As humans, we have always had an incredible ability to prosper and discover new horizons, even throughout the most difficult obstacles we’ve faced. The same bravery faced by the first responders on 9/11, the same courage felt among troops descending into the cold, misty battlefields of war, and the divine dedication of the victims of the holocaust. However, the measure of human discovery has been beaten by no other in one field– astronomy. Everyone knows the 8 planets of the solar system, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Uranus, and Neptune. Any person rich enough to own one can peer into a telescope at just the right angle and see any one of these celestial bodies.

What humans suffer from is the fear of the unknown. It’s reminiscent of a child afraid of the dark, or one being scared of monsters under the bed. Usually, fear is close to home, familiar, routine, and regular. It becomes a part of us, doesn’t it?

So what happens when the fear isn’t close to home?

We first started detecting the gravitational anomalies in the 1970s. The technology may have been rudimentary at the time, but we had enough of it to run gravitational equations that helped to add to our understanding of the world. Around the world, we came to find out that our equations became more balanced, and what was understood as simple gravity at the time was increased to being much more sinister.

The models were showing the data of a potential ninth planet.

Slightly larger than Neptune, according to its gravity, but it did not appear to be a planet. It didn’t reflect sunlight, which originally made it appear as a black hole, but it was different. It was like it wasn’t there, simply a hole that seemed to suck on everything, twisting and pulling at space-time and warping the gravitational planes of the solar system.

Word got out—why was there an indescribable gravitational mass deep within the solar system? As humans, we strove for answers. We wanted to understand the unfamiliar; we wanted to overcome our childish fear of the dark.

And so came the Oort-Neptune Exploration Project.

It was the union of the world’s biggest countries to create something incredible. After two years of work, we launched Lapetus, a group of 27 different probes that would eventually encircle the gravitational anomaly that some were now calling Pepromene.

By 2034, the probes had reached distances within 50,000 Miles of the object. They reached orbit and soon began transmitting their data. This helped us, the great scientists of the world, to figure out what exactly Pepromene was supposed to be.

As the anomaly continued to shift more and more out of proportion, the probes sent public strings of numbers to the masses of people on earth. They were codes that said that Pepromene was growing.

G – A – 2 – 7 – X – L – 6 – A – 7 – 2 – 4 – B

G – R – O – W – T – H – D – E – T – E – C – T

E – R – R – 4 – 6 – 2 – A – N – O – M – A – L – Y – G – R – O – W – T – H

F – Q – A – 2 – 7 – C – G – 3 – 1 – 2

The strings of numbers became incredibly complex, it seemed like the probes were smashing their heads on their keyboards. They said that Pepromene was beginning to suck in individual probes and spit them back out, completely useless.

F – 6 – A – 7 – 2 – 4 – B – H – D – 2 – 7 – 4 – E – T – A

E – R – R – 0 – 1 – 4 – B – A – D – P – R – O – B – E

U – N – K – N – O – W – N – 4 – 0 – 4

After three years of messages from Lapetus, the probes went dark in 2036. Multiple attempts to reactivate them were made, but it soon began to feel like Pepromene had done her dirty work on the project.

As humans, we fear the unfamiliar. Though many thought that everything was discovered about Pepromene, there was still much to learn about the whereabouts of the strange object.

But I will tell you, nothing scared humanity more than what happened on December 2nd, 2037.

Every one of the probes began transmitting the same short message, all at once, all in perfect unison.

R – U – N