At a special news conference called at the Blue Lake City Hall to accommodate news cameramen and reporters, the graying scientist, seated with his associate, Dr. Malcolm Edwards, and his son, Christian, Jr., 20, told newsmen that the new time travel process, which he calls "temportation", may be "the scientific breakthrough of the century."

Dr. Mason won the Nobel Prize four years ago for his work with the atomic transformation of high-energy particles, and he presently heads a team of scientists at the Mad River Radiation Laboratory located at Blue Lake in the redwood-covered hills 250 miles north of San Francisco. This small logging town seems an unlikely setting for one of the world's most sophisticated high-energy research laboratories.

Dr. Mason explained how temportation works: small quantities of silver, lead, and other elements are placed beneath a device which directs a high-energy beam and "scans" the object on a principle similar to that used in the ordinary television set. The beam disintegrates the object, and the escaping particles are converted into an electric current.

The electric current then modulates a beam of tachyons (from the Greek word meaning fast), which are recently-discovered subatomic particles traveling faster than the speed of light, and, consequently, having retrograde deterioration. This means, Mason explained, they go backwards in time, as a school of fish might swim upstream.

The tachyon beam, focused upon a high-energy field, supplies the structure, and the energy field provides the material, or electrical building blocks, so that the process is reversed, and the object materializes exactly as it had been, but at a moment earlier in time.

"There is a short period of overlap, when the same object exists simultaneously with itself, in the modes of before and after," Mason told reporters.

"We have not, however, either increased or decreased the total time-presence of the object. We have merely rearranged it," he said.

Several weeks ago Mason and his son completed a series of tests using a precise atomic clock, capable of measuring time to within billionths of a second, the scientist said. The preliminary results indicated that the appearance of the output object preceded the disappearance of the input object by a few thousandths of a second.

By carefully adjusting and modifying the device, the scientists managed to increase the time-lag between appearance and disappearance to about one-third of a second.

"It is a question of capacitance," explained Mason. "By increasing the capacitance of the circuit, we increase the time-lag. With a large capacitance and a small object, the time-lag could theoretically be increased to months or even years.

"Using the maximum capacitance available, that of the earth itself, and an object weighing, say, seventy-five kilograms, the computed time-lag would be approximately one billion seconds, or almost thirty- five years. In other words, the output object would appear thirty-five years before the input.

"This is, of course, all theoretical, and it assumes the existence of a satisfactory electric field thirty-five years ago upon which to focus the tachyon beam."

Mason revealed that construction of a new, enlarged version of the device is almost complete at the Blue Lake laboratory. It will increase the input capacity of the present mechanism a thousandfold.

Mason said that materialization of the output object takes place outside the physical limitations of the machinery and any high- voltage field will suffice. "There are probably a hundred particle accelerators in this country right now that produce a satisfactory field," he said.

Although the temportation process is complex, it takes place so fast that it appears to be instantaneous, the nuclear scientist told newsmen.

In response to reporter's questions, Mason pointed out that the experiments were not "time travel" in the strictest sense of the words, since the original object does not move, but is annihilated, and a new object is formed from new particles.

"But from a scientific point of view, the two objects are identical," Mason said. "The atoms which are the building blocks of each object are absolutely interchangeable, so that the new object, while built of totally new material, is identical with the original object by every known test of science and observation"

When asked if it were possible that animals and even men could someday be transported through time, Mason said that there was no way of knowing until further experimentation was completed. He did not rule out the possibility, however.

Preliminary reports indicate that a substantial segment of the scientific community disputes Mason's method of experimentation and the conclusions he has drawn.

Professor Gilbert Newman, recently retired from his faculty position with the University of California and until then working as a liaison for the Blue Lake project, said it was "preposterous" for Mason to reach such radical conclusions at this early stage. Newman said he would reserve final judgment until after Mason has published his results.

In a related development, the administration of Harvard University confirmed reports that Dr. Charles Aicher, noted molecular biologist, has left his faculty post in Cambridge to join Dr. Mason in Blue Lake.

