ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, I want to thank God, the creator of all things. Next, I want to thank my family…past, present and future. A special thanks goes to my parents, Thomas and Doris, for raising me the right way, in spite of my resistance in my younger years. Without them, my life would have been a very different one.
AUTHORS NOTE
When I was a young boy, I witnessed a strange sighting in the sky while I was out Christmas shopping with my parents. That sighting will stay with me for the rest of my life.
It was around ten o’clock at night when my mother and I noticed people in the store rushing outside. My mother took me by the hand and rushed outside to see what the excitement was about. What we witnessed was astounding.
In that dark, starless December sky sat an orange ball of light. I remember people looking and pointing at it and wondering what it could be. After a few moments, the light started gradually getting larger and larger (it either got larger, or it got closer—I don’t know which).
What was once the size of a quarter, this orange ball of light now appeared bigger than the sun at sunrise. There was no sound; it was not bright to where we could not look directly into it, just a perfectly round ball of light.
After a few moments, it began to gradually shrink back to the size of a quarter. It sat in the sky at that size for a few more moments and then disappeared.
Thus began my fascination with the unexplained, especially with the sightings of UFOs. Even today, I still look at photos and videos of unexplained sightings, such as the Lights over Phoenix in the late nineties, and wonder about the possibility of life on other planets.
I’m not a big conspiracy theorist, though after reading this book, you may conclude otherwise. Even though I don’t dwell on conspiracies, I do wonder about the strange sightings in the skies that have been witnessed over the years by thousands of people around the world, and why governments seem to be able to readily explain away every sighting so easily. I’ll leave that to you to ponder.
My debut novel, THEY’RE AMONG US is the first of a two-part series. Part one is a good mixture of actual documented events and fictional drama with conspiracies to satiate your appetite for action and intrigue. So get ready for an exciting adventure. Turn the page and hold on tight.
“We have, indeed, been contacted-perhaps even visited-by extraterrestrial beings, and the U.S. government, in collusion with the other national powers of the Earth, is determined to keep this information from the general public.”
Victor Marchetti
Former Special Assistant to the
Executive Director of the CIA
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE: GENESIS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
PART I: A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
PART II: THE WAR’S WE FIGHT
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
PART III: CLUES
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
PART IV: THINGS ARE SUPPOSED TO GET BETTER WITH TIME
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
PART V: THE STUFF THAT HERO’S ARE MADE OF
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
Chapter 111
Chapter 112
Chapter 113
Chapter 114
Chapter 115
Chapter 116
Chapter 117
Chapter 118
Chapter 119
EPILOGUE: TWISTS & TURNS
Chapter 120
Chapter 121
Chapter 122
Chapter 123
Chapter 124
Chapter 125
PROLOGUE
GENESIS
CHAPTER 1
SPACE.
ONE OF THE many things that God created in those first six days. It has been the inspiration of poetry, art, and song. Planets, stars, galaxies of all shapes, colors, and sizes. Stunning images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope fill our hearts with a longing to reach further into the unknown.
For centuries, mankind has sought the secrets of the universe. And while its awe-inspiring beauty is ineffable, the universe is still well beyond the comprehension of mankind.
While astronomers and scientists study the stars and the gases that make up our galaxy, the question asked by all of mankind is how such vastness could possibly contain only one intelligent life form. Since the days of Copernicus, mankind has looked to the stars and pondered the existence of extraterrestrials.
And while organizations such as the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) insist on their existence, and amateur photographers claim to have photographic proof, the government continues to reject such claims, yet continues efforts to contact other life forms.
Eventually, mankind will come to know the truth: there is indeed life on other planets. And as beautiful as the universe is, even its immense splendor can go unnoticed in times of war. This is the story of a war between two alien races—the Promelians and the Cereleans.
The Promelians, a warring race and ancestral cousins of the Cereleans, grew weary of
what they perceived to be living in the shadows of the Cereleans.
The Promelian war council unanimously agreed that the Cerelean “problem” must be resolved once and for all. The war council directed the Promelian armies to prepare for an invasion of Cerelea, kill every man, woman, and child, and occupy the planet. This order was much to the delight of the Promelian generals, who longed to wage war against what they perceived to be a weaker species.
The Promelians launched every warship in their arsenal, armed with laser cannons and ionized torpedoes. Over ten million Promelian troops dressed in Promelian battle armor boarded those warships. That day was inevitable.
The Promelians knew it.
The Cereleans should have.
CHAPTER 2
THE ATTACK CAME without warning. Thousands of Promelian warships filled the orange skies of Cerelea, as horrified Cerelean citizens watched and then scrambled for their lives. The armada was so massive, the ships casted an ominous shadow over the Cerelean cities from orbit as it eclipsed one of the planets two suns. Taken by surprise and not much weaponry with which to fight, the Cereleans were no match for the invading force.
