A Special CBC News Presentation
Peter Mansbridge talks with Doctor James Williams, Dr. Robert Traverse and Stephen Hawking
August 24, 1976
Mansbridge: It was exactly 146 days ago that the Corner Brook Rec Centre disappeared, taking with it 187 teenage boys and girls.
The tragic event was caused by the malfunction of a top secret time displacement machine, which was invented for the Canadian government by two top military scientists; Doctors Robert Traverse and James Williams.
Welcome to the show gentlemen.
Williams: Thank you Peter.
Traverse: Our pleasure, Peter.
Mansbridge: With our two scientific guests is renown physicist, Stephen Hawking. It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr.Hawking.
Hawking: As it is mine to meet you, Peter.
Mansbridge: Well gentlemen, the world is waiting to know exactly what happened.
Traverse: It was one of our chimpanzees. It somehow managed to get free of its cage and basically ran havoc, over the laboratory. We feel that the sudden sounds and minor explosions and fire, panicked the chimp and in its terror, it caused irreparable damage to the time displacement machine.
Mansbridge: And it was this damage that sent the teenagers back in time.
Hawking: Perhaps.
Mansbridge: Perhaps? Is there a possibility that the destruction of the time displacement machine, did not cause the teenagers disappearance?
Hawking: No. the time displacement machine was the cause, for certain. It is the final destination and time that has now become clouded.
Mansbridge: So the teenagers may not have gone back in time?
Traverse: To be honest, Peter, we are not 100% certain where the teenagers are.
Mansbridge: That does not sound too promising for the families of the teenagers.
Williams: Perhaps an explanation is in order here.
Mansbridge: I am sure that there are millions of people out there who would like some kind of explanation.
Williams: Our machine was equipped with a state of the art computer. A computer we have been working on for years. One that is much smaller than anything in existence.
This computer is only about the size of a floor model TV and was designed for one specific purpose. To record and plot times and destinations, for the time displacement machine.
Mansbridge: So, did this computer gather information on the plight of the teenagers.
Traverse: In a controlled environment, there would have been one time and one destination.
Our initial attempt at time displacement was going to involve sending a chimpanzee back a couple hundred years to a destination where it could gather specimens that would help us determine if the experiment was a success.
Mansbridge: And did you have a location planned?
Williams: We had it narrowed down to several tropical locations. Areas where the chimp would not be out of place. But we had not actually plotted the information into the computer.
Mansbridge: Which means?
Williams: Which means, in essence, that the chimpanzee, in its panic, actually plotted the time and destination.
Mansbridge: Would your data not be able to pinpoint the location and time?
Traverse: In a controlled environment, there would have been only two peaks and two valleys in the data collected. The peaks would be the destination, while the valleys would set the time. Once the chimp reached the plotted time and destination, he would have gathered, plants, soil and other specimens from the direct landing area.
We were giving him a mere five minutes and then we were to bring him back, which would have caused the other peak and valley in the data. That would be our time and our laboratory.
Williams: Because of the actions of the chimpanzee, the data was not properly plotted or collected. To be able to properly calculate the data, we needed a controlled time and destination. Once we were able to verify that the chimpanzee had been to the proper time line and destination, we would have been able to compare the peak and valley of that time, to the peak and valley created by the return of the chimpanzee to our time and location.
With that comparative information and other peaks and valleys, from other proposed experiments, we would have been able to have a proper plotting, or time line to better be able to pinpoint times and destinations.
Traverse: Some of the data was destroyed by fire, but we were able to gather perhaps fifty percent of the computer data.
Mansbridge: And this data should have shown the peaks and valleys as you mentioned?
Williams: It did show peaks and valleys, but not as we expected.
Mansbridge: In what way?
Traverse: Because we did not return the teenagers, there should have been only one peak and valley, but that was not the case.
Mansbridge: Am I to assume there were more of these peaks and valleys?
Williams: There were. many more. We counted a total of 16 peaks and valleys.
Mansbridge: And just what do these extra peaks and valleys mean?
Hawking: As the Doctors explained earlier, each peak represents a destination and the valleys a time.
Mansbridge: So you have multiple times and destinations? This would obviously make the location of the teenagers very difficult.
Hawking: If there were different destinations, then that would certainly make it a difficult task, but all the peaks were the same.
Mansbridge: Which means there is only one location?
Hawking: Exactly. What is really confusing is the fact that the valleys are all different. None of the valleys were the same, while all of the peaks were identical.
Mansbridge: So what is it that you are trying to say?
Hawking: It would seem that there was more than one displacement that occurred that night of April first.
Mansbridge: So you are saying that others may have been affected by the accident, involving the time displacement machine?
Hawking: If we are interpreting the data properly, there were multiple displacements, from different time periods, at the same time as the disappearance of the teenagers. And all displacements were to the same destination.
Mansbridge: Are you saying that this machine actually sent people from different periods in our history, all back to the same location that the teenagers were sent.
Hawking: That is our theory. But not necessarily just people. Over the course of history, there have been many occurrences of ships and planes disappearing. There have been occurrences of towns becoming empty overnight and even in some cases, whole towns have disappeared.
Mansbridge: Are you trying to say that disappearances, which are a part of our history already, made have all been caused by this one malfunction of the time displacement machine?
Williams: Time displacement is not a science that we know anything about. It is not like what you see in the movies or on shows like Star Trek with their ability to beam people aboard the Enterprise.
We do not fully understand the curve of time.
Hawking: Truth be know, we do not understand the repercussions of playing with time at all.
Mansbridge: So there were actually 16 separate displacements that happened on the night of April 1, 1976?
Hawking: There could have been many more. We were only able to retrieve about 50% of the data. The rest was destroyed.
Mansbridge: So what does this all mean?
Hawking: If our interpretation of the data is correct, there is a place, somewhere, at some time, where there is a gathering, of sorts.
A gathering of people, possibly animals, possibly ships, planes, trains and only God knows what else.
Instead of sending a group of teenagers to a specific time and location, the malfunction of the time displacement machine, may have, in reality, created a new location, in a time period that may or may not even exist. And there is no way of saying for sure if that location is even of this planet.
Mansbridge: So what does this mean for the 187 teenagers that disappeared from Corner Brook, Newfoundland, on April 1st of this year.
Hawking: They are probably fighting to survive in a world unlike anything this Earth has seen. A world made up of different cultures from different historic times, intermingled with a ecological system made up of plants, animals, insects and fishes from conceivable every period of history.
Mansbridge: So what does that mean for the survival of the teenagers?
Hawking: If our theories are correct, it would be a harsh world for even the best trained special forces soldiers to survive, let alone a group of teenagers.
Mansbridge: And what of the future of the time displacement machine?
Williams: We are currently reprogramming the machine and recalibrating the computer with the intentions of trying test runs in the near future.
Mansbridge: And when will these test runs occur?
Traverse: That has yet to be determined.