Both men sat in silence for a moment, allowing the thick air to settle as Thomas's shocking words bounced around only to slowly fade away and be replaced by the gentle pitter-patter of rain on the windows. Thomas was impressed with his friend, normally he would of trailed off by now, going to get another drink or something to eat in order to get the conversation moving in a different direction, but Thomas could tell by the staring look on Williams face he was deeply invested, how could he not be?
William was sat forward in his chair staring into space, processing, and coming to terms with what he had just been told. This idea that the universe had yet another layer to it. A completely new building block that filled in the gaps between everything else, that until now, had passed by unseen. Suddenly his world seemed even smaller that it had before, a tiny point lost in a sea of matter where even the empty bits had something in them. Thomas took it upon himself to carry on explaining as it was clear William was in no position to retort.
"This device, I won't bother you with the details of how it works, but for explanations sake you can think of it as a special kind of telescope, a "Dark matter" telescope if you will. I did consider calling it "An Invisible telescope" but that doesn't have the same ring to it and sends out a confusing message I feel. However I digress, this Dark matter, as well as having its own equivalent to our atoms, the basic building blocks for anything solid. It also has its own equivalent to our light or photons; the particles that make up all radio, infa-red, visible light and ultraviolet waves. This means there is a complete Dark electromagnetic spectrum out there, unable to be detected by any device except mine. My telescope can detect this spectrum and transfer it into a usable format. Just like a normal telescope would pick up normal light coming from a distant star, my Dark telescope can pick up all the Dark light coming from the Dark stars. It then converts what it picks up into an image."
Concerned that his friend was struggling to follow along Thomas paused, giving William time to gather his thoughts. Expecting a barrage of "What do you mean?" or "Can you explain that bit again?" type of questions to come firing at him. like a verbal machine gun. However William remained deadly silent. Staring off into the void as if he could see all this Dark matter himself. After a few moments he then in a clam, relaxed tone asked a rather simple question.
"And what does this stuff look like?"
This might at first glance seem like a stupid question when you are talking about an invisible substance, the initial response being to say, its invisible! So it doesn't look like anything!" but when you really think about it, its probably one of the most though provoking questions to ask.
This took Thomas off guard, with all the respect in the world, William wasn't the brightest of men and such an unexpected question seemed to be above his normal intellect. It was a fantastic question that Thomas himself hadn't really considered.
Since his telescope's converted images were incredibly basic; having no colour and only being able to show the contrast of light and shade, like taking a rather blurry black and white photo, it was indeed hard to know what this stuff would actually look like if you could see it.
Imagine standing on a block of this Dark matter with a set of eye balls that where attuned to detect the Dark light coming off it. What would you see? Would it look the same as an ordinary piece of matter? Or would it look extremely different? Would a collection of Dark carbon atoms look the same as normal carbon? Would a Dark matter rock have the same rough, hard and unforgiving matt surface of a normal matter equivalent? Thomas had always imagined it would look the same as normal matter, but now he was properly thinking about it, not letting his own excitement cloud his vision, there was no definitive reason why it had to look anything like the ordinary matter he had come to know and love. There was too much unknown about the composition of this substance to make a justified comment either way.
I mean after all, the stuff was invisible! It could be any colour and texture it chose. Hell, it could be a completely new, incomprehensible colour that nobody could possibly imagine in their wildest dreams. The building blocks themselves could also be placed in a series of incomprehensible structures meaning what looks like simple rock in the telescope could actually look more like a strange energy blob in reality.
"I cant give you a definitive answer to that, we don't know enough about how this stuff interacts on a small scale. However it seems to have the same structure as our matter on a large scale at the very least." Thomas continued. "It still forms planets and stars. The empty areas of space where light begins to bend, is where we can find entire galaxies of the stuff. Just think of that! Entire galaxies, millions upon millions of stars that are completely invisible to our eyes! Here take a look at these!" Thomas said as he stood up from his chair and grabbed his coat.
After fumbling around in the pockets for a few seconds he produced a collection of slightly damp pictures that had been taken by his telescope only hours before, showing planets, stars and indeed whole galaxies floating motionless in the dark sky.
William gazed upon them with amazement, as if seeing into a dream world, because for all intensive purposes he was! Another side off existence that he had missed his whole life.
All of a sudden William exploded with energy, standing up so quickly Thomas thought he was about to go into low altitude orbit. Taking the picture in hand he beamed at Thomas with similar enthusiasm.