Missile strikes from the warships were the vanguard of the attack. Thousands of missiles hit the streets and buildings of the Cerelean cities as Cereleans ran for cover. Most of them did not make it to safety, as the force of the explosions incinerated them. Their screams for help went unanswered. Their begs for mercy were ignored.
The warships leveled ancient buildings that had stood for thousands of years. Temples of worship, symbols of their race’s history, everything the Cereleans stood for, everything that they were, was all destroyed in a matter of minutes.
After what seemed like an eternity, the missile strikes stopped and hundreds of thousands of Promelian infantry troops were teleported to the cities across the planet to begin the ground campaign.
The Promelians were ruthless; killing every man, woman and child they encountered. Mothers escaped and hid with their children in the basements of their homes, while fathers took up arms and engaged Promelian troops. A futile effort, as Promelian soldiers easily dispatched with the “rebels”.
The soldiers went from door to door, searching for Cereleans to kill. Many times, they found the Cerelean homes empty. Other times, they found those mother’s clinging to their children, begging the Promelian soldiers for mercy.
No mercy was given, as they fired their rifles at both mother and child, instantly disintegrating them both.
There was no stopping the onslaught. In a matter of hours, millions of Cereleans were killed; their cities were reduced to rubble. Those who remained sought to escape the savagery of the Promelians.
Cerelea is lost.
Escape was the only option.
Only a few thousand Cereleans remained to make it to the ships. The men hurried the women and children aboard to safety, unsure of their destination. Not even having a destination. Escape was all that mattered.
The ships were filled to capacity as those unlucky Cereleans who did not make it to the ships in time, looked on as the ships ascended to the skies. They begged the ships to come back and get them.
Too late.
The departure of the Cerelean ships did not go unnoticed by the Promelians though, as they attacked the ascending ships. Several Cerelean ships were destroyed, but the remaining ships broke through the planet’s atmosphere and accelerated to transwarp drive.
They escaped, but to where?
The Cerelean ships roamed the galaxy for months trying to find a place to hide from the Promelians. They knew the Promelians would not stop until all Cereleans were eliminated. After months of wandering aimlessly in space, the Cereleans found a wormhole on their long-range sensors.
Finally, there was hope.
CHAPTER 3
THE YEAR WAS 213 AD when the Cereleans first arrived on Earth. The lights were witnessed all over the world; worshipped by some, feared by others.
The Bambuti tribe of Africa viewed it as a sign from Arebati, god of the sky, while the Chinese considered it a sign from Chu Jung, god of death, and they looked upon it in despair.
These were primitive times, lacking the scientific technology to investigate the streaking lights in order to reach a scientific conclusion.
It was perfect timing for the Cereleans. They could easily blend in with our species.
The ships came by the hundreds. Thousands of Cereleans hoped for sanctuary and a chance to return to their home world. The worm hole they came through would not occur again for another 1,800 years. Earth was home to the Cereleans now.
The ships submerged in Earth’s oceans and seas at depths that could not be reached by humans. There was no substance like water on their planet, but their scientists assured them that it was not harmful to them.
Each Cereleans appearance was cloaked to give them the appearance of being human.
Coming to rest on the floors of earth’s oceans and seas, the commanders of each ship gave final instructions to their crews and passengers before they disembarked to populate the Earth. The most important instruction of all: avoid exposure of their true nature at all costs. Even if it meant their death.
And so the Cereleans began to live their lives as humans. A generous race, they made subtle contributions toward agriculture and engineering. They longed to provide much needed advances in technology and medicine to help ease suffering and improve the quality of life of their human hosts, but they could not expose themselves. Instead, they were forced to watch as diseases and plagues ravaged mankind, killing millions. They were forced to watch as mankind waged war on each other over the years as easily and callously as the Promelians had on their home world.
With the exception of appearance and a longer life span, the Cereleans are not much different than humans— they eat, they sleep, they procreate, and they die. As the years went by, their population across the Earth grew to over one million. Unfortunately, with the passage of time, the Cereleans grew apart from each other.
The generations that came after the first settlers rejected the old ways of their people and chose to embrace the ways of mankind instead. They began to grow comfortable in their new home, believing that they would never return to restore their home world.
But they took comfort in knowing that in spite of the best efforts of the Promelians, their race would live on. The Cerelean people would live on, knowing that they have escaped the genocide of their people. They escaped the Promelians.
Or so they thought.
CHAPTER 4
August 15, 1962…2 a.m.
THE USS FRANKLIN D. Roosevelt was on a routine mission off the coast of Tunisia. Seaman First Class David Peterson had just concluded his watch duty and decided to take his usual evening stroll on the deck to relax. His nightly stroll was his time to himself; his time to think of home, his marriage, and a baby on the way.