October 31st, 2186

Staff of the London Intelligencer

Halloween became quite a bit more grisly today when a highly placed scientist who worked for Sir Dr. Passivant delivered photos of early failed teleportation experiments that took place at the Entanglement Research lab in 2155. In these three photos, which can be viewed online [see end of article for link to images], document the failed transmission of a pig, a gorilla and a human.

The photos show massive deformities and wounding, the exact cause of which is currently unknown but more resemble a horror film than sterile lab photography.

The teleportation system has been in wide use since 2182. When asked about this development, ITOA spokesperson Mari Selodon, said "We were not apprised of this early development, but the safety record of the teleportation system has been exemplary. Currently there are over 55000 teleportation trips a day and we expect that number to increase with our Local Teleportation initiatives, and I assure you that teleportation is safe. People should not worry about some event, no matter how grisly, that happened over 30 years ago. The teleportation network is the safest way to travel ever developed."

Sir Dr. Passivant, who ran the pioneering group that discovered how to accomplish teleportation, had only this to say: "Regarding the animals, we always made it clear that we had tested the system on animals first, well before human trials began. As to the human, it's not something that I can comment extensively on. He was an intern we had working on the project. He was in charge of placing and keeping the animals on the teleportation transmission platform, and from what we discerned later, he had taken the place of a gorilla."

"Our records of the internal investigation showed the he was eager to be the first man teleported, too eager." ERL oversight head Dr. Jeremy Stableford said. When asked why it took 31 years for this to come to light, he only said, "I don't know, that was before my time."

When asked about Mr. Kellogg's death, his sister, speaking for the family, said, "While we don't see any reason to think that the ERL lab has lied, we do not believe that Tom would be so reckless. They did show us once the security videos from the lab, which show Tom taking the place of the gorilla, but we can't believe that he did this out of some strange vain desire to become the Neil Armstrong of teleportation, and before you ask he had no compunction about the use of animals to test the teleportation systems."

When asked why they had not alerted the public earlier, she answered, "He believed the work being done at the lab was very important and had the potential to utterly change humanity for the better. We knew that to release details of his death would deal a fatal blow to the project he believed so much in, so we kept our grief private."

The online text of this dispatch can be found here: http://rekonstruction.com/topics.html?topic=2186tele

The images can be found here:

Failed Pig Teleportation
Failed Ape Teleportation
Failed Human Teleportation