Aicher, 57, a pioneer in the work of synthesizing amino and nucleic acids, the building blocks of life, announced illness as his reason for abruptly leaving his lecture position.

Today's announcement fueled speculation that the Blue Lake team of scientists is attempting to subject living matter to the temportation process.

MILITARY INTERESTED IN TEMPORTATION

WASHINGTON (API)--The Defense Department today announced it will participate in further research and development of the temportation experiments successfully completed at the Mad River Radiation Laboratory in Blue Lake, California, by a team of scientists headed by Nobel Prize winner Dr. Christian Mason.

According to a spokesman for the Army, which will handle the project, further development of the methods of temportation is necessary before it will have any practical application.

Reporters were told that the military significance of these experiments should not be underrated. "The ability to move weapons and equipment, and even men, instantly from one part of the globe to any other, before trouble develops, could revolutionize modern warfare."

The Army is also interested in the possibility of mass-producing weapons and ammunition by the temportation process.

A sizable allocation of the upcoming defense budget has reportedly been ear-marked for the research and development of strategic applications, it was disclosed.

FATHER OF TIME MACHINE UNDER INVESTIGATION

BLUE LAKE, CA (API)--Nobel Prize winning scientist Dr. Christian Mason, who last month announced successful experimentation in the field of time travel--deemed to be a national security matter--is under investigation for falsifying information in his application for a federal research grant of $20,000 and on numerous other documents, a reliable source in the Defense Department reported.

The official source said that in requesting the grant, Mason gave information concerning his birth, parents, schooling, and other aspects of his life prior to 1945 which is "unverifiable and certainly false".

In the grant application Mason stated that he was born in Richmond, California, in 1924, to parents named George and Martha Mason. The Contra Costa County California records show no such birth and a thorough investigation by government agents has uncovered no trace whatever of Mason's parents, it was disclosed.

Mason also stated that he attended Richmond High School from 1939 until his graduation in 1944, another assertion that could not be substantiated.

The misinformation was also used by Mason in his applications for admission to the University of Chicago in 1946, and the University of California in 1951.

"What is most alarming is the fact that he seems to have appeared out of thin air at Stagg Field in the spring of 1945 with an interest in nuclear physics," said one high Army official. It was at the University of Chicago's Stagg Field that the preliminary work was done which made possible the development of the atomic bomb.

There is speculation that Mason may have been planted as a spy for the German or Soviet governments during the Second World War, and quietly defected to the West.

The earliest verifiable records show that Mason rented a basement apartment on 56th Street near Chicago's south side campus in March of 1945.

During the following year Mason became acquainted with several members of the university scientific community, the most notable being the late Dr. Howard Dixon, who was then working
with Enrico Fermi in achieving the first controlled sustained nuclear reaction.

It was principally on Dixon's strong recommendation that Mason was admitted to the University as an undergraduate in the fall of 1946. Apparently no one at that time checked the accuracy of the information in Mason's admissions application.

Mason received his B.S. in physics in 1950, and that same year was admitted to the University of California at Berkeley for graduate study. He received his Ph.D. in nuclear physics in 1955.

Mason's Ph.D. thesis, based on his research with atomic particles accelerated to within ninety-nine per cent of the speed of light--a study related to Einstein's relativity theory and quantum mechanics--was received as a major contribution by scholars. However, Mason was reportedly much criticized for hypothetical constructions in which he demonstrated the mathematical possibility of
retrograde deterioration, or reverse time, of particles accelerated beyond the theoretical limit of the speed of light.

The foundations for Mason's later experiments with tachyons and time travel were reportedly laid in his Ph.D. thesis.

In 1955 Mason became a lecturer in the physics department at Berkeley, and in 1960 was appointed full professor. He gave up teaching entirely in 1975 to direct the prestigious Mad River Radiation Laboratory located here at Blue Lake, where the scientist devotes himself to further development of the time travel process.

