Continued From Page 1 ... At first, there wasn't much Reich could do except notify the Air Force, who apparently did little more than humor the man. But in May, the scientist made an extraordinary discovery.
Reich had been experimenting with a device called a "cloudbuster," a comic-book-style contraption similar in appearance to a planet-destroying laser cannon, which supposedly extracted orgone from the atmosphere to create rain.
One night, as he pointed the gun at a star, the star flickered and faded out. Amazed, Reich pointed the gun at a different star. The first star came back and the second one faded out. Since he knew, somehow, that the range of the cloudbuster was only a few kilometers, he realized he couldn't have affected a pair of stars, but must have impeded the operation of two hovering UFOs! Science!
"For the first time in the history of man," he wrote, "the war waged for ages by living beings from outer space upon this Earth ... was reciprocated."
Thus, the battle was on. Somewhere along the line, Wilhelm Reich became convinced the UFOs were tainting Earth's orgone, resulting in, naturally, drought. But luckily he had just the weapon Earth needed. He could both fight the Ea and restore the planet's moisture in one fell swoop.
So, Reich took his gun and a four-person army to the desert outside Tucson, Arizona, which was obviously ground zero for the aliens' onslaught.
Unfortunately, his party was unprepared for the harsh desert environment and quickly suffered debilitating exhaustion and nausea, symptoms they naturally ascribed to the Ea and not to dehydration — or to the highly radioactive radium Reich used to supercharge his cloudbuster.
Yet, for the future of Earth, Reich's team managed to forge ahead. They clashed with the extraterrestrials for months, pointing their magic tubes skyward from a specially equipped pick-up.
Eventually the conflict reached its climax when Reich's Geiger-counter jumped suddenly, signaling an all-out alien blitzkrieg, an attack that took the form of a "tremendous black cloud" that formed over Tucson.
The team shot at the cloud for 20 minutes as they once again were overcome by illness. The ominous cloud turned reddish purple and radiation readings continued to climb. Excitement filled the air as Reich ceaselessly blasted his gun toward the heavens.
Finally, in what had to be the least dramatic triumph in combat history, the cloud dispersed. But, in Reich's mind, the assault by the Enigma Alpha was finally put to an end.
Sadly, Earth never got a chance to properly thank Wilhelm Reich. Shortly after returning home, the scientist was sentenced to two years in federal prison for failing to heed the FDA's injunction against orgone therapy. He died while in custody.