Telepathy on the Moon

in the Ekcolir Reality

In my previous blog post I discussed six stories by Russell Winterbotham that were published between 1952 and 1956. I was searching for evidence that he might have become a more sophisticated science fiction story teller in the later part of his career (1952 - 1958). 

In the earlier phase of his science fiction story publishing (1935 - 1943), Winterbotham published creative short stories. During the 1950s, there were more options for the publication of longer format stories and Winterbotham moved in that direction. 

In this blog post, I explore one more of Winterbotham's stories from the early 1940s and contrast it with three of his stories that were published in the late 1950s.

in the Ekcolir Reality

Winterbotham was a creature of his times and his female characters were not given much freedom to explore their human potential. It is tempting to imagine alternate versions of Winterbotham's stories that might have been made more interesting with the inclusion of more prominent and dynamic female characters. Maybe Winterbotham had a female analogue in the Ekcolir Reality and she was able to create female characters who were on equal footing with the male characters.

 Telepathy in 1957. "Extra Space Perception" was published by Winterbotham in the May 1957 issue of Science Fiction Stories. In "Extra Space Perception", Winterbotham took a serious look at the mystery of human telepathy. Winterbotham adopted an evolutionary approach, imagining that after living on the Moon for many generations, human colonists from Earth might evolve new abilities. 

interior art for "Extra Space Perception"

In particular, Winterbotham depicted human residents of the Moon as gaining the ability to survive for several minutes on the surface of the Moon without a spacesuit and also developing telepathic abilities.

 Big 300. The story is set 300 years into the Space Age. The three main characters in "Extra Space Perception" are Ace Crosbi, Diane Walace (that's the two of them, driving across the surface of the Moon, in the image to the right) and Judd Beecher. Ace owns a casino on the Moon and Diane runs Crap Table No. 3.

 Sciensy™. Winterbotham's theory of telepathy is built around "Teq"; Thought energy quanta. According to Winterbotham, Teq is a type of radiation produced by the Sun. Teq is absorbed by living creatures, but when they can hold no more, they release "old Teq" from their bodies which can carry thought impressions into the minds of nearby people (see Figure 1, below). Teq is in short supply on Earth, but more readily available on the Moon.

Figure 1. thought energy quanta

 Hypnosis, too. Humans on the Moon also have a chance to develop special hypnotic powers because the Moon has deposits of "Staghorn Crystals". Judd Beecher tries to hypnotize Ace by making use of a Staghorn Crystal, but he fails. Then poor Diane finds the Staghorn Crystal and soon she is like a zombie, exiting from the casino... completely under the control of Beecher.

magic moonbeams strike the Moon Pool

Winterbotham's story "Extra Space Perception" reminds me of "The Moon Pool", an old story first published in 1918. Winterbotham was born in 1904 and may have read "The Moon Pool" when he was in his early teens. For "The Moon Pool", Abraham Merritt imagined the existence of a special element on the Moon. When sunlight was reflected off of that element and off of the surface of the Moon, the resulting moonlight had magical powers.

Mathematics in 1958. In the October 1958 issue of Future Science Fiction was "The Variable Constant" by R. R. Winterbotham. At the ISFDB, "The Variable Constant" is listed as the last science fiction story ever published by Winterbotham in a magazine. I generally despise alien invasion stories, but as the title suggests, "The Variable Constant" concerns mathematics and the Evil™ invading aliens never kill anyone or destroy a single city of Earth.

Figure 2. Text excerpt from
"The Variable Constant".

 Big 600. The invading aliens (they are called the Beorhi) are able to use mathematics and computerized calculations to predict human behavior and control the people of Earth. The story begins 600 years after the arrival of the aliens on Earth when only a few humans have avoided the Beorhi effort to selectively breed humans for docility (see Figure 2). 

Readers are quickly informed by Winterbotham that Gerd Thane is the one human who the Beorhi fear. Gerd is special because he is the protagonist can think for himself and his behavior is not completely predictable. Now, see if you can guess who will liberate Earth from the Evil™ clutches of the Beorhi. You may not even need mathematics and a computer to successfully make your prediction.

Figure 3.