Records show that Mason married one of his students in 1958, the former Beverly Phillips. The Mason's have a son, Christian, Jr., 20, who strongly resembles the graying scientist, and a daughter, Michelle, 17. The family resides within walking distance of the Radiation Laboratory in this quaint, secluded logging town 15 miles northeast of Eureka.

Christian, Jr., is an honor student at Humboldt State University in nearby Arcata, studying physics, and most of his time is taken up assisting his father at the laboratory. Mason's daughter plans to enter Humboldt State in the fall.

Professor Maurice Bloomgarten, who worked closely with Mason prior to suffering a heart attack two years ago, said in a private interview that he felt Mason was the only one who really understands the time-travel project. "If Mason were lost, it would take ten years just to find out what had already been accomplished," he said.

Bloomgarten, perhaps Mason's closest friend outside the laboratory, expressed great respect for the scientist. "He is undoubtedly the brightest and strangest man I've ever known," he said. "Mason works as if he knows what the results are going to be, and his only interest is in verifying his equations. I've never known him to be wrong."

The key to all of Mason's work is apparently written in two red notebooks which the scientist keeps rigorously up-to-date. Even Mason's closest associates are uncertain of the overall significance of the work they are doing, and the scientific community looks forward to the publication of the notebooks, Bloomgarten said.

When asked about the current government investigation, Bloomgarten expressed amusement at the allegations that Mason might have ever been a spy. "And if he was, he was a very poor one. He has certainly contributed more new scientific knowledge to this country than he possibly could have stolen."

Mason reportedly has refused to answer questions put by Army officials investigating the alleged falsifications. No formal charges have as yet been brought, due to the urgent and sensitive nature of the scientist's work.

According to a Defense Department spokesman, Mason continues with his research here under the scrutiny of military police. Due to tight security, none of Mason's associates currently working on the project have been available for comment.

BLUE LAKE SCIENTIST SLAYS SON

Mason Sacrifices Son for Science as Army Watches

EUREKA, Ca. (API)--Controversial scientist and Nobel laureate Dr. Christian Mason has been in the custody of the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department since early yesterday morning, charged with the bizarre slaying of his son, Christian, Jr., who was twenty years old.

On a closed-circuit television system installed without the knowledge of Mason, horrified security police watched as the scientist directed a high-voltage beam of atomic particles at his cooperative son and incinerated him instantaneously.

Military police at the Mad River Radiation Laboratory located in Blue Lake notified the Sheriff's Department. Humboldt County provides police services because Blue Lake is too small to have its own police force.

Mason appeared ashen and confused as he was escorted into Municipal Court by sheriff's deputies late yesterday for arraignment. Accompanied by prominent San Francisco attorney James Whitcomb, Mason entered his plea of innocent to charges of the first degree murder of his son.

Deputy District Attorney Frank Oldsteiner, upon emerging from a viewing of the video tape provided by the Army, told reporters that both father and son seemed to be aware of the consequences of the experiment they were performing, and they solemnly said goodbye to each other just before the deadly power was switched on.

Oldsteiner was appalled that the Army had not intervened and stopped the tragic experiment. "For at least ten minutes before the boy died, it was obvious what they intended to do," he said.

At approximately 7:30 p.m. (Monday) evening Mason and his son entered the private section at the Mad River Radiation Laboratory set aside for temportation research -- the study of time travel -- and they began preparing new and untested equipment for the experiment, Oldsteiner reported.

Security officers routinely activated the closed-circuit television and recording equipment, secretly installed last month when it was discovered that Mason had falsified his early identity. There has been speculation that Mason may have been planted in this country during the Second World War for espionage purposes.

Shortly after 10:00 p.m. Mason told his son that they were ready and the boy abruptly left the room, returning some fifteen minutes later, changed from his laboratory clothes into a pair of brown slacks and a wide-lapel jacket.

