The time transference module developed last year by Professor Gustave Ravel has been destroyed during a raid on the NPL in the London suburb of Twickenham. The raid, suspected to have been carried out by His Majesty’s Secret Service occurred in the early hours of this morning, when very few resident scientists were still around. A team of four men were involved in the raid, which saw computer systems as well as paper records destroyed. Professor Ravel himself has not been seen since the raid, and is feared dead. The break-in certainly appeared to focus on total destruction of the machinery and its documentation rather than its theft, a theory supported by the disappearance of its inventor.

Professor Ravel

A spokesman for the NPL said today that terrorism had been ruled out: “We have not received any demands or word of any kind from the group responsible, which we would have by now. We believe paranoia of the higher powers have forced the end of this scientific revolution.” This is becoming the latest conspiracy theory of recent years, after similar theories following the deaths of Princess Diana, Jill Dando and Will Smith.

Later on, a man calling himself ‘Nasty Colin’ had claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of Professor Ravel, but this was dismissed as a crank.

Professor Ravel’s assistant, Tim Roper, added “Of course there is very little public knowledge about the TTM” (Time Transference Module), “as news passed on has been cleverly disguised as a serial hoax. This way, we don’t have to keep secrets from the public - they just don’t believe us. And people like Nasty Colin do us a great service in this respect” Roper then tapped his nose, winked and drove off in his Austin Maxi.

Nasty Colin

The demise of the time machine, which DFTFC had exclusive access to means the end of our “Pioneers” series of interviews, although the final two transcripts, yet to be written up will follow shortly. It also means that going back to avert the death of Spunk Monkey following his tussle with a French Revolutionary will be tricky, especially as we brought his head back to use as a paperweight.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that the pod may have automatically tried to displace itself when attacked (as was in the development stage), and that disabling it mid-transference could have caused the creation of certain anomalies by the pod’s warp field generator. It is possible that these may have caused some bizarre side effects. For all we know, the outside world may have been ‘altered’, and although we have no way of knowing for sure, history may have been changed (remember, DFTFC’s expeditions held a non-interference policy, except when we gave that Gameboy to a group of Aborigines in 18th century Australia). Perhaps all the effects of the pod’s travel will be negated? If so, Spunk Monkey could still turn up at some point, smelling of Garlic (though we’re sure he prefers being dead).

Any further developments will be reported as and when they happen, if causality permits it.