Justice Sally Thomas, however, was having none of it. Had she accepted the argument, it would have set a very dangerous precedent from the government’s perspective: Much of Pine Gap’s work is focused on spying on foreign nations, and it could be argued in future cases that, by definition, spying on the enemy overseas is not, technically speaking, defensive. Therefore, invoking the 1952 legislation would not just be pointless, it would be illegal too. Even though the government knew full well that the defense’s argument was not exactly an invalid one, the case was not thrown out of court. In fact, Goldie, Dowling, Mulhearn and Law and were successfully prosecuted to the full extent to which officialdom was conceivably able.
Although the prosecution team strived for — and the government secretly yearned for — the four to serve prison time, it was not to be. Collectively, they received fines totaling only $3,500—which they flatly refused to pay. An utterly exasperated Australian government pushed to overturn the verdict and punishment and put all four behind bars at the earliest opportunity — like right now. Well, that didn’t work either. What did happen was that the legal team for Goldie, Dowling, Mulhearn and Law quickly launched an appeal, and, remarkably, got the entire conviction quashed and nullified, as a result of concerns relative to the perceived unconstitutional way in which the act of 1952 had been introduced, interpreted, and used against the four. While the foursome celebrated their freedom, the government quietly seethed. The secret work of Pine Gap continued on behind closed doors.
UFOS
Pine Gap has been linked to matters of a much stranger nature than covert intelligence-gathering, however: More than a few UFO reports have surfaced from this area. Since the early to mid-1970s, eyewitnesses have described seeing strange balls of bright light hovering over the base; gleaming, saucer-shaped aircraft have been seen soaring across the surrounding land; and, according to an Australian university professor named J.D. Frodsham, on one particular night in 1989, a hunting party in the area secretly watched as a set of camouflaged doors opened in the grounds of Pine Gap, out of which surfaced a metallic-looking, circular-shaped vehicle that rose vertically and then sped away into the night sky.
Combined with the fact that Pine Gap was previously known as the Joint Defense Space Research Facility, incredible stories such as these have inevitably given rise to the notion that a secret alien base — perhaps not unlike that which is allegedly buried below the town of Dulce, New Mexico — exists underneath Pine Gap. Although, given the current status of the highly advanced technology employed at Pine Gap, one might conclude that the UFOs are, in reality, classified vehicles of a very terrestrial nature: Perhaps they may actually be surveillance craft not unlike the remotely piloted vehicles (RPVs) or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) now being flown in the skies of the Middle East. If so, as seems to be the case at Area 51, Pine Gap personnel might prefer and even encourage people to believe such vehicles have alien origins. Either way, from the depths of the Nevada desert to the Australian interior, it seems, secret bases and UFOs, whatever their point of origin, go hand-in-glove.
C-10
Creatures of the Caves
Of the many multifaceted theories that have been advanced to try and explain what lies at the heart of the UFO puzzle, one of the most controversial suggests that, rather than representing intruders from faraway star systems, the assumed aliens are really the last vestiges of a very ancient — but very terrestrial — race of advanced entities that originated right here on Earth. They have either chosen or have been forced to live outside of human society, within huge, cavernous underworlds far beneath the surface of our planet.
As this theory goes, our presumed aliens are intimately related to Homo sapiens at a genetic level, to the extent that their close physical similarities allow them to stealthily move among us — with the aid of a few carefully prepared props to obscure their real appearances, such as wrap-around shades, wigs, pulled-down hats, upturned collars, and makeup. Our leaders are said to secretly know all about these ancient people. They know these curious entities are the original masters of the world that we have claimed as our own, which we are increasingly infesting, plundering, and ravaging. And officialdom is also keenly aware that nothing can be done to prevent these beings from meddling in and carefully manipulating our lives to suit their own potentially sinister purposes and agendas.
Such a scenario is without doubt an ominous one. Imagine this: You’re walking home late one night. The air is eerily still and the moon is full. As you approach your front door you feel a distinct chill, and you see a curious little fellow eyeing you carefully from across the street. Stranger still, via the light coming from a nearby streetlamp, you can see he’s wearing an old-fashioned fedora hat and a long black coat. And he looks deathly pale too. Menacingly zombie-like, even. Maybe he’s not, as your mind had quickly assumed, just some weirdo out for a late-night stroll, or even, worse still a deranged mugger. Perhaps he’s actually one of a veritable army of underworld intruders that have wormed their secret way into our cities, weaving plans under cover of darkness and shadow for the day when they reclaim the world that was once all theirs. Is such a scenario just too crazy for words? You’d better hope it is, or one day we could all be in deep, dire trouble.
Close Encounters
Before we get to the matter of what our leaders may know about this hidden society and its secret underground abode, it’s first necessary to note that encounters with unusual entities from the world below us are surprisingly common. One of the most macabre accounts that falls into this particular category occurred in 1942 at a reportedly haunted mine in Arizona. Paranormal investigator Brad Steiger says of this tale, “According to local legends, the mine had been abandoned when the miners [ran] into some sort of cave. From that moment on, ill fortune plagued those miners. Portions of the tunnel caved in, crushing several miners. A couple of the investors in the mine died as a result of strange accidents, and a number of the miners simply disappeared without a trace.”[34]
The idea of a haunted mine might very well keep superstitious miners at bay, but for two teenage boys who had heard the legends of the mine, the lure of adventure in that underground maze of tunnels was too appealing. So it was that in the summer of 1942 the intrepid lads elected to seek out the inner depths of the deep, dark mine for themselves. It was an action that proved costly, as Brad Steiger notes: “[They] passed the deserted buildings of the mining camp and climbed over a large pile of debris located at one side of the mine entrance. It was there, standing as if on guard at the mine opening, that the boys saw the grotesque monster. About four and a half feet tall, but very thick in bulk, the being let out an unearthly scream and started around the edge of the mine toward the boys.”[35]