A Fall of MOON DUST

Tuesday, November 18, 2003, 8:10 a.m. EST

Rumford Motel, Rumford, Maine

Snow fell throughout the evening, covering everything in a thick white blanket.

After dropping off the package to ALPHONSE, the agents went to Denny's for breakfast. MORGAN said that they needed video camcorders. He figured that these would be easier to use than a film camera. He also suggested that they incapacitate the truck carrying the alien craft.

"They have an army," protested MAYA.

"They have an air force!" added MICHAEL.

They decided that maybe the best course of action was to follow ALPHONSE's orders and simply shadow the truck with the UFO. They finished their breakfast and called a cab. They needed to get back to the Cherokee in the Safeway parking lot. They walked outside to wait for the cab.

Parked beside the restaurant was a white van. A few steps away from the van was a video crew. A good looking man in a brand new parka stood in front of the camera. A woman held a boom mike so that the microphone was over his head. The video operator was a heavy set guy with a scraggly beard. The guy in front of the camera looked familiar when they saw him earlier that week, but they weren't able to place him. The guy said, "We're here in the town of Rumford, site of several disappearances..." He was cut short with a coughing spasm. The agents suddenly recognized him. He was John Phillips, one of the "reporters" for the TV show Phenomen-X.

A man stepped out of the van talking on his cell phone, saying that the unit would be wrapping up that day and heading back west. He appeared to be the producer. Phillips tried his speech again, this time doing it without a coughing fit. The camera panned down the street and the agents waved for the camera.

They debated talking to Phillips and the crew to see if they could get any information about these disappearances, or the UFO. MORGAN volunteered to talk to them in the guise of a local hunter. He went up to Phillips and told him that he had seen mysterious lights in the sky a couple of days back. The next thing he knew, the producer was asking him his name and address and the camera was focused on him. MORGAN stated that he was Rupert Hensworthy. He declined to give his address, so they listed him as "Local Man". He told them that he would give them his testamony if they agreed to tell him what they saw.

MORGAN began talking to the camera in a thick, backwoods Arkansas accent. "Kind of hard to track coons in the snow, but if you're lucky you can, sometimes," he said, explaining why he was out on the mountain the night the UFO buzzed overhead.

"The thing looked like a pie pan. Two of them, stuck together but shiny. Then there were these lights. They blowed up. Then the silver thing was nowhere to be seen. It was like Star Trek, with those stealth devices like the Romulans have." He concluded with, "That's what was seen. Strangest thing I ever heard of."

He smiled at Phillips, "What y'all see?"

Before they would answer any questions, the producer handed over a release for MORGAN to sign. Suddenly MORGAN became concerned that he would be taken out of context. He added text to the standard agreement so that Phenomen-X promised not to disparage the name of Rupert Hensworthy or take him out of context. They reluctantly agreed to these terms. MORGAN signed his fake name to the document and had it photocopied by the manager of Denny's.

The Phenomen-X team tried to brush off MORGAN, telling him only that they were investigating some local disappearances. When he asked which ones, they replied that they were in the newspapers. MORGAN accused them of reneging on their deal. He told them he wanted the video tape he was on and would pay to take it back. He also threatened to call in the sheriff. The team looked at each other and gave in. They were investigating three missing people, Kathleen Wilmont, George Sickles, and Terry Greer. These people were local folk who went missing on nights when strange lights were seen in the sky.

Pleased, MORGAN reiterated that he was a local guy. He claimed his accent was because he had been visiting a sick uncle in Arkansas for quite some time. He finished by saying, "You folks don't look up backgrounds, do ya? I never was convicted. That reporter fella was sure pretty, though..." The video unit was suitably impressed with this veiled threat and quickly packed up their gear.

By this point the taxi had arrived and the other two agents had piled into it, calling for MORGAN, who joined them. The driver did the best he could on the snowy roads, arriving at the Safeway parking lot intact if not quickly. The jeep was completely covered in snow. It didn't look like it someone had tampered with it. MICHAEL checked under the car just to be safe, but didn't find anything. They cleared off the car and headed towards the local Wal-Mart.

It took the agents about 40 minutes to drive to the store. They ran inside and bought two camcorders, tapes, and extra batteries. They then drove to the rental agency, turned in the jeep and rented a new one in a different colour (white this time). By the time they had their new vehicle it was about 11:30 a.m. They realized that they could each use a set of white camouflage. They piled into the new jeep and drove back to Wal-Mart. The roads were still treacherous. The jeep slid off the road a couple of times. It took MAYA about an hour to get there. Finally they were back on the road, heading towards East Andover to spy on the craft on the flatbed truck.

