Visions

Rev. Ratty	In 1976, as Damien Thorn was celebrating his narrow escape from the knives of his adopted father at Meggido, watching Ambassador Thorn get buried, he feels a hand upon his shoulders. "I'll see you again, shortly," Estelle Gerard says to him, "and next time, the people caring for me won't be so easily tricked." With that, she ascended to Heaven, leaving Damien to ponder the fact that he was going to have a very short life, indeed.
Professor Emeritus

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In 1930, Aldeburgh Lodge school magazine rather wittily imagined how children taught in 1909 would have viewed modern Britain. An obviously humorous map of the world of 1907 was shown in which the British Empire was reduced to Iceland, leaving the rest — including even `Kgl. Preuss. Reg. Bez. Grossbritannien' — to Germany. The reality of course was that Britain was 'a small island off the western coast of Teutonia'.

In 1916, combat tension combined with an over-active imagination amplified by the experience of the Battle of the Somme had traumatised Second Lieutenant John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, eleventh battalion Lancashire Fusiliers.
Balrog	"Gandalf lifted his staff, and crying aloud, he smote the the Bridge [of Khazad-Dum] before him. The bridge cracked. Right at the Balrog's feet it broke. With a terrible cry, the Balrog fell forward, and its shadow plunged down and vanished. But even as it feel it swung its whip, and the thongs lashed and curled around the wizad's knees, dragging him to the brink. He staggered and fell, grasping vainly at the stone, and slid into the abyss".
Inside a military field hospital Tolkien fought a mental battle to defeat the phantasmagoric projections of the Somme. A battle, he would both win, and lose, and win again. Like Kurt Vonnegut fifty years later, Tolkien's need for expression sought out escapist literature, and his own fight was portrayed in this animated scene from the Mines of Moria. And also later, when he finally defeated the Balrog in the well of the Abyss.

Alternate Kenne..	In 1968, Republican President-elect Robert F Kennedy died in an automobile crash in Massachusetts. Also in the vehicle but unharmed was unsuccessful Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Edward M Kennedy. The brothers had met in New York to settle their differences after a close-fought campaign, and had decided to relax at the Cottage at Martha's Vinyard. Soon into the journey, feeling fatigued they had realised it was a mistake. A short distance from the Cottage, they had approached the difficult bend at Chappaquiddick, and the car skidded off the bridge into Poucha Pond where the President-Elect died.
Kennedy's running mate Richard M Nixon had been forced to step aside to permit Robert Kennedy to run. With the nominee's death, he now prepared to enter the White House as described in Mark Aronson's dramatic account President-Elect.

In 1995, in Ottawa, Canada Duc de Richleau and Rex van Ryn rescued the Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and his wife Aline from a First Nation cult. During the rescue they prevent André Dallaire brandishing an Inuit stone sculpture of a loon. The Prime Minister and his wife escape to the home of the Eatons, friends of Richleau and van Ryn, and are followed by the group's leader, Mocata, who has a psychic connection to the Chrétiens. After visiting the house to discuss the matter, and an unsuccessful attempt to influence the initiates to return, Mocata forces Richleau and the other occupants to defend themselves through a night of first nation magic attacks. The dramatic story was described in the 2000 TV movie The Inuit Rides Out directed by Dennis Wheatley Junior.	Inuit Rides Out

Snakeyes	In 1963, the strange being known as Snake Eyes arrived in Dallas. He had sight of the Presidential motorcade route, and the mind controlled patsy Lee Harvey Oswald had secured a job at the location from which the shot would be taken. Of course the suggestion that Oswald himself would take the shot was simply ludicrous; during his otherwise undistinguished military career, Oswald had barely earned the Sharpshooter weapons qualification badge with a score of 212 out of just 250 targets. A lone gun might get one head shot, and choosing an ex marine who hit the target 4 times out of 5 from a short distance years before, that would have been a fool's odds.

