Less than three months before unleashing death at Columbine High, Eric Harris wrote a school paper about a battle between Marines and aliens, describing a scene with eerie similarities to the April 20, 1999, rampage.

He talked of shattered glass. Of dead bodies scattered around him. Of a carpet of blood.

"The deathly dark glow of light from above was barely enough to notice the blood and flesh splattered on the large slabs of granite that passed for walls," Harris wrote in the paper, which he initially authored in January 1999 and then revised, with few changes, a month later.

The paper was among 9,735 pages of Columbine documents released Wednesday by the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office.

Also included was a 12-page essay, "The Mind and Motives of Charles Manson," by fellow Columbine killer Dylan Klebold that was previously released in an obscure section of papers made public over two years ago.

So far, 25,647 Columbine-related documents have made available by Jefferson County sheriff's officials. The initial batch of more than 10,000 documents was released in the fall of 2000 under court order. Another 6,000 or so pages followed.

The latest release comes as the Columbine Open Records Task Force, created a year ago by Attorney General Ken Salazar and Jefferson County District Attorney Dave Thomas, moves to make public more documents and help answer lingering questions about the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history.

Columbine seniors Harris and Klebold killed a dozen students and a teacher, and wounded more than 20 others, before taking their own lives in the school library.

Several of their violent school writings have already been made public. However, the papers released Wednesday further illuminate the fascination the two killers had with violence and death.

Harris' paper is only a half-page, but tells of an intense and graphic intergalactic battle. Harris portrays himself as a soldier, "the only one left on humanity's side," who makes a bittersweet choice to live as a recluse as he faces overwhelming odds.

The battle pits Harris and a Marine platoon deployed on the moon against a force of aliens at least 10 times larger. Harris applied to the Marines, but was rejected just before the Columbine attack.

The scene Harris portrays also previews the gruesome events two months later. Harris talks of walking through "the broken door entrance." The aliens who outnumbered Harris could easily be replaced with the hundreds of cops who swarmed Columbine after the shooting began. The essay's "carpet of blood" and "bullet shells sprinkled" on the floor matched the Columbine crime scene.

"Arms, legs, and heads were tossed about as if a small child turned on a blender with no lid in the middle of the room," Harris wrote.

Harris is the only one left standing in the battle, despite the seemingly gallant stand of his "former Marine buddies." Harris gathers all the "bullets and superior firepower" he can from the dead Marine bodies, and prepares himself for "the last battle."

Then, Harris changes his tack.

"There must be someway \[sic\] out of here that doesn't involve firepower. It is just too much, all the death and destruction," he wrote. "It's pointless, there's no way, no way at all. I can't fight anymore - let them take Earth - I'll stay here on my little moon - along with my squad of dead soldiers."

"Yours is a unique approach and your writing works in a gruesome way," someone, apparently the teacher, wrote. "Good details and mood setting." Another remark was "good ending," but Harris was also told to "maintain one verb tense," and warned about "run ons!"

Klebold's Manson essay is, in many ways, a comprehensive, straightforward account of Manson's life from childhood to adulthood. Klebold also covers the lives of some Manson followers, before discussing the clan's participation in the grisly murder of pregnant film star Sharon Tate and four others in Los Angeles in 1969.

The extensive detail Klebold uses might be chalked up to good research. But it takes an eerie turn in light of his participation in Columbine.

"Finally, Sharon Tate, the only one left, was begging for the life of her baby to ... (Manson family member Charles 'Tex' Watson), who replied 'Look b-----, I have no mercy for you,'" Klebold recounted. "He then stabbed her to death."

Klebold takes a nonjudgmental stance toward Manson at one point.

"The question of whether or not he is insane is a question of opinion, which cannot have a 'true' right answer," Klebold wrote. "However, his beliefs, which fueled his and his family's actions between 1968 and 1975 conflicted with society's morals, around which this country revolves."

The ungraded November 1998 paper appears to be for a language arts class and includes teacher remarks. "Your paper is very good," reads the notation. "All the little circles are just little mistakes."

The Manson essay was given to investigators by a fellow student. She and Klebold had traded papers as part of a class exercise, and she still had it when she was interviewed by investigators in September 1999.

Other documents released Wednesday include roughly 8,500 pages of leads received by investigators. Although those documents had not been released previously, sheriff's spokeswoman Jacki Tallman said the reports generated by those tips have already been made public.

Some were curious, some innocuous.

For example, investigators detailed the names and phone numbers the two killers carried in their wallets. Investigators contacted those people and interviewed them, but never developed solid evidence that anyone other than Harris and Klebold were involved in the killings.

And the documents further illuminated some aspects of the killers' backgrounds that were already known.

For example, investigators found a list of names, locker numbers and combinations in Klebold's wallet. Some of the locker combinations were accurate.

Klebold and Harris and a third student had been suspended for hacking into a school computer and stealing locker combinations.

Also among the papers were doodles - including drawings of crosses, written prayers and several games of "hangman" - done by students who were holed up in a classroom for hours after the attack on the school.

Wednesday's release was the latest chapter in an ongoing battle over documents amassed during the Columbine investigation, one of the biggest criminal cases in state history.

Tallman said the release was a direct result of the work of the attorney general's open records task force, which last year asked all agencies involved in the Columbine investigation to inventory their documents and consider releasing them.

"We went back at the task force's request, looked through our documents with the intent of releasing as much additional material as we could, and we did that," she said.

Some information - including the names of potential suspects who were later cleared of complicity in the attack - was removed from the documents in accordance with a court order issued in the fall of 2000 by District Judge R. Brook Jackson.

But Tallman acknowledged that still more documents exist.

Some - such as crime scene photographs and medical records - are not likely to ever be made public.

But it still wasn't clear Wednesday what else is in the department's possession.

Randy Brown, who has battled publicly with sheriff's officials since they named his son a potential suspect in the killings, said he still wants to know what other documents exist. Randy Brown's son was cleared of any complicity.

"This is at least a beginning, but it's certainly not the complete files or the complete information," said Brown, who is a member of the open records panel.

Brian Rohrbough, whose son, Dan, was killed in the attack on the school, said he would continue to push for more information to better understand not only what happened at Columbine but how law officers responded to it and investigated it.

"We're continuing to pursue it," Rohrbough said. "I don't care if it takes another 10 years."

vaughank@RockyMountainNews.com or (303) 892-5019; kassj@RockyMountainNews.com or (303) 892-2406.

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