Sarah had traveled this path countless times, at first on her bicycle and lately on foot now that she had Larry (dog, not boyfriend) as a walking companion. Larry always was game for the walk, tail wagging, sniffing and taking in the scents of deer and birds, other dogs and people.
But on that fateful morning in January, Larry froze just before the right turn into Mercer Meadows, in front the lone leftover pole that marked the entrance to the Pole Farm District. Its sign read:
From 1929–1975, the Pole Farm District of Mercer Meadows was the site of a large shortwave radio station used for AT&T’s international telephone communications. Pole-mounted radio antennas covered the Pole Farm, configured to communicate with cities in Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America.
There were still a few poles of the original 225 left, scattered among the detritus of trees and flooded woodland beside the signpost sentry. These awry monster Lincoln logs were left to rot in the woods with scant homage to their storied history.
Sarah suddenly detected a buzzing sound. She ignored the omnipresent voice inside her head chanting “Danger, Will Robinson!” What appeared to be a live wire glowed about 50 yards to her right. Sarah lured Larry with the promise of a treat and edged closer. The buzzing grew louder.
Sarah stopped to scan the vicinity for signs of life. They were often the first morning walkers out in Mercer Meadows but often ran into someone on the way back to the parking lot.
Nada. They kept going, stopping a few feet in front of the wire.
“What’s up, Larry?” she asked, her voice cracking.
Larry looked up, ears peeled back, a telltale signal of fear, then plopped down and whimpered, another ominous sign. He generally was up for any snoop dog activity in these woods.
“Let’s check it out,” she encouraged, tugging at his leash.
He didn’t budge.
“Treat?”
He rearranged his body, demonstrating further reticence.
Sarah gave up, stomped her sneaker on the end of the leash and inched closer. She heard a tinny sound — like a faraway voice.
“Shit, let’s go!” she yelped, stooping to pick up Larry’s leash after hurriedly pocketing her phone. They scurried back to the trail and down the path to her car.
There were no other cars parked at the Maidenhead Trail lot as they ran towards her car. She unlocked the car, yelled “In” to Larry, who quickly jumped into the back seat, then took off for home.
A few miles south off of Federal City Road, the curator at The Sarnoff Collection at The College of New Jersey was sifting through archival material of the collection, home to 6,000+ artifacts related to David Sarnoff’s life; RCA, NBC, Victor Talking Machine Company, and Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America; the history of radio, television, broadcasting, audio and video recording and reproduction, electron microscopy, radar, vacuum tubes, transistors, solid-state physics, semiconductors, lasers, liquid-crystal displays, integrated circuits, microprocessors, computers, communications satellites, and other technologies.
“Dr. Biondi, you better check this out,” a student assistant called out.
“What’s up, Josh?” curator Mark Biondi asked as he joined the student in the main collection display area.
“It’s probably some sort of glitch,” Josh replied, moving out of the way so that Biondi could see the equipment in question.
“Looks normal to me?” Biondi replied, then got closer. This radio was the one of the oldest relics in the collection.
“It’s not what it looks like, it’s the sound coming out of it,” Josh said, shaking his head in disbelief. “I heard voices, but not in English.”
Biondi walked around the table, ducked down and turned his ear towards the tiny radio speaker on the side of the antique.
Sure enough, a tinny sound emitted from the radio speaker that had been silent for decades. He froze.
“I’ll be damned, it’s German. I took it in high school and never could speak a word but I was able to understand it.”
Closing down for ever — all the best — goodbye.
Biondi plopped back on the stool, wiping his brow. Only a handful of the wide range of broadcast equipment in the Collection — including radios, telegraph and one of the first TV sets in existence — were operational. A few amateur radio organizations and student groups focused on these, but this wasn’t one of them. It was too old and fragile. And somehow it was now broadcasting from across the pond.
The adjacent Viktor radio console was silent, as were the Electrola Radiola, the first phonograph/radio transmission combination Sarnoff and team created, and the wireless telegraph key Sarnoff used as a Marconi operator in 1912 on the rooftop of John Wannamaker store in downtown Philly.
