Beyond the Time Barrier (1960)

Although a low-budget film, it is quite entertaining and engaging which is a tribute to the director and the able performances of the cast.

Cast

Report on March 5th 1960 ncident involving lead test pilot, US Air Force Major Bill Allison.

Sands Airbase Intelligence Division

Location: Sands Air Force Base

Context: X-80 high altitude flight preparation for space program.

Contents:

When I returned to the airbase after successfully landing the X-80, I was soon struck by a strange feeling of eeriness and unease. The airbase appeared to abandoned, and suffused with an air of silence, disuse and desertion. The worn and discarded airbase sign underscored my rising feeling of apprehension. Familiar features seemed to ring with distant echoes of bygone times.

There appeared to be a couple of armed guards looking at me as well as a very beautiful young lady with a very, very short skirt from which emerged a pair of gorgeous legs. I had the impression that she was somehow in charge or had some authority and could even direct the guards without even so much as uttering a word. In fact, none of those present would speak with me which only served to heighten my sense of anger and frustration for which I found an outlet by lashing out at my captors.

After the young lady silently directed the others to back off I began to calm down and apologised to her for my behaviour. With the young lady taking the lead, we all headed off to where I hoped someone might provide me with some answers as to what was going on. I must say I could have enjoyed watching that young lady tip-tapping along walkways and corridors all day long!

I was eventually brought before the leader of the city and he went by the title of the Supreme. The city itself was called the Citadel. The elderly leader explained to me that he and his second-in-command, the Captain, are the only two inhabitants of the Citadel who are able to speak or hear. The rest of the inhabitants were deaf-mutes, including the Supreme's granddaughter Trirene who had brought me before him. The Supreme was quite surprised to learn that I had come from “a nation of speaking peoples.”

I could sense that there was a strong undercurrent of suspicion, paranoia and hostility even to the extent of me being accused of being a spy. So much for me obtaining answers to my questions. It was they who wanted me to tell them all that I supposedly knew. As per my training, all I was prepared to tell the Captain was my name, rank and serial number.

As far as the Captain was concerned, I was lying and he accused me of having come to the Citadel to spy on their solar energy installation and that I was searching for some one called Karl Kruse and a Dr. Bourman. I was also accused of being what they termed “one of the scapes” and something or other about “mutants.”

It seemed that Trirene did not approve of the Captain’s intended course of action with me in that she had somehow found some truth contained in my thoughts. It transpired that as a telepath, Trirene could read my thoughts revealing that I was not a spy. It also turned out that Trirene may have had “more than the usual interest” in me, but I had a lot of other things on my mind as I was being forcibly led away to confront what the Captain had in store for me.

“Has the whole world gone mad?”

I was marched off to a kind of underground prison which contained a group of bald, crazed and violent mutants who appeared determined to attack and kill me. As the mutants lunged towards me I managed to, overpower one and by so doing I was able to obtain some answers to my steadily growing pile of questions.

I learned from these miserable creatures that the inhabitants of the Citadel had been infected by some kind of plague and were not able to escape it, unlike apparently Karl Kruse and others like him whom they term “scapes.” They believed that I was in that category too. The mutants believed that the scapes had left them to die when they ran away from the plague and that as a result the scapes would all be found and killed.

The Captain soon reappeared and released me from this prison of insanity and I was once again brought before the Supreme. The old fellow informed me that his granddaughter had chosen to protect me and had expressed faith in what I had told them. That was when I learned that Trirene had a gift the rest of the Citadel’s inhabitants did not possess: an “extra sensory power” with which she was able to perceive every thought within other poeple’s minds. Suddenly and unexpectedly, I was then given freedom of the Citadel! This seemed to have been granted on the basis that it would have made Trirene happy.

So, some questions were answered while raising still more questions. Later, Trirene helped to fill in some of the gaps by showing me some historical photographs that revealed something about the Citadel's and her own family’s history. I learned that her father and mother came to the Citadel before she was born and Trirene had never lived in the air and sunlight. Somehow the mutants and plague had caused the population to abandon the old city “and move to the subterranean world.” The mutants had been responsible for deaths of her father and mother. I then convinced Trirene to take me Karl Kruse so he could help me better understand what was going on.

“Major, this is 2024”

While making my way to Karl Kruse with Trirene, I was able to take in more of the Citadel’s architecture and construction. If you ever saw that great science fiction movie of just a few years ago, Forbidden Planet, you’d come close to what it was like in terms of scale and design.

An elevator quickly conveyed us to a kind of workshop in which I found Karl Kruse (who used to be general Karl Kruse), together with a Professor Bourman and ex-captain Markova. They too were  accidental time travelers: Markova, a Russian Captain came from 1973, while General Kruse and Professor Bourman arrived from colonies on other planets in 1994. They seemed to be astonished that I was a United States Air-force pilot from the year 1960. This meant that I had come from a time prior to the plague.

