Alien Storm

by Don Viecelli

  She was ready to go by 5:30. Kurt Flannigan, the cameraman, offered to drive them both to the airport instead of using a taxi. He lived in another apartment nearby and called her right on time to come downstairs. His car was out front. It was getting lighter outside and looked like it was going to be a nice day. “Hello, Kurt,” Kaye said as she opened the door and threw her briefcase in the back seat. “Thanks for picking me up.”

  “No problem, Kaye. Glad to do it.” Kurt was very polite and a bit shy for an Irishman. He wasn’t much older than Kaye and he liked her company. Besides, Kaye was a good-looking woman and he knew she was going to make it to the top in this business. He enjoyed working with her because she was very professional and they did some interesting pieces for the TV station. He was fairly new at the station and still eager to do well on the job. He knew she liked his work with the camera.

  They just pulled out of the driveway when Kaye’s cell phone rang. She wondered who would be calling her this early in the morning. She hoped it wasn’t bad news at home. She found the phone in her purse and looked at the caller ID number. It was her brother Ryan’s number. She noticed the video conferencing indicator was blinking. She hoped nothing was wrong and hit the conferencing button. Ryan’s face popped up on the screen and there seemed to be bushes behind him. He was outside somewhere, but didn’t seem frightened or hurt. “Ryan, what’s wrong?” she said into the hands free mike looking at his picture in the phone’s LCD screen.

  “Nothing, Sis,” Ryan said in an excited tone. “I’m fine, but we need your help. I’m here with Jason and Tom. Sorry for the early call. Did I catch you going to work?”

  “No, I’m with Kurt and we’re on our way to the airport to fly to Houston for a press conference. What help?” Kaye couldn’t recall her brother needing help from her in a long time.

  “We saw a plane crash last night, only it wasn’t a plane, Kaye. It was a UFO!” Ryan blurted it out and Kaye wasn’t sure if he was joking or not.

  “Come on, Ryan. I don’t have time for one of your jokes. Do you need money or what?” She wasn’t in the mood for games. Even Kurt was smiling in the driver’s seat.

  “I’m not kidding, Kaye. I have video pictures of the whole thing. Jason and I even went to the crash site and took a picture of something you need to see.”

  “There hasn’t been anything on the news about any crash last night, Ryan. I would have seen something on the news wires.”

  “Nobody has reported it yet, Kaye. We’re in the middle of nowhere up here. I couldn’t even make a cell phone call until now. The whole place is crawling with state troopers. They’re blocking all the entrances to the park. The crash site is filled with army troops and helicopters. I’m telling you there was a big crash up here and we have proof!”

  “Okay, Ryan, okay. Start from the beginning. We’re listening.”

  Ryan began to explain. “Jason, Tom and I were making camp along one of the trails overlooking the lake last night around eight-thirty when we saw the Northern Lights. I didn’t know what they were at first, but Jason did. So I started to take video pictures with my digital camera. I was shooting the lights when we saw something flying towards us. All of a sudden it exploded and pieces started falling from the sky. Some pieces fell on the far side of the lake from us and the rest fell on our side a few miles from where we were. We couldn’t call anyone because we were out of range of the cell towers. We thought we should check it out for survivors, so Jason and I walked to the crash site. We found something you need to see, Kaye. It was an alien still in his seat. He was dead, but he had a small disk-like object around his neck and I took it. We also have some pieces of the wreckage. I took pictures of everything I could. Then the army helicopters showed up and we decided to get the hell out of there.”

  “Where are you now?” Kaye asked, starting to see the immensity of the situation.

  “We’re hiding beside the main road down from one of the hiking trails. We walked all night to get here. A police convoy just passed us and one of the cars stopped to block the trail we were on. I think they’re trying to close off the whole area.”

  “Can you send me the pictures? I’ll need to see them first before I can figure out what to do.”

  “I already did, Sis. I downloaded the whole file to your mailbox. You can look at it later. Let me patch in the picture of the dead alien. Hold it. Here it comes. Can you see it?” Ryan’s face disappeared from the small screen and the image of the dead alien appeared on Kaye’s phone. It was hard to see the image, so Kaye used the zoom button. She could see the body now and the close-up of the head. It definitely did not look human. Something shiny was hanging around the alien’s neck. “What’s that thing around its neck?” she asked.

  “It’s the disk object I told you about. Here, look, we took it off the dead alien before we had to leave.” Ryan stopped the picture and pointed the phone’s camera lens to the disk he had around his neck. We also took some metal pieces of the wreckage. It’s really weird stuff.”

  “Hey, Ry, the disk is starting to glow,” Jason said in the background. It was a faint blue color. They all stared at the disk wondering what it was doing.

