[1] Periodically the planet Venus passes so exactly between our Earth and the sun that the planet is outlined against the sun's disc and may be seen crossing it slowly as a small, black dot. These events, known as transits, are quite infrequent, occurring in duos of eight years, separated by longer intervals alternating between 105 and 122 years.
Transits of Venus occurred in 1874 and 1882, in 2004 and 2012 A.D. That observed by Dr. Gary Lane and Flick Muldoon was apparently the transit of June 11, 2247 A.D.—Ed.
[2] Sir James Jeans' view of the cosmic rays is that they are causing the material universe to dissolve into radiation. "The whole of the available evidence," he writes, "seems to me to indicate that the change is, with possible insignificant exceptions, forever in the same direction—forever solid matter melts into insubstantial radiation, forever the tangible changes into the intangible ... there can be but one end to the universe ... the end of the journey cannot be other than universal death!"—Sir James Jeans: The Mysterious Universe.
[3] Out of the bloody conflict of the Anarchist Rebellion (2197-2208 A.D.) was born, at long last, the Terrestrial World Union. National boundaries were broken down, racial cliques and prejudices were abandoned, and Earth became one single community speaking a single language. The World Council, an electoral body seated in Geneva, Unit 44a (once the Republic of Switzerland), governed planetary trade, politics and practices.—Ed.
[4] The Bog: spaceman's term used to designate the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter.—Ed.
[5] Early investigators were unable to discern any one particular sector of space from which the mysterious cosmic rays seemed to emanate. The painstaking research of Larson T. Marquart (2034-92 A.D.) and Thompson Blaine (2041-99) subsequently determined, however, the point of heaviest emanation as being from that sector of space in which is found the Dog Star, Sirius (Canis Major).—Ed.
[6] Muldoon here ignores the two much earlier experimental rockets which left Earth in 1942 ... that of Dr. Frazier Wrenn from Arizona and that of Doktor Erich von Adlund from Berlin. (See Amazing Stories, Dec. 1939.) Since both these rocket flights came to disastrous end, the history of rocket travel really begins with the launching of the Wentworth-Kroll ship, Primus, in September, 1973.—Ed.
[7] Such records do exist in Earthly legends. In many parts of the world may be found folk-tales concerning "blue-skinned" gods who brought to this planet the benefits of civilization.—Ed.
[8] "The Kuugla of the Martian outlanders is vaguely similar to the bola of Earth's Polynesian tribesmen, being a length of fine hemp weighted at one extremity with three barbed hooks. When thrown by an expert, the kuugla wraps itself about the body of its victim, the barbs sinking into his flesh while the rope coils itself about his body, stifling any movement.... The traal of the Eros guards is somewhat like the boomerang used by early Australian bushmen, except that it is shaped more like a swastika, each blade being honed to a razor edge. An accomplished "traalul" (or "traal-thrower") can decapitate an enemy at two hundred yards with this weapon ... and make the traal return to his feet for another casting."—Excerpt from: A Survey of Tribal Weapons, Stellar Institute Press, 2208 A.D.—Ed.
[9] Gog and Magog: according to the old Erse records, these were the names of two races which waged a tremendous warfare ages ago ... the conclusion of which conflict was "the loss of Magog and the banishment of Gog."—Ed.