While I was on the verge of really finding some answers to the questions I had, Markova suddenly got quite nasty and catty towards Trirene by insinuating that she had “found herself a big, good-looking playmate, and a fiery one too” and that she had ulterior motives and designs on me. Of course, it turned out that Markova’s seemingly rude conduct was a ruse to get Trirene out of the way on account of her ability to read their thoughts and find out things they didn’t want her to know. Good grief! Reading people’s thoughts and constant spying with surveillance gadgets! What kind of world had I wound up in?

In the short time we had to speak freely, Kruse and others informed me that they had escaped the cosmic plague and as “scapes” they were hated by the inhabitants of the Citadel for having left them behind. Kruse and his party had managed to convince them that their skills were needed to keep the solar power system operating otherwise they too would have been imprisoned with the mutants.

Neither the mutants nor the Citadel dwellers managed to escape the plague. The latter were all first-stage mutants - deaf, mute and….sterile. The last would prove to be a death sentence for the human race as there hadn’t been a new birth in the citadel for the past 20 years. Trirene however, may not have been sterile and that’s apparently where I “fit into the plan.” I had been chosen as her mate and was the last hope for their society.

With that shocking revelation flooding my mind, I was brought abruptly back to the ‘present’ by being informed that it was the year 2024: 64 years into my future! This plague we were talking about hadn't happened in my world of 1960. It began in 1971, but not by means of “the feared nuclear war” which never occurred. Get this folks, by the end of this decade (the 1960s) man will have set foot on the moon and all nations will start to “work together to push on into space.” By 1970, colonies will be established on both Mars and Venus! Can you believe that? Heck, it’s what we’ve been aiming for with our little jaunt to the edge of space just now!

So, what did cause the plague I hear you ask? “A bombardment of cosmic radiation from outer space.” It turns out that our fears about nuclear fallout due to nuclear bomb testing were somewhat well-founded. “The tons of radioactive dust that have mushroomed up into the ionosphere since the very first A-bomb test. That dust has remained up there and it's slowly destroying the protective screen that has filtered deadly cosmic rays from space since time began…..All the nuclear explosions that have ever taken place on earth have contributed to this” with the result that in the future every human being left will become “mutant or sterile or a combination of both.”

Bring harm to Trirene? I was falling deeper and deeper in love with her. After spending some time with her following my conversation with the Captain, I spotted Markova and believed she had been spying on Trirene and me. She told me that Kruse had to see me and that he had a plan to get me back to my own time. It had to be me to do this as unlike the other three I was from a time before the plague occurred and would therefore be able to prevent it from happening.

I agreed with this plan and met with Kruse andDr. Borman who elaborated on it. Now when you hear my butchered version of the science behind the plan you’ll have to pass it along to the egg heads who’ll probably have a field day with it as the principles involved seem to fly in the face of everything we think we know about physics, space, time and what have you. Then you’ll really start questioning the truth of my testimony. I think Einstein will be rolling around laughing in his grave!

Anyway, the phenomenon that brought me to the year 2024 is called a “relativity paradox” or “another dimension...A fifth dimension.” By 1970 it will become the “standard system used to travel to the planets at the speed of light.” Supposedly “at speeds approaching that of light, it is possible to break the time lock - the barrier that holds all things in a normal time relationship to each other.” That is what is supposed to have happened to me when I slipped out of one time sphere and into another. It also happened to the other three.

Now, taking into account Earth’s speed of rotation, orbit around the sun along with speed of movement of the solar system together with other systems of our galaxy, it all added up to the X-80 moving at a velocity approaching the speed of light before ever having left the ground. At some point during its high-speed flight the X-80 approached escape velocity, 25,000 miles per hour. With an alteration of flight angle at a specific altitude combined with the right velocity, the ship broke the time barrier. For just a fraction of a second I was suspended in space “no longer interlocked with the time spheres of the sun and the earth.” In that minuscule amount of time, our galaxy moved onward in time 65 years. And an instant later, I had re-joined our solar system.

If you’re still following me, this is where Kruse’s plan comes in. If I could repeat the altitude, angle of flight, and speed in directly the opposite direction, I would be able to go back into time 65 years. Now that you’re hearing my testimony, clearly the theory behind the plan proved to be valid – it worked!

Whild Dr. Bourman worked on the Time lock formula, all that needed to be done was to locate an escape route from the citadel so I could find my ship. For that we needed to obtain an early map of the citadel showing the tunnel work together with the airbase. With the required maps being on file in the Supreme's chamber there was only one way to get them – with Trirene’s help.

At first I couldn’t stand the thought of turning Trirene against her own people. However, she did agree to help and despite her feelings for me and her people Trirene understood that by me returning to my own time, there wouldn’t have to be any Citadel and that she and her people could live on the surface of the earth without fear of any cosmic plague.

Having made a tracing from the original map Trirene had obtained from the archives the plan was set in motion and if nothing went wrong, I would be on my way within a few hours.

A problem did soon arise however, as the Captain seemed to have gotten wind of the escape plan being put into effect and I found my self frog-marched straight before the Supreme.

