The Case of S T Nikos

Morris K Jessup

In April 1959 Morris K Jessup, who had become a prominent UFO investigator, was found dead in his estate car, apparently a successful suicide. The police of Dade County, Florida, found him near a park in the locked vehicle with a hose leading from his exhaust to the interior. Jessup had personal problems that might have pushed some people to suicide but most of his acquaintances claimed he was made of sterner stuff, and were amazed to hear of his death.

Jessup and Tino Nikos had some things in common. Both were interested in UFOs. Jessup was a mathematician and astronomer who had spent part of his career in practical, hands on astronomy, setting up observatories and making celestial discoveries. This had stimulated his interest in unusual aerial phenomena. However he also had a deep interest in antiquities and spent some time researching the cultures of the Central American Indian civilisations, all of whom revered the serpent in many forms.

Moreover he had been engaged by the US government to examine the resources of the Amazon jungle, and had become aware of the accelerating degree of exploitation of resources which were irreplaceable. In his book The Case for the UFO he curiously called for political pressure on the administration to fund research into the four fundamental forces of nature as a means of permitting mankind to conquer space. At the time people would have thought he meant humans to get on the same terms as the invaders�the UFOs. The discoveries of S Tino Nikos throw fresh light on this. The reason must surely be that he had realised that the human race had no future on earth. The serpents were a ready to reclaim their own. Jessup must have thought the only chance we had was out there!

In 1956 Jessup was apparently threatened by unknown correspondents and was investigated by the US Navy. The Navy�s efforts seemed to peter out and Jessup continued with his own pursuits, until his unfortunate death.

Since that event in 1959, because Jessup was not believed to be the suicidal type, UFOlogists have generally been convinced that the death was not what it seemed.

Finale

In almost the last letter he wrote to me Nikos said: "We are all, let alone the experts, indifferent to our own fate and the fate of the earth�evidently the Anthroposaurs were too. Like the Anthroposaurs, we do not seem to have grasped that we are also on the list of endangered species, and as more go, so we get nearer to the top. The Anthroposaurs were limited; they were incapable of foreseeing or preventing their own extinction. We are no different! Is any one of us able to use our intelligence for the broader good when selfish motives intervene? Why do we accept what the experts tell us? Why are we optimistic about the future but apathetic about destroying the planet? Have we inherited fatal flaws from our predecessors, the dinosaurs?

"Are we willing to yield up the earth, whether to the dragon or to the worm? Will we succeed in throwing off the shadow of the serpent and disown the dinosaur heritage? Or are we caught in a morphogenetic field and are destined to self destruct as surely as common salt has always crystallized as cubes and not hexagons?

"Are we locked into ritual ways of behaving�helpless resignation, mechanical left brain thinking, purblind optimism and obedience to the authority of dictatorial experts and governments? The only way we can find out is to make an effort: we have to reject behaviors and rituals that are plainly leading us and the world to destruction. Time is running out.

"The earth, like mother Tiamat, can replace us with monsters. The obligatory principle of our lives should be not to offend the earth mother whether directly or indirectly. All other laws follow from this one."

Few people would disagree but someone had found out about the documents I left with Barclay’s Bank and I have had an uncomfortable feeling of being watched ever since I was informed of Nikos’s disappearance. I have considered it wiser to give up my post and to take a job with an oil company. Moving about in foreign climes I should be free of the feeling of being in a goldfish bowl.

Meanwhile I have done what my friend required of me. Who Lies Sleeping? is published and is on the net for everyone to read. It seems quite innocuous. Is there some clue in it? Did Nikos did find something important in Cambridge? I wonder if he did? I wonder if that shark coughed up any notebooks. Is there a puzzled fishing enthusiast out there somewhere with a gory memento�a note book of a man eaten by a shark?

If you know, don’t write to me. I shall be as far away as possible.

Michaela Magi Griffiths, Bloomsbury, September, 1993
© Copyright AskWhy! Publications 1997. Quote by all means but credit this source.