 Figure 3 shows the page one interior art that was published along with "The Variable Constant". That image has nothing to do with the story. 😡

Sadly, a major component of the story concerns the ability of the aliens to use hypnosis or conditioning to control the behavior of Earthlings. In particular, Gerd's lover, Miss Charis Ryna, has been conditioned since birth to play her part in the future for Earth that the Beorhi have carefully calculated and worked hard to achieve.

You might ask: if the mathematical calculations of the Beorhi show that Gerd Thane is a potential threat to their control of Earth, then why don't the Beorhi simply kill Gerd? 

Figure 4.

The answer is shown in Figure 4. There is only a small cadre of Beorhi overlords on Earth and they need a few special human helpers who can keep essential parts of Earth's infrastructure running. Gerd Thane is a trained expert in electronics and he keeps the factories running.

In the January 1939 issue of Amazing Stories was a short autobiographical blurb from Winterbotham in which he mentioned that when in school he had an interest in medicine and science. 

in the Ekcolir Reality

For another autobiographical essay in the January 1940 issue of Fantastic Adventures, Winterbotham stated that his introduction to science fiction magazines came by way of an issue of Amazing Stories that he discovered on a news-stand. However, he also recalled a Nick Carter story that involved going into a volcano, and it was that story that first got him interested in science fiction. It was not until 1934 that he had enough free time to begin seriously reading "everything in sight" and soon he began selling his fiction for publication in pulp magazines. He wrote stories in the science fiction genre and others (such as westerns and detective stories) as well. Winterbotham claimed that he got his story ideas from his "day job", which was writing non-fiction.

Poor Man's Time Travel. A full-blown Sci Fi time travel story has a time machine, but there is a way to reach the far future without a time machine. Just "sleep" your way to the future.

image source

 The Early Winterbotham. In that January 1940 issue of Fantastic Adventures that included an autobiographical essay by Winterbotham was his short story "Captives of the Void" which concerns two spacemen who "travel to the future" by means of suspended animation. In 1939, "The Black Flame" was published by Stanley G. Weinbaum in Startling Stories. Weinbaum's story featured a dead man who crawls out of his grave after 1000 years. Soon he is fit as a fiddle and having a grand adventure in the future. 

Alan Brown wrote: "The Black Flame" at its heart it is a love story." Similarly, Winterbotham usually managed to configure his science fiction stories so as to include a romantic love-interest for the male protagonist. I have no idea if Winterbotham was influenced by having read "The Black Flame", but it would not surprise me if he had been. And if other Sci Fi story tellers imagined a trip of 1000 years into the future (see also: "The Cosmic Engineers"), then why not go even further into the future?

Figure 5. interior art for "Captives of the Void"

 The Big Sleep. In "Captives of the Void", two spacemen (John Deno and Aaron Cleef) are held in a state of suspended animation for billions of years. Sadly, Winterbotham did not provide any details about the technology that was used to keep Deno and Cleef alive for billions of years. Winterbotham mentioned radium, which was enough of a sciensy hand-wave for his purposes. When they finally wake up it takes Deno and Cleef a few days to clear their heads, get the kinks out of their muscles and recover their memories. Having "slept" for so long, their clothing disintegrated, but the artist for the story magically provided them with pants (Figure 5).

Figure 6. In the Ekcolir Reality.

I'll leave the ending of "Captives of the Void" as a puzzle for the reader. Here is a hint, a line from near the end of the story: "The universe was beginning all over again." Winterbotham has sent Deno and Cleef off to a far future when no stars remain shining; there is nothing visible surrounding their spaceship, just an endless black void. Cleef is resentful and cracks under the strain, but Deno stays hopeful, searching for some indication that there is a future for them in this dark future. Winterbotham liked to wrap-up his stories with a happy ending and the protagonist winning the heart of a cute girl. How did Winterbotham provide John Deno, captive of the void, with a "they lived happily ever after" ending?

The ending provided by Winterbotham for "Captives of the Void" reminds me of Isaac Asimov's 1956 story "The Last Question". 

in the Ekcolir Reality

It is easy to view Asimov's story as science fiction because he centers the tale on the universe's ultimate super-computer. In contrast, Winterbotham's story feels more like magical fantasy with no attempt to rationally explain how John Deno gets out of the pickle he is in.... and he even gets the girl.

