Deposition of Civilian Witness, detailing the Alien invasion of Berne

‘I was about to go off the clock when the evacuate order came through. Klaxons, sirens, broadcasts on every channel. Even the damn billboards and street signs were telling us to get out of town. I called my wife, or tried, but every network was jammed...jammed or just static. We lived in the central district, worker family housing. I had been supervising the final touches on my chunk of the anti-Tib wall, out on the east side. Half a city away.

 Within ten minutes, I had abandoned my car and started to run. The vehicle exit points had jammed up less than ten minutes after the first alert, plunging the city into gridlock. Seconds later, I was sprinting past Holovision kiosks, and the ones that were still broadcasting, all I could see was destruction. Death. Fire...

 (the subject places head in hands, mutters inaudibly for 48 seconds)

 ...so I'm running and I start to hear this low hum. At first I think it's just the static from the public address system, gone dead a few minutes earlier. It isn't, it's something more. Like a machine, but alive, also, somehow. It starts to grow, the sound larger and larger as I sprint, and the sky is now dark, and the city walls are falling, the city walls I helped build...and there are things, things in the sky...

  (the subject places head in hands, mutters inaudibly for 32 seconds)

 ...glowing, blue and glossy. Machines, but alive. I keep running. My lungs burn, my sides ache, but I'm getting close to the city. There's a thing in the sky, like the others, but huge, noise deafening, a massive ring, rotating around a central object, some kind of control pod. I am too close to take it all in, to know how it works. It's nearly over me, over central Berne, and now it is glowing, drawing up some kind of energy.

 I lower my head and run.

 For a second, everything is silent, as if the gigantic thing had sucked the sound right out of the air. Then light, everywhere, all consuming. I fall, shielding my eyes.

 Light, light and silence.

 When I come to, there...there is no central Berne, no worker family housing. All gone. Just a pit, gouged from the earth, a pit where a city used to be. At the center, there is something blue...blue and glittering...'

Audio Transcript (Translated) - Deposition of civilian engineering corps forman Martin Hoffesommer, Berne, under hypnotic regression

平民目击者的证词，详述外星人入侵伯尔尼（Berne）的情况

‘当我接到疏散令时我刚要下班，喇叭声，警报声，每个频道都有广播。甚至是该死的广告牌和路牌都在叫我们离开城市。我打电话给妻子，或者说尝试打，但是所有网络都很拥挤……忙碌音或者干脆只有静电声（译注：静电噪音）。我们住在中心区，工人家庭住房。我正在监督城市东部反泰矿墙的最后润色工作，有半个城市远。

 不到十分钟，我就弃车转为奔跑。在第一次警报发出不到十分钟后，车辆出口就堵上了，造成全城交通堵塞。几秒钟后，我冲过全息报刊亭，那些还在广播的，我看见的只有毁灭，死亡，火灾……

（询问对象双手抱头，低声嘀咕了48秒）

……然后我正在跑，开始听到这种低沉的嗡嗡声，一开始我以为这只是几分钟前失灵的广播系统的静电声。但这不是，这还有更多的东西。像一台机器，但活着，而且，以某种方式。声音开始变大，随着我冲刺，声音越来越大。而且天空现在已经黑了，而且城墙正在倒塌，我帮助建造的城墙……而且那里有东西，有东西在天上……

（询问对象双手抱头，低声嘀咕了32秒）

……发光，蓝色而且有光泽。机器，但是活的。我继续奔跑，肺烧的慌，身子两侧很疼，但是我靠近市区了。天上有个东西，跟其他东西一样，但是很大，噪音震耳欲聋，一个巨大的圆环，围绕中心物体旋转，像是某种指挥舱。我太靠近它了，难以理解它怎么运作的。它就在我上方，伯尔尼中心，现在它在发光，吸收某种能量。

 我低下头赶紧跑。

 片刻间，一切都安静了，就好像那个巨大的东西从空气中吸收了所有声音一样。然后光，无处不在，吞噬一切，我跌倒了，遮着眼睛。

光，还是光，然后是寂静。

 当我醒来，那里……那里没有伯尔尼中心区，没有工人家庭住房，一切都没了。只有一个大坑，从地上抠出来的，曾经是一座城市的坑。在坑的中心，有什么蓝色的东西……蓝色而且闪闪发光……’

音频记录（已翻译）——证词来自民用工程兵团工头Martin Hoffesommer，伯尔尼，在催眠状态进行的往事回归