"Well I have to say Thomas this is incredible! You have to tell people and I don't just mean myself! This it's going to be massive, in fact why not publish your findings! I can have a word with a few people from work and before you know it, everyone will be reading about the fantastic discovery of Dr Thomas Clark!"
William chuckled to himself as he lunged forward to give Thomas a bracing hug, which Thomas awkwardly endured until the ordeal was over.
"I can see the title now." William continued. "The Ghost Dimension. A best seller! Book of the year! Book of the century! You will make a pretty penny indeed! Well done my friend!" William praised, cycling through the multiple pictures, unable to take his eyes of them.
Despite his dearest and only friend being so high within the publishing world, Thomas hadn't thought for one second about making a book for the common man. He had been satisfied with the idea of sending his findings to a scientific journal to be spread among the scientific community only; to finally see his own work in one of the publications that he had given so many hours of his life into.
But now the idea had been planted, it very quickly grew into an exciting prospect. The whole world captivated by the brilliant mind of Dr Thomas Clark! He did see the appeal, a small smile grew across his face.
William continued to cycle through the crude pictures, spreading them out onto the table in front of him forming a colourless collage of black and white. Eventually he reached a picture that looked considerably different from the rest. It was another planet, hanging in the empty void of space, only this time instead of being the usual mix of light and shade showing a relatively featureless world, this one had distinct lines and dots painted across its surface. Williams's heart skipped a beat as his mind pieced together what those lines might be.
"Is that? What it looks like? Are they what I think they are?" William gasped, his mind racing with possibilities. Not being sure what he wanted the answer to be. Thomas meanwhile looked like he was ready to burst, so the excessive energy of his reply wasn't out of place.
"Absolutely! They are lights! Millions of them! Covering the planet!"
William almost fell over. Even he, a man who cared more about the money in his wallet than the inner workings of the world, understood just how rare life was in the universe. Let alone intelligent life; and the idea that he was now looking at an alien city both excited and terrified him. His mind filling him with such delight that standing still seemed like torture. (This definitely was the most exciting thing ever!)
"And you are sure? This isn't just some trick of the light or some example of extreme other worldly weather? Or something wrong with the equipment as you say! You are certain this is not natural?" William checked with his friend.
"I'm certain." Thomas said with a stern look on his face.
"But how do you know?" William replied, grabbing Thomas's shoulders gently.
Without saying anything, Thomas pulled out a small silver device from his roughly folded coat, held it up to the side of Williams head and clicked play.
Suddenly the room and indeed everything around it faded away into nothing, the gentle sound of the rain and the wind disappearing into the void, as they were replaced by the unmistakable sound of music.
Filling the room as the two men became the first in history to listen to alien radio.
The singing that was coming from the small silver device was strange and not like anything William had ever heard before, but one thing was for sure. It wasn't a natural sound. It was beautiful.
"This very signal is coming from that planet, along with many others!" Thomas stated after a few seconds. "I've taken multiple recordings like this. Most of them playing various types of music but some sound like discussions, obviously in an unknown language, but all of them just as bizarre as this one." Thomas beamed. Once again neither of them said anything for a while, letting the foreign notes and voices fill their ears. Confirming in their minds that despite the vast emptiness and hostility of the cosmos, the beautiful truth was that they were not alone in the universe.
And so it came to pass that the human race was discovered.
Thomas and William were not as you might have been imagining, two ordinary men sitting in a rather expensive front room discussing the findings of a lifetime. No, they were not ordinary, they were not even human.
And that picture of the shining planet, that was covered in dazzling lights, was not a bustling alien home world, it was a picture of Earth.
And the music that filled the room and confirmed the existence of other life in the universe, wasn't coming from an alien source, but from a completely normal, Earth-bound radio broadcast.
At least, that is what you, or anyone else on this Earth would say, as from our perspective, Thomas and William are the aliens.
That being the best translation of their names into English, both Thomas and William were two alien men who were made of a mysterious type of matter that would make them invisible to any human who tried to look upon them.
It seems ridiculous to think that the first two intelligent races to come into contact with each other, where not even made from the same building blocks as one and other. Wouldn't it have been so much easier that both races were at least made from the same type of atoms? The universe is big and complex enough that finding other life is next to impossible without having to cross the inter-matter barrier. But then again, like everything else, it all comes down to perspective.