A few minutes later Christian, Jr., with the help of his father, positioned himself in the receiving chamber of the new device, which is designed to hurl an object into the past. While his son lay waiting in the machine, Mason carefully rechecked the equipment and handed the fated boy a small leather suitcase.

The two said goodbye to each other, and Mason walked directly to the power switch and administered the lethal beam. In an instant the boy, his clothes, and the suitcase "just disappeared," Oldsteiner said.

Following the tragedy, Mason sat motionless for nearly ten minutes while bewildered security guards notified the sheriff's department. Mason then set about disassembling the apparatus. When sheriff's deputies arrived more than an hour later, the new equipment had been virtually dismantled.

Dr. Malcolm Edwards, allowed by military police to talk to reporters after viewing the video tape of the incident, said that he felt Mason had gone mad. The entire mechanism had been set up in a way totally strange to him, and he had worked closely with Mason over a period of years, he said.

When asked if he felt Mason was trying to send his son back in time, as Mason had done with other non-organic materials, Edwards thought it was "highly unlikely."

Edwards explained that the temportation process involves the destruction of an object and its simultaneous reconstitution at an earlier time. Particles emanating from the destroyed object are projected upon a high-energy field in the past by means of a tachyon beam, which travels backwards in time like a fish swimming upstream. The new, but identical object is created at the place and time the tachyon beam intersects the field.

But last night Mason failed to activate the high-energy electrical field used in all previous temportation experiments, Edwards told reporters.

Early Trial Date Agreed Upon

Yesterday morning a lengthy conference took place in the chambers of assigned Municipal Court Judge Stanley S. Cooper involving Mason's attorney Whitcomb, deputy Oldsteiner, and officials of the Army and Defense Departments. There has been speculation that the federal government might take steps to prevent Mason from being brought to trial due to the tight security that has been clamped upon the entire project.

Just before noon a compromise appeared to have been reached, and Mason was brought into court to enter his plea of not guilty and to waive his right to a preliminary examination before being bound over to the Superior Court for trial.

Mason was immediately taken for arraignment before specially assigned Superior Court Judge LeRoy Clayton, where he again pleaded not guilty and waived his right to be tried by a jury. Judge Clayton set bail at $100,000, despite pleas by Whitcomb for a lower amount.

Trial has been set for next month before Superior Court Judge David Nomellini, who is to be brought in specially from Butte County. The selection of Nomellini and the early trial date appear to be the result of a complex behind-the-scenes agreement between prosecuting attorneys, Whitcomb, and representatives of the Army, who are interested in expediting the trial so that Mason can return to head further development of the temportation project.

Judge Nomellini was reportedly chosen because prior to his study of law he obtained a Ph.D in physics from I.I.T. and is conversant with sophisticated modern developments in that field. It is anticipated that Mason's trial will involve issues in the area of nuclear physics. Judge Nomellini could not be reached for comment.

Following his second court hearing of the day, Mason appeared briefly with his wife Beverly and his seventeen-year-old daughter, Michelle. At the insistence of his attorney, Mason refused to answer questions directly relating to the slaying. When asked how he was feeling, Mason responded that he was afraid. "I suddenly don't know what is going to happen to me," he said.

Mason also stated that he would not be able to raise the bail set by Judge Clayton.

In a related development, a Defense Department spokesman in Washington today announced that the temportation project would be continued without delay by the other scientists involved, and he named Dr. Malcolm Edwards nominal head of the team until Mason's return.

Dr. Edwards was later contacted and explained that Mason's notebooks, which alone contain the key to the project, have disappeared. Edwards speculated that the notebooks may have been inside a suitcase which was destroyed at the time the younger Mason was killed.

Due to tight security, Edwards has been unable to communicate with Mason, and it is reported that Mason refuses to talk to anyone, including Army scientists, about his work. Edwards expressed serious doubts about the ability of the research team to continue in Mason's absence.

Mason is expected to remain in custody pending the trial. He is being guarded by Army security police in a separate section of the Humboldt County jail specially set aside for that purpose.

