Palpatine Oil
This photograph of a 1957 gas station by the name of Palpatine Oil offers further evidence to the Galactic Empire's interest/involvement in the energetic resources of earth. Palpatine Oil, named after Senator Palpatine (now Emperor Palpatine), operated as a sbusidiary of what is now Chevron Oil. It has been speculated, however, that Palpatine had more influence than, simply, a gasoline distributor!
Chevron was originally known as Standard Oil of California, or Socal, and was formed amid the antitrust breakup of Standard Oil in 1911. It was one of the "Seven Sisters" that dominated the world oil industry during the early 20th century. In 1933, Saudi Arabia granted Socal a concession to find oil, which finally occurred in 1938 when the largest oil field on earth was discovered. Socal's subsidiary California-Arabian Standard Oil Company evolved over the years, becoming the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO) in 1944. Thereafter, several off-shoots emerged, some very localized with only a few distributors, such as, Palpatine Oil.
Senator Palpatine was interested in acquiring natural resources from all over the galaxy in preparation of his galactic takeover. In the early 80's Imperial involvement with Chevron was made public when these Polaroids (below) surfaced of a reporter trying to investigate the company. The reporter was never seen again. The photographs were picked out of the Chevron waste bin. Apparently, Imperial stormtroopers didn't know about the waiting period for Polaroid photographs to develop!
Chevron has several locations across the globe today with little signs of any galactic ties. However, the rising price of gasoline in the U.S. along with the gas tanker spotted last week with the Imperial symbol on it has kept this story alive. If any ISWWR readers have evidence of Imperial or otherwise, galactic, involvement with the oil industry on earth, please send it to us as the Imperial Oil crisis investigation continues…
Evidence #: ISWWR0000048
Submitted by: J. Lamb