 Gerd and Charis. Now we can return to "The Variable Constant" and Winterbotham's problem of finding a way for the protagonist Gerd and the cute Charis to live happily ever after. First of all, don't worry about the Beorhi overlords. They are killed by a mysterious plague, and when reinforcements arrive from the alien home world, the newly arriving Beorhi spacecraft are blasted by a squadron of nuclear-bomb-equipped missiles that is conveniently on hand. However, a slave to her Beorhi conditioning, Charis has tried to kill Gerd (see Figure 7). 

Figure 7. The Last Question

 The thrilling conclusion.  When Charis dolefully asks Gerd,  "Would you marry a woman who tried to kill you?" you might imagine that this is the time for Gerd to reassure his lover and say he knows that she was forced into her attempted murder by her Beorhi conditioning and that misdeed can't diminish his never-ending love for her. However, we get the unusual passage shown in Figure 8.

Figure 8.

Sadly, the ending of "The Variable Constant" has the look and feel of either 1) Winterbotham became bored with his story and quickly wrapped it up, or 2) the magazine editor had just a limited amount of space in that issue and condensed the last 20 pages of Winterbotham's original story into a single page. Having defeated the Beorhi, Gerd quickly outlines the future that he will provide for Earth with a government founded on the principle that "all authority derives from the Creator" and that it is now time to convene constitutional conventions. Charis showers Gerd with fiery kisses and tells him, "I know you'll be elected president".

cover art by Ed Valigursky

I have to wonder if by 1958 Winterbotham's interests might have been shifting towards the writing of longer stories. His story "The Space Egg" in the March 1958 issue of Amazing Science Fiction was described as a "complete novel". The story begins in Kansas where a new super-sonic aircraft is being tested: the WD-40 XDW-49. 

Figure 9. Uncredited art for "The Space Egg".

There in Figure 9 is the interior artwork for "The Space Egg" showing the XDW-49.

  This is a Test

Janet in the Ekcolir Reality

The nimble and quick test pilot is Jack. He flies the XDW-49 above 200,000 feet and mysteriously runs into something that drills two neat holes in the plane's canopy (Figure 10). 

The story's first person narrator is Bob, who is tasked with managing the cameras that capture images from the XDW-49 while it is in flight. Since this is 1958ish, the film has to be taken off of the plane and sent by train to Kansas City to be developed. 

Winterbotham quickly introduces readers to Janet (a secretary, working for the test-flight team) who seems to be the number one interest of Bob. While Jack is landing the XDW-49, injured and bleeding, Bob is asking Janet out on a date. Bob starts providing hourly reports on the cute outfits that Janet is wearing.

Jack snaps.

 UFO. The plot thickens when a mysterious egg-shaped object is found inside the cockpit. The "egg" is about the size of the two holes in the canopy. Once on the ground, Jack behaves strangely and then one of the flight team's members is killed. A second egg-shaped object is found near the crew quarters. Houston, we have a mystery.

At this point, about 30 pages into "The Space Egg", I could not stop myself from thinking about Hal Clement's 1949 story "Needle" which was about aliens who arrive on Earth and take up residence inside the bodies of humans. 

Now Jack no longer blinks his eyes. What has gotten into Jack? He gets a gunshot wound, which then almost instantly heals. With a UFO mystery like this, we need the help of a physicist, Dr. Maynard, the brains behind the XDW-49 space-plane.

The Dr. Maynard theory of energy beings.

 Red-shirt Casting Call. Janet's friend Ruby (another secretary) has become the second pod person, apparently host for whatever was inside space egg #2. Jack and Ruby have guns 🔫 and the body count quickly starts to rise.

Ruby and Jack in the sun.

When Jack and Ruby are seen sunbathing on the roof, Dr. Maynard assumes that they are soaking up sunlight energy and getting ready to reproduce and turn more people into alien pod-people.

 The Dreaded Energy Beings. With two gunshot deaths and two people (Ruby and Jack) under the control of the alien energy creatures, Bob is undeterred from his mission and he invites Janet to lunch.

