Purpleness

Everyone knew when it arrived, but no one knew how long it had been there. The problem was that the thing (for no one knew what else to call it) seemed to defy all the laws of physics and even the space/time continuum. Everything about it seemed wrong, everyone agreed. All the religious leaders of the world had come near it, but automatically shrunk away from it. To quote the Pope of Rome, “There is something very wrong about it.”

It was a calm night when the bright purple light appeared, very distinct, in the night sky over Modesto, California. It didn’t appear on anyone’s radar but everyone saw it. It made no noise, but it appeared to be a flaming ball. When it finally reached the surface, it struck, silently and sat, silently glowing. It was brilliant in its color, yet emanated no heat. It had no distinct shape, yet there it was, approximately thirty feet wide, fifteen feet tall and semi-transparent.

It “sat” on the parched ground and did nothing but glow for about three days. Then suddenly, with silence, it “melted” into a large puddle, covering the ground in a perfect triangle shape. It seemed to have no depth, but looking into it from above, seemed to reveal an infinite depth. Soon there were sightseeing planes that regularly flew patterns over the purple and the sightseers all claimed to see different things therein. Some claimed to see faces, some claimed to see animals, others to see the future, or the past, or dreams.

After three more days, the purple again shifted its “shape”. A column, approximately three feet wide, rose from the center. A single shaft emerged from the column, at a perfect ninety degree angle, but the shaft became flat on the end, similar to a pancake, very circular. But the pancake “disappeared” on the outer edge of the shape. Within hours, reports began coming in of decades, even centuries old news reports of odd half circle shapes appearing in random places around the United States. Apparently, “the purple” didn’t care about the flow of time.

Then the voices began. Initially, they were heard only by those nearby, then suddenly, six hours after the voices began, reports began coming in of people across the globe, hearing voices, simultaneously. Apparently the purple didn’t care about the speed of sound, either. No one could make out the words being spoken, but all spoke of a very ominous feeling, almost a nausea, accompanying the voices.

Finally, the governor of California, in agreement with the President of the United States took military action. Initially, it was a small special forces team that, in full gear, attempted to enter the column. But in a very smooth, fluid motion, transitioned away from the column, contrary to orders. The team immediately responded with further attempts to approach the column, but again, automatically shifted away. Multiple attempts resulted in the same fruit. Theoretical physicists referred to incident as a singularity. The purple seemed to have its own source of gravity and laws. In the same way a man would naturally walk on the face of the earth, pulled by gravity, so too a man walking towards the column automatically walked away upon nearly touching it.

A final military approach came, somewhat by accident, when a local hunter yelled “Screw it” and fired into the purple, or at least tried to do so. The bullet, following pretty much the same path as the soldiers, veered off in the opposite direction, striking a Coast Guard volunteer in the left buttock. The gun was apprehended and the bullet wound was dressed, to no further action.

It was with the gunfire that something moved and changed. The purple became red, gathered into a spherical shape and rose to nearly 10,000 feet into the air. Then with a loud boom, encompassed the entire planet in a thin red cloud, semi-transparent, yet impenetrable. Anything approaching the red automatically was redirected in the opposite direction, like the soldier and the bullet.



A high pitched whistle ensued and decimated all life on the entire planet.