***** Vol.3 Chap.52 First three puzzles *****

Frank thought considerably over the plausible options for interpreting those carvings. Sometimes, he would walk over to the murals and study the murals. At other times, he would carefully run his fingers over the carvings for clues. All the options of interpreting the stone carving as symbols of the Egyptian empire or civilized empires of the known world at that time just did not seem to fit.

At long last, He decided he must take a different perspective, a fresh perspective. What if this ghostly figure was not of this earth? What if the entire event was an encounter with an extraterrestrial being? This new perspective seemed promising.

I must have the right perspective. He said to himself.

If a visitor from a superior civilization in outer space capable of space travel came, then the earth might be just one of many planets and stars to call on, just one of many intelligent races on many planets in this universe to visit. Perhaps the space visitor came to earth in search of an intelligent race.

Now how would a space farer identify this planet earth and its intelligent race apart from the other races on other planets?

Following this line of reasoning, he figured that the carving must represent an address of this planet earth. That seemed a logical deduction so far. But what was the key to the four carvings? And what was the identification of each carving?

Taking his laptop out, he quickly called up his encyclopedia and refreshed himself regarding the solar system and the planets of the solar system, then he took time to be familiar with the Milky Way Galaxy. He was fascinated by what was known about this universe and wished once again that he could have studied more astronomy in his college days. Well, it was not too late yet.

There was an accurate picture of the Milky Way in expanded view stored in his laptop. Then there was another picture showing the position of the Milky Way in the known universe. Putting his laptop down on the floor, he got up to stretch and to pace around the stone slab and walk off his frustrations.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

When he was on the opposite side of the stone slab, he turned to look back at the picture of the Milky Way shown on the computer screen. What he saw stopped him in his tracks. The picture on his computer screen looked exactly like the first stone carving.

On his computer screen, there are rays like giant curved arms radiating from the center of the universe. On the stone carving there were an exact number of rays emanating out from the center as well. He ran back to his laptop and rotated his screen so that the arms in the picture coincide with the rays in the carving. Carefully, He located where the Milky Way is in the picture. As he looked at the stone carving, sure enough, there was a small circle at the same location.

Then he remembered the poem on the mural.

…great universe…

“Yes!” He shouted. He danced around for joy.

OK, that was good. He told himself.

For an extraterrestrial being to identify the exact location of this planet, one first identified which arm or direction the Galaxy was located. Then the second carving must identify the location of this planet within the Milky Way.”

He quickly called up the expanded picture of the Milky Way. This time, the picture was like the carvings, with star clusters organized in arms radiating from the center of the Milky Way. Carefully, He rotated the picture on his computer screen until the expanded view of the Milky Way matched the rays in the second stone carving. Again, as expected, he found that where the Solar System lies in the Milky Way, there was a corresponding small circle in the stone carving.

…great universe…

…countless stars…

This was good. Two down and two to go.

The next carving was a set of concentric circles instead of rays coming from the center. This was too easy. The concentric circles must show the paths of the different planets. Besides, according to the poem, the next item was the sun. There were 11 planets, and the earth was the fourth planet from the sun.

He looked at the stone carving again. There were only 3 concentric circles, not 11. But he counted the number of small circles and there were exactly 11 small circles. Since the earth was the fourth from the sun, and there were three small circles on the inner circle and there were three more small circles on the next concentric circle. The earth must be one of those small circles on the second ring.

Well, that is not too bad; there are only three possible combinations. He told himself loudly.

He was happy about the deduction of the first three carvings, although there was still one more puzzle to solve.