MASON: SON AND I ARE ONE

Scientist Testifies Under Oath
He Sent Son Back to 1945

EUREKA, Ca. (API)--In the most unusual murder trial of the century, "Dr. Christian Mason testified under oath in his own defense here yesterday that on the evening of August 10 he sent his twenty-year- old son, Christian, Jr., on a trip back in time to Chicago, 1945, where he was to become the elder Christian Mason himself.

In response to his attorney's question, "What did you do to your son?" Mason testified without interruption for nearly an hour before Superior Court Judge David Nomellini at his own trial in which he is charged with the first-degree murder of his son.

"My entire life since 1945 has been devoted to this single task," Mason testified. He told the Court that he had lived through the past three decades twice, first as the son, and then as the father.

"I owe my very existence here today to the success of the experiment on August 10th, and the fact that I am here today is proof that it succeeded, that Christian did not die, because I am still alive today," he testified.

Mason further testified that this was the reason why he had been required to falsify certain records and applications concerning his childhood--presently being investigated by the Defense Department--because he had not in fact lived his childhood "before" his adult life, in terms of calendar years, but simultaneously with it. "To me, though, it all went along in one straight line," he said.

Likening himself to a modern-day Oedipus, Mason testified that in 1957 he sought out his own mother, the former Beverly Phillips, who at the time was one of his students at the University of California at Berkeley, and married her the following year.

Two years later she gave birth to a son, who Mason claims was he himself, and who is the alleged victim at the murder trial.

Mason's wife and seventeen-year-old daughter Michelle were conspicuously absent from the front-row seats specially reserved for them, and they could not be contacted later at the Mason home in nearby Blue Lake.

Responding to a list of questions read to him by his attorney, James Whitcomb, Mason substantiated the technical testimony given the previous day by prosecution witness and former colleague Dr. Malcolm Edwards, but expanded in detail on what actually occurred on the evening of August 10th at the Mad River Radiation Laboratory in Blue Lake.

The younger Mason, together with his clothes, his suitcase, and books, was converted into a beam of faster-than-light tachyons, tiny subatomic particles which go backwards in time, and the beam was focused upon the high-energy field produced by the early atomic scientists at Stagg Field at the University of Chicago in 1945.

Hitting the field with the beam was easy, Mason testified, comparing the task to that of throwing metal darts at a powerful magnet. Precisely where the beam would intersect the field, however, he could not be certain. "It could well have been 1944 or 1946. As a matter of fact it just happened to be February 17, 1945. That's the date I first appeared at Stagg Field," he testified.

Following Mason's direct testimony, the Court called a recess at the request of deputy district attorney Frank Oldsteiner. Oldsteiner and Whitcomb retired to chambers with Judge Nomellini for a lengthy off-record discussion.

On cross-examination, Oldsteiner, who later told reporters he felt that Mason's testimony was the most absurd he had ever heard, asked Mason why he had never revealed his story before now. Mason replied that he had not wanted to do so even now, but he was forced to by the exigencies of his criminal defense.

On further cross-examination, Mason admitted that in the process of converting his son into the beam of tachyons, the "total material and substance" of the youth were "destroyed, annihilated, and disintegrated," so that if it were not for his being sent back in time, it could be said that the boy had ceased to exist.

Prosecution Case Brief

Mason's startling testimony followed what may have been the briefest murder prosecution of modern times. Deputy district attorney Oldsteiner rested his case the previous day after only four witnesses and a closed-door viewing by Judge Nomellini of a video tape of the August 10th slaying.

Starting at 9 a.m. sharp, Oldsteiner made a brief opening statement and called Dr. Malcolm Edwards--one of Mason's colleagues and his successor as project head--to the witness stand to establish that Mason and his son had been working for several years with the high-energy equipment at the Mad River Radiation Laboratory.

On cross-examination, Attorney Whitcomb, with frequent assistance from Mason, questioned Edwards in depth about the technical nature of the equipment being used, and the nature of the experiments being conducted.

