Although NATO officially denies all knowledge of its existence, the seven-mile long, now derelict headquarters of the French S.T.A.R. Programme lies deep underneath Paris. A complex network of laboratories, monitoring stations and technical workshops, the S.T.A.R. Programme was established in secret, in 1966, tasked to regain western technological supremacy during the cold war.
In 1972, the elite scientific and engineering community housed at S.T.A.R. began work on a self-sustaining space vehicle, designed to patrol the skies above Earth’s atmosphere and beyond. Although test-flights of early designs proved hazardous, a breakthrough came in 1977 after the remains of an unidentified craft were recovered from a crash site in the Amazon basin..
Utilising a sound wave propulsion system borrowed from the craft at the Amazonian crash site, S.T.A.R.’s final launch module, codenamed ‘ULYSSES’, was the most advanced spacecraft ever constructed. Initial tests of the Fluorine-Uranium mix fuel-drive caused a number of power failures across Paris during of the summer of 1979. The subsequent addition of a Nitro-Xenon coolant alleviated the problem, and the final FU-NX Sound Drive was perfected in late August, 1981.
Highly decorated Test Pilot, Wilson ‘Buck’ Santiago and his navigator, Devon Dunbar, volunteered for the ULYSSES test flight, scheduled for January 1st 1982. After a successful launch from an airbase on Réunion Island, the pilots began their flight plan manoeuvres high above the Earth’s atmosphere. In their final, official transmission, the crew reported ULYSSES was responding far better than even the most optimistic calculations had indicated. They described ‘Sonic force of unbelievable magnitude’, accompanied by a ‘complex aurora of strange, ethereal sound and light’. Mid-way through the flight, officers at Mission Control detected an anomaly in the FU-NX Sound Drive, with an Amp to FU-NX ratio recorded off the chart. Before an emergency abort message could be transmitted, ULYSSES emitted a huge electro-magnetic pulse, disabling all satellite communication in the southern hemisphere. Radio contact with the ULYSSES was lost, the craft having apparently disappeared.
In the ensuing chaos, both the ULYSSES project and the S.T.A.R. programme were hastily abandoned and classified as Black Op. Wilson Santiago and Devon Dunbar were listed M.I.A. and NATO denied all knowledge of the operation.
Rumours of unexplained radio transmissions persisted through the early part of the decade, most notably from a team of French scientists monitoring the Very Long Baseline Array (VBLA) of Radio Telescopes in Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The team claimed to have recorded transmissions of music and even human voices, identifying themselves as the crew of the ULYSSES. The recordings were dismissed by the wider scientific community as a hoax, and the supporting evidence as unsubstantiated due to the location of the transmission source, more than 4 mega-light years away. With their credibility ruined, the team at VBLA had their funding withdrawn and reports of irregular transmissions died out and the trail grew cold.
‘Celebrated bank robbers ‘Gang des postiches' operated in Paris between 1981 and 1986. It’s alleged that during a raid in 1985, they came across documents and technical data belonging to the French Government, marked ‘S.T.A.R. Prog.’, in an unmarked safety deposit box. The surviving gang members refuse to confirm nor discount the claim’..
More than two decades later, London-based Francophiles (and sometime DJ/Producers) Je Suis C and John Baptiste were trawling through the basement archives of the Paris Carnegie Public Library on a research trip.
Amidst the radio archives and piles of fading newsprint, they discovered a number of technical drawings marked ‘S.T.A.R. Prog.’ On further investigation they uncovered a large number of other documents including laboratory and ballistic reports along with reels of dusty PCM tape, simply marked ‘ULYSSES-82’.
Listening to the distorted playback, the pair began to suspect they had uncovered the lost recordings from the VBLA along with the ULYSSES project documentation. They approached both the French and British Governments with their findings, but neither authority would admit to any knowledge of, nor involvement with the S.T.A.R. Programme or ULYSSES project, neither would they grant support for further research.
The resolute, some say foolhardy duo decided that the world was ready to hear the ULYSSES82 recordings. Understanding the need to bury the real truth behind the tapes they released, both men resolved to continue their restoration work in earnest and in secret. Until now..
As individuals, electro-naut Je Suis C and air-bassist John Baptiste are fine producers, humans even. Together, they are..
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