Figure 10. alien egg attack

Finally, the film from the XDW-49 space-plane flight returns from Kansas City (see Figure 11, below) and we get to see the alien "eggs" form when two mysterious energy creatures from outer space pass through the plexiglass canopy of the space-plane. One energy being quickly moves inside Jack's body as soon as it is within the cockpit of the XDW-49 (see Figure 10).

Winterbotham provided readers with a whole lot of hand-waving about how "life is energy" so we should not be surprised by the existence of alien energy beings. 

image source

 Regeneration. The "explanation" for why Jack and Ruby can now instantly repair any gunshot wounds they receive is that animals have always been able to regenerate tissues and the energy beings simply know how to activate that regeneration process.

 X-rays to the Rescue. So, how can the alien energy creatures be defeated? Dr. Maynard quickly decides to fight energy with energy and he builds an x-ray generator. Apparently, Winterbotham wrote for some comicbooks such as Chris Welkin-Planeteer and in fine comicbook fashion, laboratory glassware (on-hand at an airport) is quickly fashioned into an x-ray generating tube.

in the Ekcolir Reality

 Bison Drama. Sadly, Winterbotham's "The Space Egg" feels like a comic strip struggling to become a science fiction novel. And with so many pages available to him, Winterbotham even included a riveting account of how in 1958 you could pay $450.00 to have the privilege of shooting a bison and having the meat flash frozen and shipped to your house. 

That passage about bison was how Winterbotham raised the issue of how the alien energy beings might take-over the world and exterminate Humanity. 

Planeteers of the Ekcolir Reality. (image sources)

interior art for "The Space Egg"

 Printer's Devil. Dr. Maynard pulls a story collection by Ambrose Bierce off of the shelf and asks Bob to read part of "Moxon's Master": "There is no such thing as dead, inert matter: it is all alive; all instinct with force, actual and potential; all sensitive to the same forces in its environment and susceptible to the contagion of higher and subtler ones residing in such superior organisms as it may be brought into relation with, as those of man when he is fashioning it into an instrument of his will." Maynard raises the question: which is the higher form of life, humans or the alien energy beings? Which will most successfully fashion the other into its instrument?

Who's Counting? Jack and Ruby defend their sunny position up on the roof. They each have a hand-gun and are ready to shoot anyone that gets in their way. In two "dramatic" scenes, they each try to shoot Bob, but each has used up all their bullets and so Bob survives. 

 Figure 11. Movie night; alien creature feature.

 No Bullets. You might think this would be the time to capture the two alien pod people, but no. Jack and Ruby also have super-human strength! 

Tit for Tat. Charged-up with sunlight, Ruby "reproduces" and infects another human with the mysterious alien "energy", creating a third pod-person. However, this new pod person is almost immediately blasted to bits by Maynard's x-ray generator. Is it a stand-off?

"Scratch One Alien"

 What Now? Clearly this is the time for another long sciency digression by Dr. Maynard. Unfortunately, the type-setter for Amazing Science Fiction does not help. Dr. Maynard theorizes about "mirror energy" and "mirror matter", but "positron" gets rendered as "position". Oh, well... this whole hand-wavium digression is Winterbotham's attempt to account for the mysterious "space eggs" as being a type of composite matter; a mixture of the plexiglass of the space-plane's canopy and "mirror energy"... whatever that is. 

Dark Energy. Bob thinks that some misty "mirror energy" was captured on film of the XDW-49 flying through the ionosphere, and it looked dark. Did Winterbotham anticipate the concept of dark energy?

The China Egg in the Ekcolir Reality

 And ESP, Too. When Dr. Maynard ends his lecture on composite matter, he is still unable to explain how the mirror energy that got trapped inside a "space egg" was able to recognize Jack as a suitable host. Dr. Maynard suggests that: "extrasensory perception will explain a lot of things like this".

Some of the typographical errors in "The Space Egg" are rather comical. Winterbotham depicted the local sheriff as chewing gum. When Jack and Ruby come down off of the roof for the big dramatic final shoot-out (even a light-weight Colt Cobra had been found for Janet) the text of the story says that the sheriff "spit out his gun". 