  “Okay, I’m beginning to believe you, Ryan. Did you get any pictures of the crash?”

  “You bet. Let me show you some of the video I sent you. Hold it, I’m almost there. There, do you see it?” Ryan had found the portion of the video that showed the first sighting of the spacecraft in the sky, then the sudden explosion and final crash over the mountainside. You could even hear the sounds from the event. Then Ryan fast-forwarded the video to the crash scene. You could clearly see the smoking wreckage and various pieces of debris scattered on the ground with the boys making excited sounds as they walked to the crash scene. Kaye was amazed. She was unsure what do next.

  “Ryan, I need some time to figure out what to do. I’m a bit surprised. I’ll need to review your pictures. Let me download the files and get some people to look at it. I also need to find out if anyone else knows anything about the crash. If the government is trying to hide this from the public, then you may be in some trouble. Especially if they find out you took pictures and pieces of evidence from the wreckage. On the other hand, I think the public has a right to know the truth. This could be a very important story, Ryan. What do you plan to do next?”

  “We’re not sure, Kaye. We thought we would hide the camera and stuff we took and try to get our car at the park visitor center. Then pick up the stuff later and bring it to you. But I don’t know what’s happening at the center. I’m afraid we might get stopped or something. We could try to hike out of here, but it would take us hours to get to the nearest town. What do you think we should do?” Ryan sounded a bit worried now.

  “Try to get to the safest town where we can meet later. Any ideas where?”

  “We can try to get to Houghton. It’s on the east side of the park on the Keweenaw Peninsula. It’s the only town in the area with an airport. You can call me on my cell phone. When do you think you can get here?”

  “I’m not sure, Ryan. I have to get back to the office and talk to my boss. One way or the other, I’ll fly up there today with a TV crew. You and your friends just be careful and try not to get caught. Call me when you get to Houghton, Ryan.”

  “Thanks, Kaye. I hope this is a killer scoop for you. We can’t wait to see you on TV. Talk to you later.” Ryan disconnected the call.

  Kaye thought for a moment. She turned to Kurt and said, “Turn around, Kurt, and take me back to my apartment. We need to pack some clothes. Then we need to get to the office. I need to download Ryan’s video file to see what’s on it. If everything checks out, we’re in for a ride.”

  “Do you really think it was a UFO, Kaye?” Kurt asked. “It sounds a little far-fetched to me. It’s probably something else, you know.”

  “Maybe, Kurt, but my brother wouldn’t lie to me and he says he has proof. We just need to verify everything. I’m going to call Dick and have him find someone else to
cover the NASA press conference today for us. This story is too big to pass up. I’ve been waiting for something like this to happen for a long time and I’m not going to let it slip through my fingers. I want you to come with me on this one and help convince Dick. We need a camera crew and a helicopter to fly us to the UP. Do you think he’ll let us use one?”

  “I don’t know. But if the pictures are real, we’ve got a shot. The government is going to try and keep this quiet, Kaye. It’s not in their best interests to go public on something like this. Things could get a little rough, I think.” Kurt sounded worried.

  “That won’t stop me, Kurt. The public has a right to know, even if aliens are about to invade the planet. Besides, just think about what this all means. It’s first contact with an alien race. It probably would never have happened in our lifetimes without this crash. Who knows what’s going to happen? We just need to report the news and see where it leads.” Kurt didn’t reply. He just turned the car around and headed back to their apartments to get packed.

  Chapter 8

  Dave and his team spent several hours in the dark woods scouring the area for debris and bodies. It was slow, tedious work, mostly because it was dark and heavily wooded and because they had to stop often to take readings on the toxic gas and radiation detectors. The latter was now a potentially serious situation since the second search and recovery team that had landed at the first crash site reported they found moderately high radiation levels near the wreckage. It was mostly Alpha and Beta particles that are emitted from the nucleus of decaying atoms and didn’t pose a serious health hazard with proper precautions. But this did add a new dimension to their search and emphasized the non-human design of the spacecraft they were investigating. It appears the spacecraft was nuclear powered which would be of intense interest to military scientists.

  Dave looked at his watch while he took a break from the search. It was nearly 4:30 a.m. in the morning. It was totally dark now except for the searchlights being used by the search team. The Northern Lights had disappeared a couple of hours ago. The helicopters had brought in more search and recovery troops, all in contamination suits. Some of the troops were setting up portable light generators. It made the search go faster and allowed Dave to make a video recording of the entire crash site. The team had found several large pieces of the spacecraft, and more importantly, had marked the remains of four aliens. Now they were putting the remains in body bags for transport to the base. So far, they had no luck in finding the mysterious visitors to the crash site. The trail had ended at the edge of the lake on one of the park trails. A few of the men were still looking for them. This had been relayed to Colonel Feldman to handle who was now setting up a command center at the visitor center near the lake.