Their route took them past the farm where they were captured less than 48 hours ago. They spotted a Humvee in the driveway. MICHAEL took out binoculars. He saw a body wearing camouflage lying beside the vehicle. They quickly agreed to take a detour. They drove into the farm's driveway. They could see the body more clearly. It had on a blue beret. The snow around the body was melted. MAYA turned the jeep around and backed it up closer to the Humvee, while MORGAN videotaped the body. They jumped out of the jeep. MAYA grabbed the other camcorder. "A ten thousand dollar prize is calling my name," she said.

While MAYA continued to film and MICHAEL kept watch, MORGAN checked the corpse. The body has been badly burned, but the victim's clothing appeared untouched. The corpse still clung to his 9mm calibre pistol. As MORGAN tried to remove it, the corpse's trigger finger snapped off. MORGAN shrugged, bagged the finger as evidence and took the gun. He checked the victim's ID. He was, apparently, Lieutenant Joseph Fantino of the Air Force. MORGAN did a more thorough examination. The victim appeared to have been burned from the inside out. "Looks like he was microwaved," said MORGAN, dryly.

MICHAEL and MAYA spotted tracks in the snow. They were the footprints of several people, with print sizes ranging from adult to child. They appeared to head towards a set of tire tracks for a vehicle with a narrower wheel base than the Humvee. The agents suspected that the family had escaped, or were taken away by someone.

While MAYA and MORGAN remained outside, MICHAEL began checking the house. He got a nasty shock of static electricity as he opened the screen door. The back door was unlocked and partially open. MICHAEL walked in. The kitchen looked pretty much as it did when they were captured. There was no one on the main floor. Meanwhile outside, MORGAN discovered empty shell casings underneath the body. He checked the pistol and saw it was empty. He went through the victim's pockets and found a spare ammo clip, which he inserted into the pistol.

MAYA and MORGAN slipped inside to join MICHAEL. MICHAEL headed to the basement, making sure to check for anyone hiding under the stairs. Part way down MICHAEL saw a pair of feet clad in army boots. Someone was lying in front of the laundry machines. He stepped further down the stairs. The body was that of another camouflage-clad victim. Beside this body was a weird looking weapon with a conical front end. It was the sonic gun that had stunned the agents less than two days earlier. MICHAEL swept the room. No one else was there. MORGAN began investigating the body while MICHAEL and MAYA checked out the rest of the basement. MORGAN determined that this person died like the one outside, burned from the inside out.

MAYA slipped into a small mud room. There, in the far corner, was another body. This time it wasn't alone. A globe of iridescent light partly encompassed the corpse. MAYA got the distinct impression that it was feeding... She called for the others to leave. MORGAN instead rushed up with the video camera. He tried to get pictures of the thing while MAYA urged him to get out. MICHAEL grabbed the sonic gun, the pistol, and the beret from the guy in front of the laundry machines. No one was going near the third body and the globule, which the agents started calling "the toaster". They left the farm house.

MAYA looked at the beret in MICHAEL's hand. "It doesn't seem to like berets. You ought not to put it on right now."

MORGAN lamented not taking the pistol from the dead guy in the mud room.

"I'm sure the toaster is still eating the other guy," said MAYA, suggesting he could always go back for it.

"I don't want to be a toaster strudel," sniffed MORGAN.

"For the theft of spacecraft, it's the death penalty," noted MICHAEL, seeing the corpse in the driveway. This corpse's uniform looked like it would best fit MICHAEL. They disrobed the body.

They decided to drive the Humvee to the spot where they hid the jeep two nights ago. MICHAEL jumped into the jeep. MAYA and MORGAN put on the blue berets and jumped into the Humvee. The Humvee started with a push button; no keys were needed. They roared down the driveway and onto the streets, heading towards Horseshoe Pond. As they drove, the radio set in the back of the Humvee squawked. "Bravo zulu two four, what is your destination, over?" This was repeated.

MORGAN, fearing they were driving in "bravo zulu two four" said, "Oh, check the dog tags! That would tell what division he was in, wouldn't it?" They headed for the hiding spot as quickly as they could.

Once stopped, they went looking over the vehicle to see if there was some sort of transponder. MORGAN found three or four things that could be a tracking device. MICHAEL couldn't tell if any of them were. They pulled these devices out of the Humvee but all they succeeded in doing was preventing it from restarting. They pushed the vehicle into a ditch and pulled out the radio set. MICHAEL donned the camouflage uniform, including the holster, and then pulled on a coat over top. They got back into the jeep and headed to East Andover. The radio set squawked again, asking bravo zulu two four for its present location. MICHAEL, worried that there was a transponder on the radio, went over it. He was certain there was no transponder to find. Along the way MICHAEL tried, briefly, to make the weird gun work. When he wasn't initially successful, he gave up trying.

