Quatrain 6, Century 8. "Where ivory towers meet the eastern sea Young trees of knowledge will fall crushed by the thorny vine of a red rose."

If Crazy Eddie's right, Nostradamus' idea of an ivory tower is here at the National Institute of Applied Mathematics in Boston, Massachussetts. A young Einstein named Ted Eichmann dropped dead with bubbles in his blood, like he's a can of soda someone shook too fast.

Word on campus had it he was working on a government project. The program needed a new boy wonder. Looks like I finally made it to college. Mom would've been proud.

Crazy Eddie wired me up with a microphone and earpiece so I could play genius to all the real geniuses. I fooled them with Eddie's help and made the grade. They told me we were working on a "communications satellite system." I didn't buy it. With the level of secrecy surrounding the project, I was betting this project was far more dangerous than anyone was letting on.

Quatrain 45. Century 3. "The trickster seeds the mind with paralyzing terror Bearing false witness to the bitter truth at hand."

I've seen the bitter truth. The aliens are here, among us, laying the ground work for a massive invasion to come. Crazy Eddie believed this Nostradamus quatrain suggested alien interference in a most unlikely place, an alien abduction therapy group.

I went to meet Dr. Rita Hagen, a nationally known expert on "alien abductions," thanks to the huge success of her best-selling book Sexual Contact: True Stories of Alien Contact. Were the patients at Hagen's clinic really abducted? Or was somebody trying to cover up the bitter truth?

That's why I journeyed to Hagen's group, in the '65 Mercury I bought for 300 bucks at a junkyard. After 43 days on the run, I could've used a good shrink.

Quatrain 32, Century 9: "The fish that travels land and sea will be cast up on shore by a great wave And pestilence from the sky will drive multitudes into the ocean".

I seek them. I hunt them. I will stop them. Since my crusade began, I've destroyed an alien cloning lab, ruined their disinformation campaign to discredit alien existence, and taken down a cult that sought an alien salvation.

But the trail was growing cold. For three weeks, Crazy Eddie had been studying Nostradamus quatrains to lead us to the aliens. The only lead he found was a newspaper clip about a farm in Indiana claiming to have a large mouth bass that breathed on land. It seemed to fit with the quatrain.

Eddie thought I was wasting my time going after a fish, but I had him make up some snappy credentials for me as a tabloid reporter for the World Standard News anyway. I thought it was time to go fishing.

Quatrain 42, Century 6. "The dark craft shall slay the dragons, conjured by the humble raven. Justice shall be blind to history, until windswept leaves return to the barren tree".

This Nostradamus quatrain brought me to Salem, Oregon, where high school cheerleader, Diana Black, was charged with multiple first-degree murders. She killed three prominent Salem citizens with poisoned cookies, a helluva fundraiser for the cheerleading squad. Diana claimed to be a witch... I came to see if her dark powers were of the alien variety. The defense needed an investigator, so Crazy Eddie created the credentials, and guess who got the job? It was time to see what was brewing!

"Their doom was sealed at the gate, steel chariots vanished in still clear nigh. Glorious terrain left undefended, 'till the river changes course".

What did this Nostradamus quatrain have to do with Ash Grove, Missouri, a small Midwestern town that billed itself as "Hot Rod Heaven?" Crazy Eddie heard the news of the mysterious disappearance of one Jason Coleman, drag-racer and car mechanic, who vanished as he crossed the finish line.

Was the disappearance of Jason Coleman and his Corvette part of an alien experiment? With some bogus credentials from the Transportation Safety Board, I was gonna find out. Gentlemen, start your engines.

Aliens conduct secret experiments in an abandoned hospital.

- - -

Quatrain 12, Century 5. "Where angels touch grace / One without sight sees the dark enemy / At the right hand of the twice-blessed man / The ally leads him to the summit".

I'm fighting against an enemy nobody sees or wants to believe exists. I'm getting to the point where I'm not sure why I was doing this – waging a war that I seemed doomed to lose. I was thinking of giving up the fight. Nostradamus predicted I'd find an ally where angels touch grace. Eddie and I thought that might be a reference to Grace General Hospital in Los Angeles. I needed to find that ally.

Foster arrives in a town where it has been raining for two years.

- - - Quatrain 64, Century 8. "The slayer flees to the shadow of Olympus / Where a mother' s tears wash away ties to Rome / Fear extracts vain sacrifice / Until the raging pyre of the deluge is quenched".

The Olympus that Nostradamus foresaw was Olympia, Washington, where convicted mass murderer Glenn Harris had escaped from police custody three weeks earlier. I pegged Harris as the "slayer" from the quatrain, and figured "the shadow" of Olympia laid just to the east... in a small lumber town called Athlone. That's where I hoped a mass murderer would lead me to aliens.

Foster poses as a record executive to investigate a band whose music inspires violence.

- - - Quatrain 30, Century 4: "Where iron chariots are forged / The sweet youth cries revolt over a bitter melody / The poisoned song taints mind and soul / Spread by air across the land' s tears washes away ties to Rome / Fear extracts vain sacrifice until the raging pyre of the deluge is quenched".

Seemed like Nostradamus' "iron chariots" might've been a reference to Detroit, Michigan the Motor City. A mob of teen-agers had made headlines when they assaulted two officers at an underground club. With both cops listed in critical condition, parents blamed a local band called Sonic War for inciting the violence. I knew if the aliens were involved, this was about a lot more than rock-n-roll.