1965 was a very long year
Most people know of the short-term memory loss that can be caused by marijuana. Most also know that it can cause long-term memory loss, as well, though in smaller amounts. What isn't generally known is that almost everyone in the world suffered massive long-term memory loss due to marijuana just prior to March, 1965. I don't say February, 1965, because it wasn't. It was during the last of several forgotten years which took place between February and March 1965.
In late 1964, deep sea cartographers found small amounts of alien wreckage from Atlantis. Most of it was immediately taken by the CIA, but some was secretly kept by one of the cartographers and given to Frank Wilkins, an amateur inventor. By February 1965, Wilkins had used the versatile substance to invent a medicine that slowed aging to infinitesimal levels. Because Wilkins qualified as a mad genius, he used his various contacts to construct several generators of the medicine in inhaled gaseous form. He wasn't interested in getting FDA approval, and simply believed he knew what was best for people, so he set up these generators around the world, until the medicine had permeated the atmosphere.
One year after Wilkins had invented his miracle drug, the CIA realized it meant they couldn't keep the Atlantean technology secret, and released it to the general public. Once it was in the public's hands, one of the first creations, by a professor at MIT, was successful cold fusion. With the advent of clean, cheap power, other technological miracles started popping up. Ford Motor Company created the first wingless flying cars two years after the substance was made public. Genetic experiments also started in serious fashion, and a group at the University of Washington gave a group of gorillas greater mental and physical capabilities. Due to their newly heightened intelligence, the gorillas escaped, and became the Sasquatch of myth.
3 years after Wilkins made his life extending drug, it was an election year. Lyndon Johnson won over Richard Nixon with approximately 57% of the popular vote. The Vietnam War was still going, but wasn't as hot an issue as it would later become. In fact, a side effect of Wilkins' drug was that hostility was lessened, so the Vietnam War slowed to a crawl. This side effect is also why the USSR did not attack the USA for secretly having put some of the drug's generators inside their borders, even if it was private citizens who did that.
Unfortunately, the lessened aggression was not the only side effect of the drug. Another was noticed six years after it had been spread around the world, specifically that it brought fertility rates down to zero. Many groups the world over reacted with outrage when this was discovered, but Wilkins had already suffering from such dementia that he could no longer do anything about it. Worse still, he had left only minor notes, leaving most of his research in his own mind, so nobody was able to duplicate or alter his designs. Finally, one group decided to take matters into their own hands. Eight years after Wilkins' generators had been put into place, the group Humans Interested in Procreation created a biological weapon based on cannabis and the Atlantean material. This weapon was designed to destroy all of the Atlantean material it came into contact with, and thanks to technological advances in the past eight years, they were able to put it into a bomb that, when detonated, covered the whole planet with the weapon.
And so it did, on February 28th, eight years after aging had been made obsolete. However, as with so many other creations with the Atlantean material, this one had a side effect. Here, the side effect was massive long-term memory loss. Eight years of it, to be precise. The HIPies were affected the worst, being the closest to the blast. Some of them all but lost the ability to gain new memories, while others had complete personality shifts, and started buying condos and playing the stock market. However, the whole world was affected by the blast, and nobody remembered what had happened over the past eight years, but at the same time, due to the lack of aging, there wasn't much evidence that eight years had passed.
Ford's flying cars stopped flying without the Atlantean material, but still worked as regular cars, and became the classic Ford Mustang. Further, all cold fusion generators stopped working as anything more than paperweights. Physicists who were alive at the time have since had vague feelings that they've had cold fusion work before, which is why they keep trying at it. The only real records of the eight years are diaries and the like, almost all of which were collected by the CIA, KGB, MI5, and other intelligence agencies.
There is one invention created from the Atlantean material which works without the material, and still operates to this day. But that is a source of another article.
In late 1964, deep sea cartographers found small amounts of alien wreckage from Atlantis. Most of it was immediately taken by the CIA, but some was secretly kept by one of the cartographers and given to Frank Wilkins, an amateur inventor. By February 1965, Wilkins had used the versatile substance to invent a medicine that slowed aging to infinitesimal levels. Because Wilkins qualified as a mad genius, he used his various contacts to construct several generators of the medicine in inhaled gaseous form. He wasn't interested in getting FDA approval, and simply believed he knew what was best for people, so he set up these generators around the world, until the medicine had permeated the atmosphere.
One year after Wilkins had invented his miracle drug, the CIA realized it meant they couldn't keep the Atlantean technology secret, and released it to the general public. Once it was in the public's hands, one of the first creations, by a professor at MIT, was successful cold fusion. With the advent of clean, cheap power, other technological miracles started popping up. Ford Motor Company created the first wingless flying cars two years after the substance was made public. Genetic experiments also started in serious fashion, and a group at the University of Washington gave a group of gorillas greater mental and physical capabilities. Due to their newly heightened intelligence, the gorillas escaped, and became the Sasquatch of myth.
3 years after Wilkins made his life extending drug, it was an election year. Lyndon Johnson won over Richard Nixon with approximately 57% of the popular vote. The Vietnam War was still going, but wasn't as hot an issue as it would later become. In fact, a side effect of Wilkins' drug was that hostility was lessened, so the Vietnam War slowed to a crawl. This side effect is also why the USSR did not attack the USA for secretly having put some of the drug's generators inside their borders, even if it was private citizens who did that.
Unfortunately, the lessened aggression was not the only side effect of the drug. Another was noticed six years after it had been spread around the world, specifically that it brought fertility rates down to zero. Many groups the world over reacted with outrage when this was discovered, but Wilkins had already suffering from such dementia that he could no longer do anything about it. Worse still, he had left only minor notes, leaving most of his research in his own mind, so nobody was able to duplicate or alter his designs. Finally, one group decided to take matters into their own hands. Eight years after Wilkins' generators had been put into place, the group Humans Interested in Procreation created a biological weapon based on cannabis and the Atlantean material. This weapon was designed to destroy all of the Atlantean material it came into contact with, and thanks to technological advances in the past eight years, they were able to put it into a bomb that, when detonated, covered the whole planet with the weapon.
And so it did, on February 28th, eight years after aging had been made obsolete. However, as with so many other creations with the Atlantean material, this one had a side effect. Here, the side effect was massive long-term memory loss. Eight years of it, to be precise. The HIPies were affected the worst, being the closest to the blast. Some of them all but lost the ability to gain new memories, while others had complete personality shifts, and started buying condos and playing the stock market. However, the whole world was affected by the blast, and nobody remembered what had happened over the past eight years, but at the same time, due to the lack of aging, there wasn't much evidence that eight years had passed.
Ford's flying cars stopped flying without the Atlantean material, but still worked as regular cars, and became the classic Ford Mustang. Further, all cold fusion generators stopped working as anything more than paperweights. Physicists who were alive at the time have since had vague feelings that they've had cold fusion work before, which is why they keep trying at it. The only real records of the eight years are diaries and the like, almost all of which were collected by the CIA, KGB, MI5, and other intelligence agencies.
There is one invention created from the Atlantean material which works without the material, and still operates to this day. But that is a source of another article.