This name, Invertio Palato, was given to me in two stages. The later portion at birth, but the former was given to me in consideration of the strange but true series of incidents I am about to relate. I had the name Bert Palato formerly.

The first experience came in July 5th, 1946. The date is easily recalled because of the visit of my cousins, Anthony and Carl, from Brooklyn. Since city life is all they had known, I dared to take them for a swim in the pond in the adjacent farm to show them something of the unusual delight I had in living in the country. I had assumed that they would find this as enjoyable as I had so often in the past. What happened however marred that sense of relish which they first expressed in the idea.

What caused them such discomfort was the fact that I disappeared from their view. I am confident that I did not disappear all together, for I retained a solid sense of my self at all times during my absence. I mean by this that I knew myself to be in the body. But I did disappear from them, leaving them in a strange place with no words or thoughts to immediately express what they saw, or didn't see, happen.

I was the first, and, as it turned out, the only one to dive in the water. It was not murky, but clear enough to see while underwater. This led me to cry out to them that I was going to touch the bottom to see what I could see. This bravado was stemming from the typical boyish pride found in all of us at that age. After drawing a huge breath, I turned my head under the water allowing my feet to rise above my head while pumping with strong strokes to carry me downward. I knew the bottom to be only about twelve feet down, a reachable depth for me as an experienced swimmer.

At roughly eight feet I felt my body undergo a sensation unlike anything I would have expected. My strokes became easier and my pace faster toward my goal. This is strange in that divers continue to labor at the task of propelling their bodies the further down they swim. The sensation was as though weights had been tied to me after that first few feet and were forcing me down with little or no effort needed on my part.

After a few more easy strokes I decided to put my hands to my side and to stop the paddling of my feet to attempt to understand what was transpiring, when, much amazed, I continued in a downward motion with no efforts on my part at all. It was as if I were going up while going down, the natural buoyancy of the body carrying me.

In less than ten seconds I found out why this phenomenon had occurred. I was in fact going up and not down. I quickly pierced the wall of air above me and breathed and blew while keeping afloat. What was most amazing however was that I had for some reason come up in an entirely different place than the one I had left.

I would have assumed that the incident was a fluke of my mind if I had only been able to recognize some of the landmarks around me. But nothing was familiar. I soon came to believe that I had penetrated a new dimension somewhere six to eight feet under water which inverted my sense of reality. This was my first reasoned thought, as irrational as it may seem to you. I quickly reverted to more normal thoughts, believing that somehow I had turned underwater and simply come up according to the laws of nature. But a look around convinced me that I could not be right.

Looking about more carefully caused my eyes to fall on a tree of an immense height. I determined to climb it for a better view of the land, perhaps solving something of the riddle in my mind. I knew that I could get more intelligence if I climbed higher than normal. Since the tree seemed to be made for climbing I nimbly traversed limb after limb in a deliberate but definitely urgent fashion. I was cautiously frantic, attempting to hold my emotions in as I climbed.

When I had scaled about two thirds of the giant tree, I had another experience, every bit as unusual as the first. I had just firmly grasped the tree limb above me, pushing up in order to hoist one leg over the limb I was grasping, when my thrust took me way beyond my destination. My foot passed the limb, followed by my entire trunk and body, as a change in gravity swung me straight up in the air. Rather, my body was now down, for I was being pulled down by the magnetism of gravity in the reverse direction as surely as I had formerly been pulled by gravity in the former direction. Fortunately I had taken a strong grip on the limb, for the swinging to another position surprised me and gave my hands a burn from the friction of the conversion.

I proceeded downward, which was my former upward, climbing to the trunk of the tree. The tree must have had two trunks from my calculations, however, upon looking up, there was nothing but tree limbs and sky.

I immediately recognized that I was standing at the landing of the large tree beside the pond, my own clothes at my feet, the precise place I had left them. The two cousins spotted me, though in a totally bewildered state of mind. The confusion they felt at my experience was nothing in comparison to that which I felt. I attempted to relate the story to them, which was partially believed and very much disbelieved. What parts they had believed soon dissipated in the presence of the rest of the family. It, therefore, won me the name of Invertio, which I bear today.

I have not been able to bring anyone yet to a position of believing my story. I, in fact, sometimes disbelieve myself, the experience having taken place so many years ago. Often I have tried to place the incident within the bounds of reality, but have had no satisfaction except in the following threads of an internal dialectic.

When one walks up a hill, I have reasoned, there is a change in effects of gravity after one reaches the pinnacle. Whereas you lean forward to walk up the hill, you lean backward to come down. Your steps down are far easier than those ascending. But, increase the acclivity as well as the declivity and what do you have? You have an exaggerated struggle to ascend and an exaggerated ease in descending.

Suppose you were to make the hill straight up and down. What would you experience? The utmost difficulty in climbing, and the utmost ease in descending-not to mention a considerable pain at the bottom due to the force of gravity.

Now, reverse the proposition. Starting with the hill—continue to reduce the declivity while keeping the original acclivity the same. At some point you will so raise the declivity that the ascent and descent will form one continuous plane. The declivity has none of the former elements of a decline. Walk up the incline and onward on the decline until you reach the top, or at the place where the decline was formerly to end.

Herein lies a problem of physics, but not of logic. For, if you would ever end your walk, you must indeed come to an end. But to raise the plane of the descent until it becomes an ascent leaves no such end, but a perpetual stretch of land. Since it is quite impossible to extend a plane forever and quite impossible for a person to walk without coming to an end, an end is finally achieved. An end to a hill is of necessity at the ground level. All bottoms of hills are called bottoms because they are closer to the gravitational source than the top. This is necessary because the volume of all of mankind's experience compels us to believe that people will always fall down hills, not up them.

One therefore has to reach the bottom, even though his ascent is on an even plane with his descent. And though he is on an even plane, the gravitational pull must at some point shift by reason of his approach to the bottom upon which he must finally, and undoubtedly, arrive.

Some deduction of this nature provides for me a near enough explanation within the scope of human capacity. Beyond this I am clueless, believing that God has established laws of nature which are fixed except in the case of true miracles. Miracles have a purpose, and there was none for this experience, as far as I or anyone else can gather, unless, of course, it was to receive my unusual name and to succeed in baffling a mind as well-ordered as yours.