Credit: NASA

Lao Tzu Disappears
EUBC News
17 May 2037
The first successful Chinese-European space venture came to an abrupt end yesterday when scientists were unable to establish communication with the Jupiter probe Lao Tzu. Speculations...

Nobel Laureate Warns of Alien Invasion
The Star
18 May 2037
Former NASA scientist John Wilkinson, winner of the 2034 Nobel Prize in physics, told reporters yesterday that a wormhole may have opened near Jupiter. "Preliminary analysis of the data indicates the presence of negative energy and an unusual curvature of space near Europa," Wilkinson said. In 1988 Michael Morris and Kip Thorne showed...

NASA Calls Ex-scientist Paranoid
Freeburg Times
19 May 2037
"Little green men are not invading the Earth," joked NASA spokesman Kurth Reynolds. When asked about the presence of negative energy he replied "That is one way to interpret the data, but not the only way. Besides, if the astronomical event was caused by a wormhole, it would have been microscopic. So when I say little green men, I mean really little ..."

Is Europa Shrinking?
The Banesfield Gazette
2 April 2049
Inish Ayar, a graduate student in physics at Stanford, was laughed off stage at a meeting of the California Astronomy Society when he claimed that Jupiter's moon Europa has been shrinking at an accelerating rate for the past 10 years. When asked to comment, his advisor, Nobel laureate John Wilkinson, had this to say "I support Inish Ayar 100 per cent. His data ..."

Have Aliens Landed on Jupiter?
The Voice of Brazil
15 October 2055
Leaked classified images from EUSA's new LLRT (Large Lunar Radio Telescope) has finally provided the public with a clue as to why all of Jupiter's moons have been losing mass. Despite government denials, the pictures clearly show an enormous structure forming around the gas giant. Talking to the press from his home, Nobel laureate John Wilkinson said he believed mass was being taken from Jupiter's moons to build the structure. When asked about it's purpose he responded "I have no idea."

Attempts at Communication Fail, ISA Probe Delayed
The Arctic Sun
9 February 2057
All attempts at communicating with the Visitors have failed, Lin Hui, spokesperson for the EAC Space Agency, admitted at today's press briefing. Plans to launch the ISA Jupiter Probe have also been delayed by international bickering over funding ...

New Images of the Visitors
The Insider
11 November 2066
Images from the Icarus clearly show Jupiter being encased in a strange, thin shell of unknown composition. Countless small machines were filmed stealing matter from all available sources, including the planet itself, to build the structure. Ninety-five-year-old Nobel laureate, John Wilkinson, considered the foremost authority on the Visitors, says he doesn't think their intentions are hostile. "They expended an enormous amount of energy to send their machines here," Wilkinson commented, "The question is why?"

Public Demands Answers
The Quest
19 November 2066
Public outcry continues to grow over apparent government inaction throughout the world. Bowing to public pressure, the East Asian Consortium has threatened to launch missiles at the Visitors if they continue to ignore our attempts at communication. When asked for a comment, John Wilkinson merely laughed "They are building a machine around the biggest planet in our Solar System. Do you really think a few missiles would have any effect?"

Death Toll Passes Five Billion!
The Divide
22 June 2079
The world is in chaos. Governments have collapsed. Entire cities have been obliterated. The neutrino storm struck every corner of the Earth, penetrating even the deepest, thickest bomb shelters. Experts expect cancer rates among survivors to pass 90 per cent ...

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John Wilkinson's Journal
31 July 2079
This will be my final entry. I want to set the record straight, though I don't know who I expect to read this. Perhaps the cockroaches really will survive, and one day their descendants might want to know. Though I doubt even they have the fortitude to live through the hell our planet will soon become. The ozone layer has been destroyed, and no one knows how long the 'asteroid winter' will last.

Despite the planet-wide devastation, and despite the cries of revenge ringing in the streets, I don't think the Visitors meant us any harm.

Data doesn't lie. We were hit with less than one per cent of the energy that should have reached us. I believe all of it was accidental leakage.

Gas giants are easy to find in other solar systems, giant fuel deposits. So they came and took Jupiter, just as we took the oil from every nook and cranny on our own planet.

Maybe they used some of the energy to open a new wormhole to send the rest back through, or maybe they just shot it out into space. It doesn't really matter. The point is, they didn't attack us. They probably didn't even know we were here.

Would they have cared if they had known? That is more than I wish to speculate about.

I leave these words now for some other species to find, and go to watch my own fade away.