Thomas Horn - The Wormwood Prophecy: NASA, Donald Trump, and a Cosmic Cover-up of End-Time Proportions

PETE MCCUTCHEON FELT decidedly underdressed. At 3:33 that afternoon, two uniformed men called at his modest home near Marionville, Indiana, and hustled him into a black SUV, then into a helicopter, and finally to a sleek air force jet, which transported its befuddled passenger to a top-secret airport high in the Colorado mountains.

After passing through a series of checkpoints and metal detectors, McCutcheon followed his close-mouthed captors into an elevator and descended seven stories below ground level. A third man met them once they left the elevators stainless steel interior, but this one actually smiled.

Good evening, Major McCutcheon. Welcome to Cheyenne Mountain.

Im retired, Captain, Pete replied with a raised eyebrow. Heart condition. Its been fixed, but Im not the able-bodied man I used to be. I just write, play with my grandkids, and give the odd talk now and then.

Yes sir, were aware of that, the officer told him as they passed along a series of corridors. I want to apologize for stealing you away from your family without notice. One of our team members explained it all to your wife and in-laws shortly after you left. Were meeting in here, sir, he finished as they approached a nondescript metal door flanked by a pair of bulky men in air force blue.

The taller of the two whispered, seemingly to no one, and then nodded his head. Theyre ready for you, Captain Andrews.

This way, the polite Andrews told Pete. Youre about to step through the looking glass, sir. Better buckle up.

Seventeen hours away, on the channel island of Jersey, fifteen-year-old Ben Brandeis stared at his computer screen. He held half a Marmite sandwich in one hand, a plastic tumbler of fizzy orange drink in the other. He really should have been sleeping, but the alarm on his search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) program had awoken him half an hour earlier. Ben shoved a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles up on his nose, blinking to clear his myopic vision. The previous summer, his father had agreed to move the teens room into the attic, allowing Ben privacy and a bit of quiet, so he felt certain his movements hadnt disturbed his hardworking dads own rest. Bill Brandeis worked as a lorry driver for one of the big French shipping companies, and hed be rising soonheading out to fetch the first load of the day.

But why had the SETI alarm sounded? Ben ran a freckled hand through a thick thatch of unkempt auburn hair, his hazel eyes scanning row upon row of charts and numbers that made sense to very few of his friends. With an IQ of over 175, Ben had no trouble with coursework, but even his A-level instructors found the teens intensity difficult to comprehend.

Deciding the numbers couldnt be right, Ben switched the monitors input to a second, more powerful computer and opened an astronomy program hed written the previous spring as part of an application to Oxford. Two weeks later hed received a personal visit from Dr. Alan Holmes, the astrophysics chair of Merton College, part of Oxford, and the director of the sky-mapping program C-BASS. Holmes had offered the lad a place in his personal lab as well as free tuition and board. The word genius peppered the lean professors conversation, and Bill Brandeis beamed with pride as hed shaken the visitors smooth hand, explaining how his late wifeBens motherwould have been pleased as punch to know how well their only child had turned out.

Ben had loved his mother dearly and as a tributefollowing her death to cancerhad named his own near-Earth-object tracking program after her, NEO-Stella. Thinking of her, Benjamin smiled softly and clicked a wireless mouse to open the complicated program. A series of colorful icons appeared on the flat-screen monitor, giving links to six telescope arrays for viewing. Before meeting with Holmes, Ben had hacked into these installations surreptitiously, but now he could use a personal security code, which offered the boy genius access to any of the stations within the C-BASS alliance. The intricate code in the Stella program tapped into the massive array at Owens Valley Radio Observatory in California, but finding nothing unusual, Ben switched to the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory in South Africa, now focused on a newly discovered pulsar within the Trapezium Cluster of the Orion Nebula. When the SETI program on his older machine had alarmed at two oclock that morning, Ben noticed it fixed upon the great hunters constellation, and the brilliant teen had a hunch that whatever tripped the alert lay within Trapezium.

By 4:10 that morning, in mid-January, young Benjamin Brandeis would find out whyand it was a shock that would soon ripple throughout every world government.

Sit, Major, a middle-aged woman in a gray suit said as McCutcheon entered the room. The air smelled like hand sanitizer mixed with heavy floral, and Pete noticed vented fans positioned near the ceiling of each wall. A faint, low-pitched hum caught his attentionas did four closed-circuit television cameras, mounted in each corner. The woman laughed. Dont worry, Major McCutcheon, none of this is being recordednot on the cameras, anyway. My secretary here, Lieutenant Evans, has an eidetic memory, and hes keeping track of everything we say. Youll understand in a moment just why none of this will be logged. Not yet.

Pete took one of the metal and vinyl chairs opposite Evans, a thin-lipped man with a boyish face and protruding ears. Pete had a hunch that the eidetic memory had more to do with a brain chip than any native ability to recall with clarity. And you are? he asked the woman.

She smiled again, the slow curve of her upper lip revealing a slight dimple in her left cheek. Despite the pleasantries, the woman had cold eyes, chillingly frank and logical. Dr. Gale Stone, she answered. I work with a team of scientists whose names you already know. Major, its

I dont use the military rank any longer, Dr. Stone. Just call me Peteor Dr. McCutcheon, if you prefer. Most of my friends just call me Mac.

Forgive me, she said without a blink. Mac, then. Im familiar with your work at Caltech, but more to the point, the recent book you wrote on biblical prophecy. She snapped her fingers, and Evans handed her a thick hardcover text in a colorful dust jacket. Dozens of paper strips marked pages. This is hardly light reading, she said as she opened the book to one of the marked passages. In this day and age I wonder how you managed to get anyone to publish it. Tell me, Mac, do you really think a star called Wormwood will one day strike the earth?

Is that why Im here? he asked in irritation. Look, Dr. Stone, if youre looking to make fun of my beliefs, then youve caught the wrong man. I make no bones about my stance on eschatologyneither as a Bible scholar nor as a scientist.

Yes, but its that scientific background that most interests me, she interrupted. Mac, Ive not brought you halfway across the country to belittle your beliefs. Rather, I respect and appreciate them. You are uniquely qualified to provide counsel on a matter that threatens not only the United States but the entire world. Interested?

The retired major took a moment to respond. The guard near the door continued to whisper into his internal communication system (which Mac later learned was a two-way radio mounted on one of the young mans back molars), and he nodded now and then as if receiving orders. The guard never smiled. Mac had an unsettling spidey sense that hed not only passed through the looking glass but fallen down a deep hole. If so, then this woman would be either the White Queen or the Red Queen.