7 August 2023

As today is my 33rd birthday, it is time for me to reflect on my life and my choices. As I think about the past 10 or so years and the last 5 in particular, it occurs to me that I am an exact replica of my two parent’s personalities and capabilities. My Dad, B. Stafford, was the only son of hippies that left San Francisco in the early 70’s to start a new life in Weed, in Northern California. At the time Weed was a small town of 3,000 people. I suspect they thought the town name had a different meaning. Dad was named B. by his parents, because as they told him, “A. was taken”. Born in 1966, Dad grew up working nights and weekends in his parents’ corner store. He was disciplined and hard working. By the time he was ready for college his parents’ health was fading. The drugs no doubt, had taken their toll. Rather than moving south to a Nationally recognized University, he stayed in Weed to look after his parents. He studied Accounting at “College of the Siskiyous”, a small local state college. After graduation he commenced work as an Intern in a local accounting practice. Within a few months of his starting work, both his parents had died. Heart attacks. In early 1989, Dad sold the store that he had inherited and set out to travel the world to find himself. It was his one adventurous journey.

My mum was the only daughter of two factory workers in the old East Germany. Her name was Stella Stern, Stella meaning brilliant and the family name Stern meaning star. It was a prophetic name in many ways, ways that I am still discovering. Mum met Dad at the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989. Mum was 17 and still in High School but she was a dreamer and wanted to escape and see new worlds. She used to tell me that I was conceived that night. Given my birth date of 7 August 1990, she was probably correct. As the wall fell, they escaped to the west and never looked back. It was soon obvious that she was pregnant with me. Somehow Dad was able to bring her back to the US. Immigration was laxer in those days. They returned to Weed as that was all that dad knew. He started working back at the same small accounting practice and we settled into small town USA family life. They had named me Lucia, a name derived from the Latin word Lux meaning light or illumination. An only child, I was the light in their life.

Mum never finished High School however she was brilliant in her own way. A little crazy at times but always reading, studying, learning. I was lucky, I inherited her brains and his discipline and structure. A few years after I was born the World Wide Web was launched. That was when mum started doing her “research”. “Eric Weisstein’s World of Science” was her favourite. It was an extensive collection of articles and research about Physics, Astronomy, and a wide range of scientific disciplines. I still remember her reading articles about space to me as a young child as I drifted off to sleep.

Growing up in Weed was as uneventful as it sounds. Dad died from a heart attack in 2004. He had inherited a heart condition. Fortunately, I did not receive the gene that he was given by one or more likely both his parents. Thanks mum, I owe you one. Dad was cautious with money. Mum and I were able to survive despite his passing. I stayed busy at school. Mum stayed busy with her research and her research group. I felt it better not to ask.

I excelled at school and received a full scholarship to CalTech to study Quantum Physics. I graduated with honours and undertook a PHD focusing on the interactions of particles in condensed matter systems. Upon obtaining my doctorate I accepted a role at CalTech as a Postdoctoral Researcher. That is when I discovered the horrors of Academic life for female researchers.

Even though my work was unique and, in many ways, ground-breaking I was consistently overlooked for promotion and lectureships. The microaggressions from male peers and supervisors were constant but subtle and hard to prove. The bias in winning grants was always difficult to overcome. I am convinced that the paucity of citations from male researchers held back my career in many ways. However, I loved the intellectual nature of the work. Against my better judgement, I persisted.

It was during my summer break in 2018 that I received the call that my mother had disappeared. I returned to Weed as quickly as I could. As I drove in the front gate of the family home I was greeted by an older male and his two female companions. They were deeply concerned about the research that my mother was doing. They insisted that it not be lost. I had no idea what they were referring to. As far as I knew she read articles and papers online, but she was not undertaking any real research. I assured them that I would make sure that nothing was destroyed and that if I could not find my mother, I would let them collect her research. They reluctantly left me for the night.

