Urus

By Bob Grant and Hubble Telescope

A young man is driving down a lonely stretch of highway after midnight and is mulling over the conversations he had earlier with people at a friends wedding. He is feeling like life is passing him by and he has no idea how to change it. Fate steps in and his life is suddenly turned up-side-down when he finds a shiny disk where he saw a UFO land.
He experiences, fear, wonder and excitement during the next few months of his life as he is shown a whole new culture under the sea and learns answers to many questions he has concerning history, economics and religion. He also finds a utopian social structure that exists without crime or money. The amazing thing is that everything he encounters is entwined with the humans on the surface.
The young man not only finds their economy, sports and religion captivating but many other futuristic innovations as well in this underwater world. He falls in love for the first time with the most beautiful and intelligent woman he has ever met. This encounter results in his first epiphany.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 3, 2008
• ISBN: 9781469103358

Bob Grant

I am a seventy year old man that has lived a very rewarding life. I have been rewarded with a loving wife for the last forty-seven years, five children whom my wife claims are perfect, fourteen grandchildren who I know are perfect and a job teaching in Moses Lake, WA that I truly enjoyed for thirty years.

Book preview

Copyright © 2008 by Bob Grant.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

47333

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Epilog

Dedication

The four people who gave me the inspiration and confidence to write this book are: The person who gave me the idea to write a story was Violet Sauers. She is a very sharp 90+ year old person I have known for my entire life. Violet and her family have been more like relatives than friends. The second person is Glen Uhlenkott, he is the first friend I met in Moses Lake almost half a century ago. He read the first draft of URUS and sent back corrections that took me over a day to implement. The third person is Peggy Majors. She read the story when it was in about its fourth draft and raved about it so much I felt it may be good enough to publish. The fourth person who needs mentioning is my cousin Charles Olson. He is a retired Seattle Pacific University professor who spent many hours finding errors in what I thought was my final draft. If not for these people, this book would have never been completed.

Chapter 1

The Disc

The year was 1971, the time was 2:35 a.m., the place was Old Pacific Coast Highway between San Clemente and Oceanside, California. I was driving an old 1952 Studebaker Commander V8 Starliner (It was a hot car that could slip down the highway like you were floating on a cloud but take a corner too sharp and you would scrape your elbow on the pavement… but at least it didn’t have the bullet-nose any more. People would tell me, You drive a Studebaker? I can’t tell if it’s coming or going. I would answer, Just look out your window as I pass by, then you should be able to figure it out.

My story starts as I was returning to San Diego from a weekend in Santa Barbara where I attended a buddy’s wedding. He had just graduated from a teacher’s college and was exchanging marriage vows with a lovely girl who lived next door to my parent’s house. Most of his other guests were well on their way to careers. I, on the other hand, had spent four years in the military, had recently found a job in Southern California and was feeling a little melancholy as my headlights cut through the clear blackness of a California night.

There was a lot to think about as I guided my car down that lonely stretch of highway. I was thinking about my future and how uninspired I was when out of the night sky, those thoughts were blown away. Out of the starlit blackness, a bright light appeared to be moving closer and growing larger. At first I thought it was an airplane trying to land on the highway but as I watched the object get closer, it settled as soft and quiet as a feather in a field not far from Highway 101. I pulled over and stopped the old Studebaker to witness the lights become stationary, then fade into the night for a few minutes before they grew brighter just before shooting into the air like a flaming arrow and becoming another fiery point of light in the heavens.

Sitting there with my heart pounding, I was about to start the car when a few hundred yards ahead; a pair of brake lights blinked on only to fade away as the car left the scene. Quickly I drove to the spot I figured the mysterious car had occupied, stopped again, retrieved a flashlight from the glove compartment and walked to the side of the road.

My heart was now pounding in my throat as I entered the field that had just been occupied by a UFO. The light from the flashlight swished back and forth in front of me as I carefully placed my feet between the rocks and bushes. I had traveled less than thirty yards when my light caught a shiny object leaning on a small rock. Picking it up, it resembled a shinny silver dollar. Except this disc-shaped piece of metal was not much thicker than a strand of hair and couldn’t be bent, scratched or broken. The small hole in its center made me think it was some kind of recording device. My first instinct was to take it to the authorities but soon realized if I did that, I would probably never see it again. Then I thought maybe if I let the media have it they would be able to find out what it was. I disregarded that notion because other people I know who have volunteered information to the press were always criticized as being crack-pots or worse. The safest course was to figure out what this strange disc was by myself. All of a sudden the thought occurred to me that they might discover this disc is missing and streak back here to find it. My feet started moving and the distance between me and my Studebaker melted away like a snowflake touching my tongue. In a flash I jumped behind the wheel of the Starliner, smoked the tires, and made a hasty exit toward home.

The next morning, I tried to enlarge pictures of it to see if it had grooves like a 45 or 78 rpm record. Either I couldn’t enlarge them enough or there weren’t any. Next I tried modifying an old phonograph turntable by inserting a new professional grade diamond-tipped needle in the arm before attempting to play it. No matter how fast or slow the turntable spun, the only sound I could hear was the needle sliding back and forth. After removing the disc it was apparent not even the diamond-tipped needle could scratch the artifact. Nothing seemed to unlock the secret I felt the disc was keeping locked inside.

A couple weeks of frustration went by. My failure to open it led me to return to the site where the disc was found. This time I brought a rented metal detector to give myself a better chance of finding a device that would make it possible to read the information on the disc.

The rocky field was empty except for the indentations of the three evenly spaced pods of the craft’s landing gear. Figuring the focal point of those three pods was a good place to start, I soon became engrossed with watching the meter on the metal detector as each of the concentric search patterns was completed. I didn’t notice a shabbily dressed elderly man approach my search. When he tapped me on the shoulder I almost jumped out of my skin. He apologized and asked what I was doing out there. Since it was really none of his business I replied a little sarcastically, Looking for my money clip.

He reached out and grabbed my arm, looked me in the eye and said, The government has been out here for weeks and has covered this area with a fine-toothed comb and has found nothing. I’ll ask you again.

Before he could finish, I jerked my arm from his grasp and told him it was none of his business. He took a step backwards and then said something odd, And why are you looking here for your silver dollar money clip?

That got my attention because I know I hadn’t mentioned anything about the size or shape of the money clip. The hobo looking old man exited the area only to lean up against a tree at the far edge of the field.

It was starting to get dark by the time my search terminated; suddenly the mysterious hobo reappeared standing at my side. This time he was more forceful when he said, I know what you are looking for and maybe I can help you, but you have to be honest with me and tell me the truth.

There was no way I was going to confide in this stranger so I told him to leave me alone. He did and I thought that was the end of it but his words I know what you are looking for… kept me from having a good night’s sleep for weeks.

As time passed, my desire to discover the true importance of the find waned until one day when I entered my apartment. I noticed an opaque square-based pyramid about four inches tall on my desk. Nothing in the apartment was disturbed or missing, even the door and windows were still locked. As soon as I picked the pyramid up, an interior soft yellowish light began to get brighter and brighter