Edwards testified under questioning that the younger Mason disappeared as the subject of an experiment which in theory would have sent him back in time, although no preparations had been made for retrieving him.

Oldsteiner also called as witnesses the two Army security officers who watched the slaying live on closed-circuit television, and the Humboldt County sheriff's deputy who made the initial arrest of Mason following the incident. On cross-examination Whitcomb limited his questions to whether any of the witnesses had seen any evidence that the young Mason was in fact dead, to which all witnesses answered in the negative.

Following a late recess, the courtroom was cleared of all but Judge Nomellini, counsel, the defendant, three of the witnesses, and the court reporter, for a viewing of the video tape made by Army security officers of Mason's activities on the evening of the slaying. Due to its security classification, reporters were not allowed to view the tape.

Following the viewing, Oldsteiner rested his case.

Defense Testimony Limited by Court

After Mason's three hours of testimony and a lunch recess, Whitcomb attempted to call a fingerprint expert to testify that the fingerprints of the elder and the younger Mason were identical, but the prosecution objected on the ground that such testimony was irrelevant and immaterial. Following a brief but heated discussion between counsel at the bench, Judge Nomellini sustained the objection, adding that in the present posture of legal and physical science, he was "foreclosed from hearing testimony that two distinct persons existing at the same time are one and the same person."

The same objection, raised later when Mason's attorney attempted to call a dental technician to compare x-rays taken from the mouths of both Masons, was again sustained, with Judge Nomellini commenting: "I'm afraid I cannot allow proof that two different people are one and the same person, because the law unequivocally holds otherwise. If you wish to change the law, you will have to take that up with a higher court or the legislature."

Whitcomb then called biologist Dr. Charles Aicher, who had recently worked with Mason, but his testimony was limited by the Court to the actual effect of the scientific apparatus on living matter. On cross-examination, Aicher admitted that, but for the possibility of a reappearance of the young Mason in the past, the young man was biologically dead.

Apparently frustrated by Judge Nomellini's rulings, Whitcomb surprised the entire courtroom by resting his case, promising to appeal the Court's decision in the event that the judgment should go against Mason.

In his closing argument, Oldsteiner told the Court that as to premeditation--an element that the prosecution must prove for a murder to be first degree--he had never heard of a crime that was more premeditated. By his own testimony, Mason had been planning the act for the past thirty-four years.

The evidentiary phase of the unusual trial was completed, but Judge Nomellini allowed Whitcomb time to research the obscure legal issues and submit a brief of points and authorities to the Court. Oldsteiner will be given additional time to file his reply brief on behalf of the prosecution.

Following yesterday's court session, Gilber Newman, retired colleague and strong critic of Mason who was standing-by as a possible rebuttal witness for the prosecution, said that Mason was in his opinion "either insane, or thinks the Court is full of fools. I honestly don't know which."

A verdict is not expected for several weeks while briefs are being prepared. Mason will apparently remain in custody pending the Court's decision.

In Washington, a Defense Department spokesman admitted earlier that scientists were unable to proceed with Mason's work in his absence.

MASON GUILTY!

Court Verdict of First-Degree Murder; Sentencing Delayed

EUREKA, Ca. (API)--Dr. Christian Mason sat pale and trembling as Superior Court Judge David Nomellini pronounced him guilty as charged of the first-degree murder of his son during an experiment at the Mad River Radiation Laboratory in Blue Lake on August 10, 1979.

The Court's judgment followed last month's short, but bizarre trial in which Mason denied killing the twenty-year-old boy, testifying that he had instead sent the youth back in time to Chicago, 1945, where the boy was to become the elder Christian Mason himself, later marrying his own mother and siring himself as a son.

In briefs and oral argument held last week Mason's attorney James Whitcomb had urged the Court to recognize a legal distinction between "an atomic temportation" and a homicide and requested the Court to reopen the evidence to allow proof that Mason and his son were one and the same person. Whitcomb had unsuccessfully attempted to introduce expert testimony comparing fingerprints and dental records at the time of trial. The Court was not persuaded by the attorney's arguments.