You'll have to read "The Space Egg" to find out how the energy beings from the ionosphere are defeated. The ending reminds me of the Star Trek episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before".

cover art by John Schoenherr

Don't worry that after Jack's flight of the XDW-49 more of these annoying energy beings will attack everyone who else who enters the ionosphere. Dr. Maynard suggests that the two mirror energy life-forms that entered Jack and Ruby were created by some kind of random, freak interaction between the XDW-49 space-plane and the ionosphere. Dr. Maynard suggests that new life is only created about once every billion years. He suggests that life as we know it on Earth began with a lightening bolt. Once it started, that "life force" gathered molecules and cells around it, resulting in life as we know it on Earth.

 Electrical Virus. I've never read the free-standing novel form of The Space Egg. The cover of the Monarch Books edition describes the space eggs as bringing an "electrical virus" to Earth. The cover shows a "space egg" outside of the XDW-49, which was not part of the story as I read it in Amazing Science Fiction. 

image source

Mention of a virus raises the question: might The Andromeda Strain have been inspired by "The Space Egg"?

Sinister Symbionts. In the November 1958 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction Anthony Boucher provided a one-sentence synopsis of The Space Egg in which he labeled the story as being "lightweight". I suspect that we can interpret that "lightweight" descriptor as indicating that the imaginary science in The Space Egg is likely to remind readers of the slap-dash science deployed in comics where action or romance is of most concern to some author who has no scientific training. However, I give Winterbotham credit for trying to think outside the box and imagine a form of life that truly unlike life as we know it on Earth.

in the Ekcolir Reality

 In the September 1959 issue of Science Fiction Stories was a longer commentary on  The Space Egg by Robert Silverberg. It is not clear that Silverberg did more than quickly skim the story since he miss-states the origin of the titular space eggs. Also, Silverberg dismisses the whole "mirror matter" hypothesis that is devised by Dr. Maynard in the story. I'd like to ask Silverberg: if Maynard's idea is wrong, do you have a better theory that could account for the strange events taking place in the story? While reading "The Space Egg", I had fun imagining that some unknown form of sedronic matter might be able to enter into a person and alter their behavior, but then I'm confortable imagining that humans evolved as biological organisms containing a zeptite endosymbiont.

in the Ekcolir Reality

In the March 1959 issue of Astounding Science Fiction was commentary on The Space Egg provided by P. Schuyler Miller. Miller felt that the plot of The Space Egg was ready-made for Hollywood. "No roman candle, but no wet fuse, either." With so much effort being made by folks in Hollywood to parade an endless stream of comicbook-inspired stories across the big screen, I can understand Miller's comment. Lightweight comic-style adventure seems to be in the Hollywood sweet-spot.

I like to imagine that in an alternate Reality, women dominated the golden age of science fiction and wrote stories that gave more prominent roles to female characters. Winterbotham's character Ruby Cascade starts out as a sexy bimbo and then turns into a vengeful and jealous puppet of an alien life-force. 

in the Ekcolir Reality

Nobody is saddened when Ruby disappears in a flash of "mirror energy" radiation at the end of "The Space Egg". Maybe in the Ekcolir Reality Ruby could have been a scientist who devised a plausible theory to account for the alien-encounter of Janet, the pilot of the XDW-51 space plane.

Winterbotham suggested that life as we know it here on Earth originated from the same "primordial life-force" that shows up in "The Space Egg" and transforms Jack the test-pilot into a new kind of super-human entity. Sadly, Winterbotham made no attempt to account for Jack's sudden increase in strength. Winterbotham raised the specter of extrasensory perception in "The Space Egg" to account for the ability of the "primordial life-force" to select the two appropriate human bodies that the alien force takes control of. If we invite telepathy into the story, then why not add telekinesis?

bullet-proof man

in the Ekcolir Reality

 The Final Phase. I'm not sure if I'm ready to try reading one of Winterbotham's novels that went straight to book formal between 1962 and 1966. The ISFDB lists six of these including "The Men from Arcturus".

Related Reading: Philip Wylie's 1930 superman who like Jack and Ruby could not be killed by bullets. Also: "The Pompous Asteroid" by Winston Marks.

Next: more old Sci Fi stories published from 1930 to 1943.

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