In 1965, US President John F Kennedy is briefed on Operation Quartz . To prevent the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI), this plan envisaged placing Rhodesian troops at strategic points from which they could simultaneously wipe out the terrorists at the Assembly Points and assassinate Robert Mugabe and the other terrorist leaders at their campaign headquarters. The strike would be assisted by Puma helicopters of the South African Air Force and would involve the participation of elite Recce units of the South African army.	Kennedy

Travesties

Northwoods	In 1964, even as US Marines stormed Havana the casus belli for the Cuban invasion was being challenged - by one of their own. Compelling evidence was emerging that the wave of terrorism that struck America in late 1963 was the result of false-flag operations executed by the US Government itself. Sensationally, a former US marine Lee Harvey Oswald was claiming that he had assassinated John F Kennedy under hypnotic suggestion from the CIA. This lone gunman conspiracy theory shook the credibility of the Warren Commission's report, which placed the blame on a Cuban hit squad known as the three Hobos.
Memorandum

The previously secret document for Operation Northwoods was finally made public on November 18, 1997, by the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board, a U.S. federal agency overseeing the release of government records related to John F. Kennedy's assassination. A total 1521 pages of once-secret military records covering 1962 to 1964 were concomitantly declassified by said Review Board. Operation Northwoods, or Northwoods, was a 1962 plan by the US Department of Defense to stage acts of simulated or real terrorism on US soil and against US interests and then put the blame of these acts on Cuba, so as to generate U.S. public support for military action against the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. As part of the U.S. government's Operation Mongoose anti-Castro initiative, the plan called for various false flag actions, including simulated or real state-sponsored acts of terrorism on U.S. and Cuban soil. The plan was proposed by senior U.S. Department of Defense leaders, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lyman Louis Lemnitzer.

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Robert Mugabe	In 1980, Rhodesia opposition leader Robert Mugabe made a triumphant return to his home country after five years in exile. Cheering crowds greeted Mr Mugabe's arrival in the capital, Salisbury, from Mozambique where he has been gathering support for his Zimbabwe African National Union (Patriotic Front) or Zanu (PF) party. The Rhodesian black nationalist leader, who spearheaded a guerrilla war against the Salisbury government, told a tumultuous rally of supporters there would be no more injustice based on race and colour.

Mugabe had his own plans for justice. In April 1980, Mugabe summoned Smith to Government House and Smith was surprised to be greeted with a warm handshake and a broad smile; after all, the country's new Marxist leader had promised his people that, come liberation, he would have Smith publicly hanged in Harare's main square. At that meeting, Mugabe told Smith he was acutely aware that he had inherited from his old adversaries, the whites, a jewel of a country, and he praised its superb infrastructure, its efficient modern economy, and promised to keep it that way. Smith, completely disarmed, rushed home in a state of excitement. He would, over lunch, tell his wife, Janet, that perhaps he had been wrong about a black government being incapable of running his beloved Rhodesia. Smith never made it past the first road block. Alternate Historian's note, this story explores a scenario where history played out as planned, and is not specifically designed to demonize Robert Mugabe.

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In 1994, the Ames dossier included the X Commmittee Minutes. A radically altered Malcom X had returned from the Hajj about to preach a new message of incredible power. The top brass had not been so terrified since they lost China. The picture of X holding a rifle by the window said it all (his closest minder was a security agent).

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In 1838, Ralph Waldo Emerson suffered the most dreadful nightmare in which in the Nunna daul Isunyi known as the Trail of Tears was revealed to him. In the Western United States, 17,000 native Americans were to be forced to relocate, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 4,000 Cherokees. Emerson awoke to write a powerful and compelling letter to President Martin Van Buren, urging him not to inflict 'so vast an outrage upon the Cherokee Nation.'

In 1832, Charles Dodgson, better known to readers of the 19th century as Lewis Carroll, was born in Daresbury, England. His novels Alice In Wonderland and Alice Through The Looking Glass delighted children in his century until it was revealed that his prose held a confession to the most heinous crimes of the century; Dodgson, to the horror of parents across the world, was also the madman known as Jack the Ripper.

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In 1967, a fire erupts inside the Apollo 1 command module as tests are being conducted prior to allowing the astronauts inside. Although the astronauts escape unharmed, Apollo 1 is destroyed, and America's lunar exploration program is set back 6 months trying to find out why the fire happened. It was eventually discovered to be faulty wiring inside the command module.