Judge Nomellini's verdict was contained in a lengthy opinion delivered from the bench, in which he explained that he had no choice in the matter because the law as it stands requires a finding of guilty.

"Considering the evidence in the light most favorable to the defendant, we have a case in which this boy, young Mason, entered the laboratory as a warm, living, breathing human being, and through the instrumentality of the defendant, he left, if at all, as no more than a pattern of electrical impulses modulating a collection of atomic particles that are not even universally agreed to exist," Judge Nomellini said. From the biological standpoint, the boy is dead, and from the legal perspective, the boy was killed by Mason, the Judge said.

Philosophical Considerations

The Court's opinion did not limit itself to strictly legal matters. Judge Nomellini stated he was "deeply troubled by the philosophical consequences" of Mason's defense: "If the defendant's account is true, whence came Mason's own genetic material? Who are his biological ancestors? And the red notebooks containing the project notes, allegedly sent back with the boy, caught in a time eddy, forever circling between 1945 and 1979--what of their origin? To accept the defendant's formulation would require us to rethink our most basic understanding of time and the universe, cast out Newton and Einstein, and confront a paradox coiled like a worm at the core of existence. This the Court is not prepared to do."

Agreeing with the prosecution's arguments on premeditation, Judge Nomellini observed that Mason knew, perhaps better than any other living person, the consequences of turning his apparatus upon a living human subject. The Judge therefore felt he could not consider second-degree murder or manslaughter, which would otherwise be proper as lesser included offenses.

Judge Nomellini said that if Mason or his attorney felt wronged by his decision, they should certainly exercise their right of appeal, for the appellate courts have greater freedom in areas of new law.

Finally, the Judge set an appeal bail at $250,000 and delayed sentencing for 30 days. Under California's new determinate sentencing law, Mason could be sentenced to a prison term of twenty-five years to life, unless the prosecution is able to prove special circumstances, in which case he could receive the death penalty or life imprisonment without possibility of parole.

Whitcomb Angry

Defense Attorney Whitcomb was visibly angry following the verdict. "You can bet your life we're going to appeal this one," he later told reporters. "We offered him (Judge Nomellini) positive proof that the victim of the alleged murder was in fact still very much alive, and he refused to consider the evidence or even allow it into the record."

Whitcomb also felt the appeal bond set by the Judge was too high. "If he knows that Mason can't make $100,000, how can he expect him to be able to come up with a quarter of a million?" he said.

Asked whether he had considered insanity as a defense, Whitcomb told reporters that Mason would not permit it. Whitcomb feels the defense used is an adequate one, and he hopes to be vindicated on appeal.

Mason's wife and daughter were again absent from the courtroom, and reporters have been unable to contact them or learn their whereabouts for more than a month.

The Defense Department, which has been awaiting Mason's release to resume command of the temportation project in Blue Lake, had no comment today concerning recent developments. Reliable sources say the Army is considering abandonment of the project, which has come to a standstill in the scientist's absence.

Mason will be returned to court next month for sentencing.

MASON ESCAPES

FBI Searching for Mason and Mysterious Accomplice

EUREKA, Ca. (API)--Humboldt County sheriff's deputies and FBI agents here have mobilized a massive manhunt for convicted murderer Dr. Christian Mason and a mysterious, elderly man, estimated to be in his eighties, who calls himself Mason's father, and who engineered a daring daylight escape yesterday from the maximum security jail located on the top floors of the Humboldt County courthouse where Mason was in custody awaiting sentencing.

The elderly accomplice managed the jailbreak by burning a two-by-three-foot hole in a solid, inch-thick steel door located at the third-floor entrance to the jail. The man held three sheriff's deputies at gunpoint while he convinced Mason, over the objections of Mason's attorney, to accompany him.