The flatbed truck with the spacecraft was still in town but it had moved into formation as part of a convoy. The military were preparing to pull out of Oxford County. MICHAEL called ALPHONSE and told him the whereabouts of the alien ship. ALPHONSE informed him that Delta Green was planning an operation in Moose Brook State Park in New Hampshire. The three agents were to shadow the convoy an report its position. MICHAEL then told ALPHONSE about the "toaster" and the dead bodies. ALPHONSE said he'd call back and abruptly hung up.

For 10 minutes the agents sat watching the vehicle, worried about the implications of ALPHONSE hanging up so quickly. When ALPHONSE called back he gave the agents a new mission. He told them that they weren't needed to shadow the convoy after all. Instead they would investigate these globules and report back when they found out something.

"Oh, great," said MAYA in response. "The spacecraft wasn't eating anyone. Why couldn't we chase that. Given a choice between toaster and pie plate, I'll pick pie plate."

They tried to upload the video images they captured but the software on the laptop wasn't cooperating. They were all starved, so they decided to grab something to eat in East Andover. They walked in to Felicity's Fish and Chips and ordered dinner.

Since the "toaster" was last seen at the farm house, they decided to drive back there. MORGAN surmised that the family got out after the globule attacked. Why they weren't attacked themselves was still a mystery. As they got close to the farm they could see another Humvee in the driveway. They kept driving past the farm house.

They turned onto a nearby road and parked the jeep. They climbed into their snow suits and sneaked cross country to a ridge just beyond the farm house. They could see soldiers and men in hazmat suits checking out the farm with what looked like Geiger counters, while the bodies of the dead soldiers were put into body bags and placed in a Humvee. MICHAEL pulled out parabolic mike and listened to snatches of conversation. He heard one of the soldiers mention the family was missing. The radio in one of the Humvees squawked. "Delta foxtrot one niner, we have another problem. Proceed to the Ash Road site. Will converge. ETA 10 minutes."

The agents headed back to the jeep as the soldiers roared out of the driveway. Once back at the jeep they checked the local telephone listings. They found that a Greer family lived at 9 Ash Road. The Greers were one of the families who had someone abducted. Digging further they found that the farm they just left was owned by the Wilmonts. They didn't know the age of the missing Kathleen Wilmont, so they didn't know if she was the mother (and thus accounted for, as they saw the mother before they were shot by the sonic gun) or if she was a daughter, grandmother or other family member. MAYA drove them to Ash Road.

They could see plenty of military activity at 9 Ash Road. MAYA continued past the house and found a place to turn off. They crept up to the woods near the Greer home. MICHAEL tried the parabolic mike but could only determine that people were talking inside the house. Nothing was happening outside the home. MICHAEL slipped closer. He could catch snatches of conversation. Two more bodies were found in the house, and the family was missing. MICHAEL crawled back to the others and told them what he heard. They returned to the jeep.

Once again they checked the directory. The Sickles family lived further away, on Willow Lane. MAYA started the jeep and they drove to the Sickles' home. There were no vehicles in the driveway. It was getting dark and there were no lights on in the farm house. MICHAEL suggested that they sneak down to the farm.

"What is it with you FBI people and exercise," asked MORGAN. "All I do is sit all day and cut people open."

"Me, too," replied MAYA, the IRS investigator.

In spite of their protests, they hiked down to the farm.

They didn't see or hear anything along the way. MICHAEL noticed tracks in the snow. About a dozen people had left the farm house and headed for three or four vehicles that were either trucks or mini vans. The agents slipped around the back. The kitchen door was unlocked. Looking inside they could see a lot of dirty cups of coffee and plates with the remnants of cookies and small sandwiches. Some sort of meeting had taken place. The TV was warm. The last channel was tuned to Nickelodeon, so apparently kids had been watching it. The agents realized that the soldiers could drive up here at any time. They left quickly and hiked back to the jeep.

As MICHAEL approached the jeep, he caught a glimpse of a light headed up a nearby mountain slope. He pulled out his binoculars. A group of about a dozen people were hiking up North Twin Mountain. With them was a strange looking creature that MICHAEL took to be a quintessential alien known popularly as a "Grey". Floating around the outside perimeter of the people and the Grey were several iridescent globes.

The agents got into the jeep and drove to the base of North Twin Mountain. Four pick-up trucks were parked here. They drove a bit further, out of sight, and got out of the jeep. They began hiking up the mountain, following the trail made by the people and the Grey.

"I think these are the good guys," said MORGAN.

"I think they are the other bad guys," said MICHAEL.

As they got closer to the summit, they saw the humans standing hand-in-hand in a semi circle. The globes hovered around them. In the centre of the circle stood the Grey. The Grey was chanting. The agents tried to sneak closer. A couple of the humans turned to look down the hill but they apparently didn't see the agents. The Delta Green agents continued to advance until they were about 100 yards from the summit.