I almost felt sorry for the old boy who appeared to be in anguish. On the one hand he truly seemed to wish that he could believe the reasoning behind my drive to return to my own time. On the other hand, there was his concern for his Citadel and his belief that I was being used by Kruse, Borman and Markova for their own purpose. In the end, the Supreme just could not bring himself to believe that such notions that lay behind my plan to escape could possibly be real. Is that how you who are listening to this tape view my whole testimony? That it is all the product of some kind of illusion or delusion in my mind?

Even with the prospect and reality of being with someone I love and who loves me and remaining in and inheriting the Citadel, I had decided that it was my freedom that I valued more.

“Hear me, fellow prisoners!

Hear me, fellow prisoners.

You're free.

The citadel is yours.

Hear me, mutants.

Come out of your pit of death.

Our time of vengeance has come.

Follow me, soldiers of revenge.

I'll lead you to the captain,

To food, to freedom!”

I stated directly to the Supreme’s face that I was prepared to attempt this escape, even though they would try and stop me. The Supreme responded by informing me that I would never leave the Citadel alive. After that the Captain took over responsibility for me and my destination was now the pit where the mutants were imprisoned.

In the meantime, Markova had started up a rebellion amongst the mutants which curtailed the Captain’s plans for my own imminent imprisonment. Pandemonium broke out within the Citadel as the enraged mutants bent on revenge ran amok amongst the inhabitants and proceeded to “tear them to pieces.”

Markova had craftily worked out a plan to use me during the ensuing chaos within the Citadel to get back to the time barrier and return to her own time of 1973. Her plan had no room for Trirene who had not been born in 1960 and could not apparently be taken back through the time barrier. There was no way however, that I could leave Trirene behind and I would at least try and take her with me.

Such was Markova’s desperation that she was willing to double cross Kruse and Bourman. Unknown to us, the two gentlemen in question were listening and had overheard Markova with the result that Borman shot her dead. Suddenly Borman turned his gun on Kruse and killed him on the pretext that Kruse would have killed them all and had intended to take the X-80 himself. But there’s no honour among thieves as it was obvious that Borman was lying and that it was he who wanted to make the flight. The Supreme had been right about them all along.

I just could not allow Borman to commit mass murder by letting the people in the Citadel die by preventing me from returning to my time and hopefully preventing the cosmic plague. Even if I could not ultimately make you who are listening to this account believe me I had to try and make that flight.

I grappled with Borman and as we desperately fought each other, the gun went off and the stray bullet struck Trirene just before I managed to overpower him. One part of my mind convinced me that Trirene and I were now free and that we could return to my world. The other part of mind together with my heart somehow knew that this was a forlorn hope. All I could do was carry the lifeless body of my love to her grandfather.

“Now the shadow of death darrkens the holes of our citadel. Our bright ray of hope is gone. It is the end of us.”

I took Trirene's body to the Supreme and not surprisingly the poor man seemed crushed by the grief he felt over both his granddaughter's death and the fate of his people, now that the last remaining fertile person had died. After laying Trirene’s lifeless body down, I resolutely told the Supeme that it was not the end and that “as long as we believe, there is always hope.” I assured him that I would return to my own time and prevent the plague from happening.

“What could have caused this?”

“I don't know. I have no explanation”

“Trirene was dead. The Supreme gave me her ring. He showed me the way out of the Citadel. I got to my plane…..That's all I remember.”

**********

With the conclusion of Major Allison’s taped testimony, the void of silence seemed to reverberate with the sonar echo pings of incredulity, disbelief and hostile denial. After a pause, the President drew the attention of the others present to the copy of the report they all had. He had been leafing through it while listening to the tape. One section read: “ ….30 minutes later, Allison brought the ship in for an emergency landing.” Another section concerning Allison’s character assessment and profile indicated that “Bill Allison is our leading research pilot here at the test center” and that he has always been considered as being “fully competent and rational” as well as “mentally sound right now as any normal, well-balanced person can be.”

The Director of the CIA then indicated to the others an attached report from intelligence indicating that a Karl Kruse is enrolled in a West German university and that he's a leading student in astronautics. There also exists a Bourman who is a student of physics and mathematics in Amsterdam and that he's written papers on new propulsion systems.

The Presidential scientific advisor focused the group’s attention on the contents of the metallurgical report on what Allison claimed to have been Trirene’s ring which the Supreme had apparently given to the major prior to his departure and which Secretary Patterson first saw when he met Allison after his return to the airbase. The report indicates that the ring consists of an unknown alloy apparently produced by an as yet unfamiliar manufacturing process.

The science advisor followed this report up with his own disclaimer involving the the known laws of physics that according to him preclude the possibility of time travel and travelling at the speed of light. He had no explanation for Allison’s reported advanced ageing which Secretary Patterson personally witnessed. He suggested that it was most likely the result  of some as yet unknown effect of cosmic radiation on the human body. His conclusion was that Allison’s alleged experiences in the future was a part of some a kind of hallucination or delusion brought on by the effects of cosmic radiation and shock. The science advisor finished off with a derisive comment about Allison’s fantasizing over a society with beautiful young ladies with gorgeous legs wearing short skirts and falling in love with one of them. He felt that Freud would have had a field day with Allison as a patient.