The fugitives escaped from the building by descending only to the second floor by elevator, then calmly walking past the District Attorney's office to a seldom used stairwell leading to an exit on Fourth Street. They were last seen driving east in a late model blue-and-white Pinto that had been stolen earlier in the day from an Arcata man.

Despite immediate attempts by police to seal off the courthouse and then to head off the fleeing automobile, Mason and his companion avoided capture, and the escape vehicle was later found abandoned on West End Road near Blue Lake.

Authorities reportedly do not know the present whereabouts of the fugitives, and Mason's wife and seventeen-year-old daughter, both missing since last Tuesday, are suspected of aiding Mason in his flight.

Deputy District Attorney Frank Oldsteiner, who had handled the prosecution of Mason on murder charges, charged that the CIA had a hand in the escape, so that Mason could resume his secret research in time travel for the Army. Late this morning, however, both the CIA and the Army issued statements denying any knowledge of the matter.

Witnesses reported that at approximately 9:20 a.m. yesterday Mason was interviewing with his attorney James Whitcomb in one of the two unlocked interview cells located just off the front desk on the third floor of the jail. The interview cells are under direct view of a desk sergeant and his two deputies, all armed, and the entire jail is cut off from the elevators and stairs to the street level by a heavy steel door which is kept locked at all times.

According to desk sergeant Clifford Boyles, there was a tremendous roar, which sounded like a prolonged explosion. When he looked up, an elderly man stepped through the smoke and pointed a large-caliber revolver at him and his two deputies.

Boyles described the man as about the same height and appearance as Mason himself, but older by at least twenty-five years. Under his left arm he held a device Boyles did not recognize which was apparently used to burn the hole in the door.

The armed man announced that he had come for Mason, who had emerged with his attorney from the interview cell at the sound of the explosion.

Boyles and the deputies were in agreement that Mason and Whitcomb both seemed as surprised as they were at the incident. Authorities later questioned Whitcomb extensively, but they do not believe that the attorney had any prior knowledge of the escape plan.

Mason was at first reluctant to accompany the gunman. According to Deputy Dorothy Probosian, who was also held at gunpoint, Mason asked the man who he was, and he replied that he was Mason's father, and that he had "come back" to get him. Mason responded that he thought he understood.

Attorney Whitcomb tried to dissuade his client from accompanying the armed man, assuring Mason that the court would be lenient in sentencing, but that there would be severe repercussions if he attempted to escape.

Then, according to Probosian, Mason asked the man if they would be caught, and the gunman assured him that they would not. This seemed to satisfy Mason, and the two men departed.

By the time the deputies had recovered and pursued with guns drawn through the new hole in the jail door, the elevator was on its way down.

Witnesses said that after emerging from the building, Mason and his armed companion entered a late-model Pinto and drove east on Fourth Street, with the gunman driving. Although police pursued immediately and set up observation points along all possible routes of escape, the auto was not seen again until it was found an hour later abandoned on West End Road not far from the Mad River Radiation Laboratory in Blue Lake.

The FBI was then called in to assist local authorities, who presumed that the fugitives would be in interstate flight.

Federal authorities seem particularly concerned that Mason may flee the country.

An FBI explosives expert examined the damaged door at the jail and later told newsmen that he had never seen anything like it in all his years of work. The only mechanism he knows that could have quickly burned such a clean hole in the thick steel door was a type of laser gun now undergoing development for the steel industry.

"But it will be years before it has any practical use, and twenty years before it could be made portable enough for a job like this," he said.

In an attempt to learn the identity of the mysterious gunman, investigators have dusted the escape automobile for fingerprints. In another strange development it was learned early this afternoon that although the gunman was seen to enter the driver's side of the auto and drive it away, the only fingerprints to be found on either door handle, or on the steering wheel (besides those of the owner) were unmistakably those of Dr. Christian Mason himself. Experts have not as yet been able to account for this.

When asked whether authorities possessed information which will lead to an early apprehension of the fugitives, a reliable FBI source said that it was only a matter of time.