Suddenly the night grew brighter. The cloud above the summit parted and another alien spacecraft appeared, this one larger than the first. There were lines carved in the bottom of this craft, which glowed an unearthly red. A ramp appeared from within these lines. Two Greys descended the ramp. They talked to the other Grey and then a human stepped forward to speak with them. MICHAEL unpacked the parabolic microphone.

One of the Greys said, "Please not to harm us anymore," with a strange, tinny sounding voice. "We are one with you. We worship what you worship."

The human replied, "If you return our loved ones we will let you have free reign around here, and we will not send the avatar to harm you."

The Greys agreed. Three humans walked down the ramp; one was a teenage girl, another was a middle-aged woman, and the third was a middle-aged man. They were greeted warmly by the other humans, and then they, reformed the circle, with the new arrivals joining in. They began chanting, "Ia, ia Yog-sothoth." The globes lifted into the sky, formed into one mass of globes, and then disappeared into the heavens.

As the Greys started ascending the ramp, another spaceship appeared. It flew from the west, low on the horizon. It looked like the ship the Greys were climbing into, except that it was smaller and had obvious damage to one end. The agents figured that it was probably the other, crashed, UFO, somehow able to fly again. The ramp lifted up, and both spaceships rose into the air. When they were gone, the humans broke their ring and began climbing back down the mountain. The agents let them slip by, and then hiked down themselves about a half an hour later.

The agents headed to the Rumford Motel. Along the way they could hear chatter on the military radio. It was faint and getting fainter, suggesting that Majestic-12 had pulled out of East Andover. This was confirmed as they drove into East Andover and found it devoid of military activity.

MICHAEL opined that the people were part of some cult. The globes apparently protected these people both from the Greys and from Majestic-12. The globes had something to do with an avatar, whatever that was. Anyway, there was definitely something occult happening and these people needed watching.

When they arrived at the motel they got the upload working. They sent copies of the video tapes to ALPHONSE. They called ALPHONSE and gave a verbal report. They strongly suggested that Delta Green keep an eye on the people of Oxford County. ALPHONSE reported that the mission in New Hampshire had been a partial success. They managed to crash the truck carrying the UFO. Delta Green operatives in the gorge got some excellent close up footage of the craft — but no artifacts — before they slipped out of the area. The craft regained power soon thereafter and lifted off and headed eastward.

ALPHONSE congratulated them on a successful mission and told them to take care heading home.

That night, CNN reported the crash of a military truck on a bridge in Moose Brook State Park, New Hampshire. The truck plunged off the bridge and into a valley. Three air force personnel were killed. An air force spokesperson refused to identify the dead, saying only that they were badly burned and the media would be told pending notification of the next of kin. The authorities were not ruling out the possibility that the truck crash was a terrorist act.

Wednesday, November 19, 2003, 9:20 a.m. EST

Portland International Jetport, Portland, Maine

The agents departed the next day. They drove to Portland where they turned in the rental car. MICHAEL booked a rental of his own for a one-way trip to Washington. They loaded up the car with the gear that they had purchased on this trip, including the hunting equipment, the camouflage-painted telescope, and the captured sonic gun. Since even trying to get through airport security with the equipment would be suicidal, MICHAEL agreed to drive the equipment back to his home as he lived the closest to Maine.

MICHAEL drove MAYA and MORGAN to the airport. The two Southern agents headed out to their home cities. MICHAEL drove the car back to Washington, arriving late in the evening.

Sunday, January 11, 2004, 12:10 a.m. EST

The late night syndicated paranormal show, Phenomen-X, ran their segment on the mysterious lights and disappearances in Oxford County, Maine almost two months after it was taped. The highlight of the show was an interview with a local paranormal expert. The segment began with a shot of John Phillips in downtown Rumford. Then, the local eyewitness expert was introduced.

"His face has been digitally altered so that he may remain anonymous," said Phillips in a voice over.

The shot was of a man in hunting camouflage and a trucker's cap. His face was covered in digitally rendered squares so that no one could tell his true identity. Below the image was the caption, "Local Expert". The expert said, "Kind of hard to track...", the shot cut to Phillips, "... with those stealth devices." The shot went back to the expert. "Looks like a pie pan, two of them, stuck together but shiny. Blowed up, we can see these lights." A digital graphic displayed a metallic UFO. As the expert said, "Blowed up", the graphic zoomed in for a "blow up" view of the craft, showing it covered in many lights.

"Strangest thing I ever seen, like Star Trek," finished the expert.

The episode didn't explain how a local man from Maine came to have an Arkansas accent.