Journal



Strangers in the Night

Date Played: 25 August 2001

Game date: Tuesday, 23 January 2001

Alisa St James phones Osbourne to inform him of the Hermes alert waiting for him. The team have been assigned to investigate a possible alien abduction that Aegis learned about from another agent. The agent remains anonymous and does not himself investigate to protect Aegis' security. The team are warned to discriminate between a physical abduction and a Seepage-related apparition.

After discussing how best to approach the alleged abductee, Hilary Bethel, they decide the direct method is probably best. Travelling to Baltimore, Maryland, the team interview the alleged abductee and her daughter, now caring her until she's sane or stable again. The victim's story of being run off the road by a bright light, being carried out of her car and medically examined rings true and gives some points of evidence to check. It sounds like the victim endured a physical experience rather than an apparition.

The team investigates the scene of the abduction, a rural road 40 minutes from the abductee's home and seven miles from the town of Vickersburg. The victim, they conclude from the tyre and skid marks on the road, had definitely been chased and run off the road by someone or something. Davenport finds a number of cigarette buts in the area where the car left the road and hit a fence post. He doubts that aliens have learned this habit from humans.

Beaumont spies sunlight glinting off something on the other side of a line of trees some hundred meters back from the road. She investigates and discovers a farm house buried in the trees. The team interviews the inhabitants.

Jan Shoemaker describes the night several weeks ago when they witnessed a black helicopter run a car off the road and take the driver away. two men, she says, remained apparently guarding the car until the driver was returned some hours later. Allan Shoemaker describes the same event in few words to the ever-loquacious Angela.

The couple regularly see black helicopters flying at dusk in the area although, not being the highly training professional the team are, they are vague about direction of the helicopters' flight paths.

Malachi contacts the FAA and, using a forged warrant, requests copies of all radar traces in the area of the farmhouse on the nigh of the abduction. The FAA contact, Bill Bunning, is only too happy to comply. Did Agent Malachi know, asks Bunning, that the area he is interested in is known to air traffic controllers as UFO Alley because of the large number of unexplainable radar traces? More interested than ever, he requests all radar traces for the last month.

The team maps the data from the night of the abduction. It shows a clear flight path but they have no cross-checking or triangulation to pin point the helicopter's destination. (Unless they map ALL the radar data rather than just the data for that night. But, of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing.)

Stuck for clues, they phone the abductee again. She is terrified and has obviously been warned against talking to the Aegis investigators. Who is watching them? How did they know the team were there?

Before the paranoia sets in, Bill Bunning phones again. It's dusk and his radar operators have picked up another unexplainable radar trace. This provides the triangulation that team was looking for. Load up! We're hunting UFOs.

Vickersburg Naval Aviation Air Station, the point of triangulation, was used as an airfield in World War Two and is now a war memorial. As the team peer over a nearby hill, it seems that no one told the Black Book agents standing around the entrance to an underground hangar or the Grey flying disk hovering a few metres away.

After a brief discussion of their options, Osbourne, Angela, Malachi and Davenport phone Alisa. After hearing of their discoveries, Alisa says she'll call back. Within two minutes, Osbourne receives a phone call from Richard Davies, until now known to the team as NSA-1, asking what Osbourne needs to handle the situation. Rather than risk their own skins, Osbourne requests an assault force with air support.

While Osbourne watches the future battle field with binoculars, Angela co-ordinates the team and in the incoming assault team by radio. Malachi sneaks forward to disable the Black Book's communications mast. Beaumont and Davenport take up sniping positions looking into the entrance to the underground hangar.

As the Black Book helicopter touches down with a new abductee, Magpie-3, the Aegis Apache gun ship, sweeps the field, leaving the helicopter and its inhabitants a twisting, blazing wreck. Almost immediately, Magpie-1 and Magpie-2, Blackhawk troop carriers, disembark two platoons of heavily armed and armored Aegis agents, who begin the attack on the base.

Beaumont concentrates on taking out any Black Book agent preparing heavy weapons against the assault. Davenport focuses on killing Greys. Malachi locates and plays grenade tennis with Black Book agents attempting to sneak out the back of the complex. Osbourne watches and Angela directs this intricate ballet of death.

The Grey flying disk lifts off and is cut in two by Magpie-3. The wreckage crashes next to Beaumont injuring her badly.

While the Aegis leaders on the spot are congratulating the team, the assault force enters the base to recover what they can. Alisa and other Aegis media specialists deal with the gathering media presence.

A lot of stuff was destroyed by the hastily departing Black Book agents. But there are three Grey bodies, many of the records, and much of the equipment of an operational Black Book cell.

Unanswered Questions and Mysteries To Be Solved