They had all been surprised by what the 'Voice from the sky' had said. He had said that the 'Magical World' had been built by their ancestors 6000-7000 years ago and two of their civilizations had been destroyed, since then, that too in nuclear battles.
The voice seemed to have an opinion that the Earthlings had a habit of destroying things and they should not mess up with anything in this Magical World.
The voice had suggested that they talk to the Old man before they touched anything. An extremely opinionated person, he seemed to be, to think they had butterfingers!
They had pondered who he was? He was definitely not God? They were of the opinion that this entire place was a trick. Everything seemed to be fishy. The sky being dome-shaped and the gap in between the two portions of the night sky and the day sky was indeed strange. The fact that he had said it was made by the ancestors meant it was manmade.
So, they all went to meet the Old man. No one wanted to sit around on the grass waiting. After a short walk, they found the Old man sitting in front of his hut cleaning vegetables to probably cut them later. They greeted him. The Old man was really Old. He was wearing a white gown and had long curly hair as well as a long curly white beard. He seemed to have very kind eyes.
The Old man was very happy to see them. He had not seen any human being for a long time. Of Course, he had met the Orbs that had come for the crystals to add to their machines. But he had mostly met lots of Aliens who came in their spaceships from the gap in the sky.
He acknowledged their greetings and wanted to know why they had come, and that to children of Earthlings. The children had informed him that they wanted more crystals for the hypnotizing machines.
He told the children that the Orbs had come earlier and had used their minds to process the crystals to fit into the slots of their hypnotizers. He also told them that no Earthlings had come here since the last one who came 4000 years ago when their 2nd civilization was undergoing a great war in which nuclear weapons were also used. Upon being asked the children told him that the present year was 2019. So they were visiting after 4000 years had passed.
He asked if the parents or grandparents knew about this magical world that was created by their ancestors a long long time ago. The children informed him that they were learning about this world from him only. They were not aware that their ancestors had possessed this sort of knowledge and technology at that time.
The children asked him whether he was alone or there were others. He informed them that they were also Earthlings who had stayed here to handle things. But they got amalgamated with this world and their generations stayed on to look after this world. The knowledge they possessed was from those times and was much more advanced than the 3rd civilization which had developed on Earth.
His task and that of his descendants was to advise people who came here.
Aliens were the regular visitors and the people here did not have weapons to ward off the Evil Aliens and since there is nothing in this world to hold their attention, the Aliens just visit, enjoy themselves and leave.
The rock curtain that the Earthlings had used to come through was a 'portal'. It had ceased to be used until the Orbs and the children had used it. The Earthlings have probably not used it as they had lost all memory of the existence of the Magical World.
So, the generations of Earthlings living there were practically on their own and were guarding their little world. The children wanted to know about the booming voice and the Old man told them that the voice was a computer-generated voice. It used to come with an image, but a defect developed in the program or there was a voice connection issue which they, the people of this world needed to be fixed by sending someone to the main machinery which is in that mountain behind him. There was a control room there which controlled the machinery and many other things including the aperture in the sky.
The Old man finally dropped a bombshell by saying, "This Magical World is actually a man-made satellite and our generations have kept it going since you have all forgotten it."
"It was made by scientists who were fed up with people saying the planets, worlds, stars like our sun and our satellites were round," the old man added. "Actually, mankind knew 7000 years ago that the world was round and their science, etc were too advanced."
" Someone decided to have a joke at the expense of the geologists, the geography experts as well as the astronomers and built this world."
"You mean to say that this world is actually a satellite built as a joke!" Ben inquired. "But what exactly was the joke in it."
The Old man chuckled and said, "This Magical World is a joke in that it is a flat satellite created by some scientists to prove that flat satellites can also exist."
"When this satellite was created there were no labs or space stations in the sky. These came in the 20th Century."
"So, the scientists created a flat satellite which could be accessed from space by means of spaceships as well as through the portal for Earthlings."
"To make it realistic, they had to put in a lot of machinery to manage the gravity, carbon dioxide, oxygen, water, a false sky of the night with stars and day's side blue sky with the sun."
"They also had to add plants, grass, trees, shrubs, fruit-bearing trees as well as birds, fish, and animals."
"So, these scientists of that time created a replica of the Earth but the Earth they created was flat and not round just to show that it was possible.