“Better call Al,” Biondi said, feeling better already. When he didn’t know the answer to a radio conundrum, he knew who would. The engineering professor famous for his microwave moonshots lobbed from his nearby back yard.
Dr. Alex Karas had been at TCNJ/TSC longer than any other professor, any other custodian, any other staffer. He was a walking history book of the early days of Trenton State, where he had taught thousands of engineering students and overseen thousands of senior projects and amateur radio confabs.
Sarah fretted nonstop after returning from the park. She plopped on the sofa, where Larry always joined her for a cuddle, but as soon as they got in the door and she took off his harness and leash, Larry hightailed it upstairs and hid in his crate. Grabbing her phone, Sarah typed “erratic behavior in dogs” and Google came back with a whole host of fear-based options. What was Larry afraid of? She was a little spooked too, but also drawn to it, just like Nancy Drew. Nancy knew better but couldn’t help herself from solving a good mystery.
“Siri, call Powell,” Sarah commanded. Powell was her go-to on all things language-wise. As he spoke many languages. He had been recruited heavily by the CIA after college but opted to go into academia, the next best thing.
“Powell ici,” Powell answered his phone right away, very old school.
“Bonjour,” Sarah attempted her junior year of high school French.
“Zup, Sarah?” he reverted to millennial speak.
“I need your help. I’ve discovered something really weird and I think you are the ideal translator.”
“Using me for my lingual gifts, eh? What do I get in return?”
Sarah chuckled and ignored his flirting.
“I’ll buy you an Ear Wiggler at River Horse?”
“It’s a deal.”
“Can you meet me for a walk at Mercer Meadows?”
“Very mysterious, but it’s worth it if I get an IPA out of it first. How’s Thursday at 6?”
Done.
Sarah waved at Powell across the brewery.
“So, what is going on?” Powell asked, multitasking while scanning the brewery chalkboard for their latest IPA.
“Go ahead and order — you’ll need a beer to make sense of this.”
Powell grabbed his ale at the bar, then sat back down and waited for her story.
“You know how I take Larry to Mercer Meadows all the time?” He nodded impatiently. “The other day, we were walking early in the morning and just as we passed the poles at the entrance, I heard a weird sound and decided to check it out.”
“And?” Powell asked.
“I saw a flash of light and heard buzzing and then a voice in a foreign language coming from the wires.”
Powell pushed his stool back and pondered this information, chin in hand.
“Sounds like you had a few gummies before your walk?” he chuckled. Sarah glared back at him.
“You may have thought you heard something, but what you’ve described is impossible. You’d need a receiver and live radio wires. Let’s check it out.”
They made a date for the next morning and met at the parking lot, where they were greeted by a lot packed full of official looking trucks with barely a spot left for them. Perplexed, they headed towards the poles.
As soon as they crossed the boardwalk they saw police tape blocking the path and a group hovering near the poles.
“This area is closed to the public,” barked an authoritative looking man in a neon windbreaker.
“We heard something here the other day and wanted to follow up,” Sarah replied.
A diminutive man donning a sporty black beret steeped forward from the scrum of officials. “My dear, are you by chance our connector?” he asked.
“Your what?” Sarah stammered.
“I’m Al Karas, and I heard about the phenomena from my Sarnoff colleagues. They traced the emissions back to this GPS. You could be a critical link in our investigation.”
Dr. Karas led Sarah and David into the crew of officials near the poles and wires.
“What did you hear at Sarnoff?” Sarah asked.
Mark Biondi stepped forward and introduced himself.
“Fortunately, we were able to decipher the transmission,” Biondi shared. “Closing down for ever — all the best – goodbye,” was the last German transmission in World War II on May 7, 1945. But there was never an explanation of how we intercepted the message. Perhaps our Pole Farm played a role?”
Sarah got chills. Dr. Karas grinned.
“Maybe moonshots can bounce into time and space and come back through another dimension?” Karas surmised. “Who knows? It doesn’t matter — the good guys won in the end!”
Wendell Wood Collins works at The College of New Jersey in development and alumni engagement and lives in Ewing. She has been an active member of the Princeton writing community including Room at the Table and Princeton Writes.