I spoke to the Weed Police however the details about my mother’s disappearance were scant. It was the older male that had reported her missing. She had not turned up to a couple of meetings that they regularly held. That was unusual and out of character, so he reported her missing to the police. No bag had been packed, nothing had been stolen from the house and her long-expired passport was still at home. There was no clue to her whereabouts.

I still had a few weeks before I was due back at work. I just had to do what I could to find her. My mum had been so important to me in the years after Dad died. She had been the rock that I leaned upon for guidance and emotional support. I had inherited her brains so maybe we had some sort of secret connection. A link that would allow me to find her when others couldn’t.

The concern about my mum’s research had me intrigued. What was the significance and why were they so insistent that it be saved. I started sifting through my mother’s papers in what was my dad’s old home office. His work had long been tossed and the room was filled with journal’s, scientific papers and internet printouts. It was chaos but there was a unique order to the chaos. An order only my mum could have brought to life.

The volume of information was huge. It was mostly on subject matters with which I was familiar. Space, astronomy, alternate dimensions, particle physics, quantum effects. There also was a range of items that could loosely be called “internet craziness”. I knew my mother was brilliant. She had made notes on everything that she had collected and had developed what appeared to be several well thought through theories about the structure of the universe and dimensions in space. It has long been postulated that there are other hidden dimensions in space and her ideas were fascinating to say the least. I read till 5am when tiredness finally took over and I wandered off to sleep in my old room. It was the one thing that had not changed.

I was woken the following day by a loud banging at the door. It was the elderly gentleman that had greeted me the previous afternoon. He was alone this time. He apologised for waking me so early even though it was clearly late morning or possibly early afternoon. He asked if he could speak to me. He seemed harmless so I let him in.

He explained that he and my mother were members of an undercover group that were trying to reveal the secrets of the universe. They believed that there were many undiscovered dimensions to the universe that were in fact reflections of the light from the core of the universe. They characterised each dimension as the reflection from a Disco Ball. Each dimension was a variation of the other dimensions. They were convinced that travel between dimensions was not only possible but that it was happening. I had goose bumps as he explained what they knew and what they thought might be true. The potential for Government interference in their research was clearly immense therefor they kept their research secret. My mother was their lead researcher. Everything he said aligned with what I had read in my mother’s notes the previous evening. I knew she was brilliant, but this was altogether dazzling. The Disco Ball analogy was not lost on me.

What he said next left me stunned. He wanted me to take my mother’s place. He had spent the previous evening researching my work at CalTech and was impressed with my research. He told me that I was probably the only person qualified that they could trust with their research. They had some funding, and they would pay me what they could. They wanted me to remain in Weed as much of their work was based around the nearby Mt. Shasta.

Before I could think I said yes. I wanted to find my mother. Without hesitation he welcomed me to The Disco Ball Research and Investigation Society or DBRIS.

The past 5 years have been challenging. CalTech have asked me to return multiple times. They told me that I am wasting my gift, that I need to return to the fold. They have no idea about the depth of the work that I am doing nor the progress that I have made. I am very close to understanding the underlying Quantum processes involved in transferring between dimensions and I believe that the theoretical underpinnings are not only valid, but they are also provable.

Norman, the elderly Gent that I first met passed away 2 years ago. I was promoted to his position as the International Director of DBRIS after his passing. I have not yet found my mother. I do believe that I am closer than ever to finding her. I truly believe that she is out there, wherever there is, still alive and trying to return to me. Finding her is now my life’s work.

DBRIS has now reached a turning point. We need more detail about the signal transmissions that come in dreams. We need to read them and measure them as they happen. We need to find their source. We know that more people have disappeared. We know that people have come here from other dimensions. Our secrecy has hindered our ability to find these individuals. At my insistence, we recently made the decision to go public. My fervent hope is that finding these lost souls will provide the missing key to the mystery of The Disco Ball and open travel to alternate dimensions.

Eric Weisstein’s World of Science:https://scienceworld.wolfram.com/