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	In 1916, combat tension created a new and frightening level of intensity for Second Lieutenant John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. Serving in the eleventh battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers, Tolkien's imagination was over-stimulated by the horror of the Somme. Tolkien turned to escapist fantasy writing to explore the dissapation of his own life force. Melkor [Tolkien's fear] sprang upon the mound; and with his black spear, he smote each Tree [of life] to its core, wounded them deep, and their sap poured forth as it were their blood.. the poison of Death .. went into their tissues and withered them, root, brand and leaf; and they died. ~ 'Of the Darkening of Valinor'

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In 1969, in the State of California the Hetch Hetchy Moccasin Powerhouse rated at 100,000KVA was completed and placed in operation. More attention should have been paid to Albert Einsteins unified field theory. Just seventeen seconds after power-on multidimensional energies fold space and time. An area bounded by California State Route 49 and California State Route 120 is transported into a parallel Lovecraftian universe of the damned.

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In 1975, Senator Frank Church of Idaho is killed in a car crash just as he was to begin a Senate investigation into possibily illegal activities by the FBI and CIA. Fortunately, Senator John Smith of Michigan was able to step into the leadership role and clear the two intelligence agencies of any and all wrongdoing. He was later named head of the CIA.

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In 1369, Somali chieftain Muhamed Siyad Barre flees before a combined Islamic force invading the nation to bring order out of the chaos he has led his small nation into. The success of the Somalian venture leads many of the larger nations under Allah to form an organization that will allow them to intervene in nations that have spun out of control; this organization is now known as The United Caliphates.

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In 1785, James McGill, a Scottish businessman who had thrown in with the Canadian nationalists during their war for independence, establishes McGill College in Montreal. The newly formed Canadian government helps him fund it, creating the first governmentally-assisted insitution of higher learning in the Canadian democracy.

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In 1980, Rhodesia opposition leader Robert Mugabe made a triumphant return to his home country after five years in exile. Military planners sought to terminate his leadership. At the forthcoming election, Prime Minister Ian Smith had been assured that Mugabe could not defeat Bishop Muzorewa's government, and in case a contingency plan was in place. In fact two plans. Although the full details of Operation Quartz have never been made public, some aspects of the plan have been revealed by former members of the security forces. It was divided into two parts: Operation Quartz, an overt strike against the terrorists, and Operation Hectic, a covert strike to kill Mugabe and his key personnel

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In 1915, United States Marines occupy Haiti, imposing a constitution written by Franklin D. Roosevelt and applying an old system of compulsory corvee labor to everyone. Celebrating crowds at New York Harbour celebrate the return of the Marines, unaware that the troop ships are full of zombies who quickly overrun the nation.

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Apollo One	In 1967, three American astronauts died after fire swept through the Apollo spacecraft designed for a manned flight to the Moon during rehearsals at Cape Kennedy. It is thought an electrical spark started in the area holding oxygen supplies and other support systems. The fire spread quickly in the oxygen-filled atmosphere of the capsule, killing the crew within seconds. The space crew, flight commander Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee, were taking part in a test run for the launch of the first Apollo mission. Navy Lieutenant Commander Chaffee, aged 31, had never flown in space before.
Doomed Crew

Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Grissom, 39, was the first American to make two flights. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel White, 35, made America's first space walk. It was feared the disaster on launch pad 34 could delay America's plans to put a man on the Moon by as much as a year. There was no need to worry, contingency plans were in place - for a faked moon landing. The three men were in the command module, mounted on the Saturn rocket as if ready for launch, but Saturn was not loaded with fuel. At 1831 hours one of the astronauts was heard to say, 'Fire, I smell fire.' Two seconds later, another astronaut, probably Lt Col White said, 'Fire in the cockpit.' The fire spread through the cabin rapidly. The last communication from the crew was heard just 17 seconds later. The pressurised atmosphere inside the capsule meant the astronauts would not have had time to open the hatch. Under ideal conditions, the process takes about 90 seconds. It involves venting the cabin to relieve the interior pressure which helps hold the door closed. It took technicians on the outside about five minutes after the fire had started to open the hatch. There was a full investigation into what caused the fire, with questions being asked about whether safety corners were cut in the race to be first to the Moon. The astronauts knew there were risks involved. Lt Col Grissom became the second American in space in the Liberty Bell 7. On splashdown, the space capsule filled with water and sank and he almost drowned. A few weeks before the launch pad tragedy, he wrote: 'There will be risks, as there are in any experimental programme, and sooner or later, we're going to run head-on into the law of averages and lose somebody. I hope this never happens, and... perhaps it never will, but if it does, I hope the American people won't think it's too high a price to pay for our space programme.' The Apollo mission's maiden flight was due to blast off into space on 21 February.

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