Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

enemy. That was followed by confusion and some spinning motion as if the space ship was
disintegrating. He had me go through it again and the effects of the experience subsided a lot.
"Good," he said, "very good." That was it.
'I went up on the deck and felt the fear and terror in my stomach just disappear. I suddenly felt very
able, very competent to tackle anything that came along. Next morning I had to take the ship from
one side of La Goulette harbour to the other for re-fuelling, then pick up a pilot to take us out. I
thought he would come out and help. No way. I saw him open the curtains of his cabin for a
moment, smile to himself a little bit, then close them. I thought, "The old sod isn't even going to give
me a hand."'[3]
A few hours out of La Goulette, on an easterly course towards Sicily, steam began pouring from the
hatches over the engine room. Cabbie Runcie, the ship's chief engineer, who was the only 'wog'
(the Scientologist's name for a non-Scientologist) on board, appeared on the bridge wiping his
hands with an oily rag to announce that a piston ring in the high-pressure cylinder had blown and
that they would have to stop for repairs. Runcie was nearly seventy years old, a bald, toothless,
taciturn, pipe-smoking Scot who preferred to keep his own counsel and Hubbard was both
surprised and irritated by his temerity, particularly as he was a 'wog'. The Commodore ordered
Hana to stay on course at the same speed, whereupon Runcie disappeared down the steps to the
engine room muttering, 'This is madness, this is stupidity.' It was his only recorded comment on
the entire voyage.
Steam was still pouring from the engine hatches when the Avon River dropped anchor off the little
fishing port of Castellammare on the north coast of Sicily. Thoroughly unconcerned by the banging
and swearing from the engine room, Hubbard gathered a small group on the deck and pointed out
their next objective - an old watch tower just visible on a high promontory overlooking the harbour.
He decreed that the search should take place under cover of darkness and at dusk that evening the
search party set out in a rubber dinghy to reconnoitre the watch tower.
They returned several hours later in a state of high excitement, having registered strong readings
on a metal detector in one corner of the watch tower. The following night another expedition was
mounted, this time armed with shovels. The crew of the Avon River waited with nerves on edge, but
there was no brass-bound chest in the bottom of the dinghy when it bumped against the side of the
ship - the rocky foundations of the watch tower had proved too much for shovels. Hubbard, who
appeared quite as disappointed as everyone else, said he did not think it was worth wasting any
more time at the site. He promised to send the Enchanter back at a later date to find the owner of
the land and negotiate its purchase in order to conduct a thorough excavation.
From Sicily, the Avon River sailed across the Straits of Messina to the 'toe' of Italy, anchoring off the
barren, rocky coastline of Calabria, which had been Hubbard's territory when he was a tax collector
at the time of the Roman empire. Not an entirely honest tax collector, however, for he said he had
hidden gold in sacred stone shrines along the coast, figuring that they were less likely to be
vandalized.
Two small boats were put ashore with search parties, but none of the shrines could he found. The
Avon River steamed up and down the coast while look-outs swept the shore with binoculars, but
still to no avail. Hubbard concluded that the coast had been eroded and the shrines washed into
the sea, along with all his hidden gold.
There was, nevertheless, a palpable aura of anticipation building up on board the Avon River for
everyone knew the climax of the mission was still to come - a visit to a secret space station on the