished the hope that we might also become capable of constructing such a machine, but, alas, the technique was so advanced that I was unable to understand the first thing about it. It was a beautiful, polished, silver, streamlined discus, about ninety feet in diameter, with a domed glass pane) above the below in the middle. There were slots around the rim on the underside, and when the machine flew low over the ground, I could see dust being blown up. I thought at first that this was caused by air pressure, but they explained that it was due to the "ground echo" from the antigravity machine. It was astounding to see just what these machines could do. They showed me the transportation of a rail section to an inaccessible mountain area. The saucer lifted the heavy section on two steel cables and transported it effortlessly over the mountains. It was maneuverable in all directions, and could, even in a storm, hover motionlessly in the air. It was equally capable of operating either in the atmosphere or outside it. In answer to my remark that it was surely, then, a spaceship, I was told that they were confined to the gravitational field of the planet.

      Gravity was their only means of returning to the surface. One therefore had to be careful not to fly fast enough to exceed the escape velocity, which would then necessitate rescue by a real spaceship. My request to be allowed to see one of their spaceships was politely refused; perhaps at the end of our conversation. They felt that we had much more important things to discuss than technique. They thought that they had sufficiently described the production facilities and the investment capacity of their trusts, and that I would now be interested in their structure. To be quite honest, I had at the moment very little interest in structures. A society without personal ownership was all very well and good as a curiosity, but I did not see any practical use for it.

      I was later to regret my attitude, for the efficiency of radiation information is dependent on the interest of the "student," and because of my lack of interest, I missed an important part of the organizational structure. I remember only a small part of it. The system worked with divisions and branches that were as far removed from one another, geographically, as possible, and allowed for automatic production. At the head of each trust was a president who was a member of the production group of the world government. The trusts competed with each other, and the prices were determined by the law of supply and demand, the principle of the free market. Their cost price was computed on the standard work hour, the ura.(cont. Under)

      Text for UFO-drawing: Small disc-shaped anti-gravity air vehicles observed were not capable of flight outside of a gravity field. They were a beautifully polished silver in color, were highly streamlined, and were about 90 feet in diameter with a transparent dome above and below in the center. There were slots around the rim on the under side. The performance of these vehicles was astounding. They were observed 'lifting whole sections of the rail system structure into place in mountainous areas with ease. Their operation is confined to the gravitational field of a planet.

      Text. Cont. Here: My question as to how they calculated the cost of natural resources was answered by saying that in a society where personal ownership did not exist, natural resources were, in principle, free. This meant that the price was calculated from the cost of winning, processing and distribution.

      "How can a trust that works on a cost-price basis sell gold, for example, which, due to the law of supply and demand, represents a much higher income than its cost price?" I asked.

      "You use gold as an example, but there are many scarce articles that represent a profit far above the cost price. This is not a problem. The trusts simply absorb this extra profit and use it to subsidize other articles in the production scheme. Careful central planning can also influence the law of supply and demand."

      "Surely that can be done by advertising?" Then they really went to town! What we did under the guise of "advertising" and "public relations" was something that bordered on indecency. The money and manpower-in other words, potential prosperity-that we limit for a nonefficient brain. Can you imagine what these Earth people thought of now? Artificial aging! A continual stream of seemingly new models compelled our status-symbol oriented society to discard things before they had reached the end of their useful life. A terrible waste of raw material and production capacity, and, even worse, it was a stimulant for jealousy and greed, and this was criminal. This promotion of materialism, a deadly danger for an intelligent race, was directly opposed to any idea of justice. I thought they were finished, but their most remarkable argument was yet to come. Our advertising was a despicable form of propaganda which was ethically unacceptable. In a socially stable society, you had not only freedom of speech, but, even more important, freedom of thought. Propaganda, repeated one-sided information, damaged the freedom of thought, and that was unacceptable discrimination. My tentative question as to how they could practice competition without advertising initiated another detailed explanation. Competition exists only through the free choice of the consumers, and has nothing to do with trying to influence that choice, as we try to do with advertising. They influenced this choice (naturally!) much more efficiently.

      On Iarga, there are two worldwide consumer organizations, which are responsible for all market research. They examine the usage value of all the goods and services and inform the public in the most objective manner about the available assortment. They stimulate the trusts to produce the goods that are needed. The trusts are not permitted to advertise or exert any influence on the consumer, as this could never be objective. Thus the choice is not made by inexpert or unprice-conscious persons but by experts with test facilities at their disposal. When, for example, they see that it is necessary that the public have a choice of five different types of television sets, then they insure that these are produced.

      I didn't believe a word of it! From what I had seen on Iarga, there was no choice at all. Everything seemed the same, cars, houses, trains, and so on. They were afraid that I had failed to understand anything of what they had told me. "The presidents of the two trusts are a part of the central planning group of the world government. This group attempts to lead the race to the goal of a culture. To begin with, they must, by means of production adjustment, dispense with the law of supply and demand, and thereafter create a situation of unbridled prosperity, so that no one is troubled any more by material things. As a result this group also stimulates the mental development of the race. Take, for example, the cars and houses. There comes a time when the cultural level has reached a point where these no longer function as status symbols. What then influences the choice of the public? Two things, mainly: comfort and price. Maximum comfort and low production cost can only be achieved with robot automation. And what happens then? Everyone chooses the most efficient car and the most efficient house and so the development proceeds. "Another thing that has a great influence on consumption is the general interest in the conservation of natural resources. A race that lives for the future is concerned with the utmost efficient use of natural resources, because the longer the planet is inhabited, the scarcer these become. The presidents of the