If you are reading this, then this transmission was a success. But I’m afraid I have no way to judge whether the transmission went through or not, apart from a vague memory of such a message having been received sometime before my tenure at the university deciphering labs.
   Now doesn’t that sound crazy? I send a message, and then I have a vague memory of it being received. That’s because I’m sending it backwards in time — by about 8000 years. But the great length of time is not why the memory is so vague. It’s vague because I didn’t take any interest in the message, as it was assumed to be a prank. The person who received had left before I began my time there. He sent it to be published as a science fiction novel, and I’m not a reader of science fiction. After experiencing the real thing, most of the fiction bores me. Also, I had no idea that it was, in fact, I who was the writer of it — thankfully, as that would have been a disaster. My friend, Father Anselmo, found a copy of the book once, but he heeded the warning (herein implied) to, under no condition, allow a copy to get anywhere near me nor anyone else named in this book. Good job, Anselmo. (He only told me this after reading the main body of this manuscript)
   Now, I’m not going to tell you how I sent this message. You, on twentieth and twenty-first century earth would wreak havoc on history, and that is strictly forbidden. Suffice to say, there’s a way to send messages, but it’s impossible to actually travel backwards in time.
   Now you know why, even though it comes from a distant future time, from ‘a galaxy far, far away’ (to quote from the popular film of your age), you’ve received this message in twentieth century English. This isn’t, after all, Star Trek, where everyone in the universe speaks English with a American mid-west accent. The other messages you intercept with the help of your radio telescopes, you’ll never decipher. They’re not meant for you. They are in highly structured languages totally unknown on Earth, such as Nithzee, and Safa-nephilit. Some were spoken by some of the earliest humans, but have long fallen into disuse. Safa-nephilit, as the Hebrew name implies, is actually spoken by the nephilim, or ‘pre-humans.’ These languages are much more highly structured than any language presently spoken on Earth. It took me one hundred years just to master three languages. On the other hand, many space people know three or four ‘Earth’ languages, such as English, Chinese, Spanish, French, Latin, Classical Greek, and a surprisingly high number — Hebrew.
   The early humans were really quite ‘high-tech’, due partly to help from the pre-humans. Unfortunately, that hasn’t necessarily been good for the human race, as the nephilim are generally a bad bunch. In fact, unbeknown to most of those reading this, you are now in midst of a war between the nephilim and the more benevolent malachim over the future of the human race. This war doesn't seem so obvious to you right now, because most of you don't know what it’s like not to be in a war of this nature. You would only notice it if you were to spend some time in a period of ‘peace’. Then, it would become obvious to you that you were, in fact, in a war. Another reason it doesn’t seem obviously a war is that at times this is fought in much the same way as another conflict that happened in your general time period, called the ‘Cold War’. During the period shortly following your receiving of this message, the facts of this war will become more obvious.
   Even now, after many long periods of peace, this war is still being fought. If you receive this transmission, that will represent a major victory for my own command post. However, that is a subject for a different transmission. This one concerns a much more strategic battle, which occurs in during your time. You must determine the outcome.
   But, you say, isn’t this war, as seen from my point of view already over and done with? Why, then, am I concerned with a battle supposedly fought and won millenniums before my time?
   Suffice it to say that the more one learns and experiences of time and chronology, the less obvious these factors become.
   You must prepare well for this war if you are to come out on the winning side. The challenge is not so much that the war be won by the right side, but that one maintain one’s position as being firmly on the side which must win, which is what I failed to do.
   For that reason, I’ve been granted permission — you could almost say, commissioned — to send this message. They said it would serve as a word of warning. Indeed, I wish I could have received this warning myself, but the one condition I was given was that I must not under any condition, send it to myself. That would complicate my own past. Therefore, I must target it for a period other than my tenure at the deciphering labs. That, I’ll do with the help of my vague memory, and from Father Anselmo.
   I do hope you receive this transmission in its completeness. There is much more to follow. In case you didn’t get it all, it will be repeated every day at the same time for as long as the Earth is on this side of the sun this year. That should be plenty of time. I expect that this transmission will have been received by several receiving stations in a number of countries.
   When you do receive the full text of this message, please submit it to a publishing house. I suppose not enough people will take this book seriously enough to actually make a difference in world history. To most of you, this is no more than science fiction. Some of you, born later perhaps, will live long enough to find out differently. For those wise enough to receive it, it’s a word of personal warning. If received as such, it shouldn’t really matter if this is science fiction or a true story.
    Back in your century, they said that science fiction is simply scientific technology written about before hand. Well, here I am, thousands of years later, simply writing my life story!
   Anyway, read — and enjoy.