  The search team had accomplished quite a bit in the last four hours, Dave felt. The entire perimeter of the crash site had been taped off and a small command tent had been set up outside the contamination area. Colonel Feldman had advised that Michigan state troopers were on their way to seal off the park entrances. The local Army National Guard troops were on their way in trucks with heavy moving equipment. The park visitors center had been occupied by some of the Colonel Feldman’s men who were setting up communication links and transportation logistics for moving the wreckage. A debriefing area was set up in the visitor center for interviewing park visitors who may have seen or heard the crash. Dave wasn’t sure how he was going to handle the news media when they find out about the crash and come calling. He felt this would happen sooner than later since they found evidence that two people had been in the crash site area before his team got there and probably took some objects with them. Dave was treating the situation as a security breach and trying to contain it. Right now, he needed to finish the report he was sending to General Anderson in thirty minutes. The best he could do was to send a video message with the pictures he had taken so far.

  “How’s it going, sir?” Sergeant Carter asked on the radio headset from behind as he walked up to Dave.

  “Everything looks good, Sergeant. Did you find anything else?”

  “Yes, sir. One of the men found a strange looking object near the middle of the wreckage. It looks undamaged and it’s emitting a blue light every fifteen seconds. The radiation readings are normal. We don’t know what it is. Do you want to see it?”

  “Yes, I would. Give me a few second to finish what I’m doing. I have to call the General in a few minutes and send him this video file. Okay, I’m ready. Show me what you found.”

  The two men walked about one hundred yards to the site of the main wreckage area. On the ground in front of one of the men was a bright round object about eighteen inches in diameter. It was dirty, but looked undamaged from the crash. It looked like a globe with a handle. On one side of the object, a small bluish light was pulsating every fifteen seconds just as the Sergeant said. “What do you think it is, Colonel?” Sergeant Carter asked.

  “I have no idea, Sergeant. The science team will have to tell us once they figure it out. It looks like a beacon of some sort. Could be a distress signal like from a plane’s flight transponder. If it is, I wonder how far the signal carries?”

  “Do you think another UFO will pick it up and investigate?” Sergeant Carter asked.

  “I don’t know. It seems unlikely, but I wouldn’t want to bet on it. Let me take a picture for the report and then I need to call the General. Better send this with the body bags to the visitor center. I want a team to start looking at this stuff right away.”

  After Dave took some pictures with his video camera, he switched channels and spoke on his radio to see if Major Cole was in the helicopter. “Major Cole, are you nearby? This is Colonel Hampton. Over.”

  “Yes, Colonel, I’m here. What do you need? Over.”

  “We’re ready for you to pick up the body bags and take them to the visitor’s center. Did the search team find a road yet?”

  “I’m on my way, Colonel. Yes, they found an old mining road about a quarter of a mile to the north. Colonel Feldman has some National Guard units trying to open up the trail now. It hasn’t been used in a while and there’re clearing a path for the trucks. They should make it to your site in a few hours. They’re bringing more supplies and some heavy equipment.”

  “Good news, Major. We’re ready for them. We need to get these bodies back to the visitor center now. I’ve got some people waiting in Milwaukee to conduct autopsies. We’ll turn on the signal lights for you to find us. Over.”

  One of Sergeant Carter’s men picked up the strange looking object and carried it over to the spot where the four body bags lay. As the three men approached the bodies, the pulsating light turned a different shade of blue. It became darker. “Look, Colonel,” Sergeant Carter exclaimed. “The light is changing color.”

  Dave watched the pulsating light as they moved closer to the bodies. The object seemed to be reacting to the bodies; especially the one he knew had the strange looking disk around its neck. He asked the man carrying the object to stop. The light held its color as he did so. Dave opened the body bag and removed the disk. He walked away and watched the pulsating light become lighter. Then he moved closer to the object and it began to darken. “This is interesting, Sergeant. I think it’s reacting to this disk. Maybe each of the aliens carried a similar device. Why don’t you walk around the crash site and see if you can find some more of these disks. I’ll wait for the helicopter.”

  “Will do, sir. It shouldn’t take too long. Come on, Private, let’s search where we found the other bodies.” Sergeant Carter and the second man quickly began another search of the area. While they were doing that, Dave ordered two men to re-zip the open body bag and put all the bodies into a plastic cargo holder. He kept the strange looking disk and put it in his pocket. The men sprayed the container and the ground with a biological decontamination spray. The bodies would be transported to a mobile decontamination unit parked at the visitor center and trucked back to the Duluth Air Force Base for transport to the Milw
aukee Air Force Base where a medical team was waiting to conduct the autopsies. As a security precaution, the body bags would not be opened again until they reached the medical facility, so no one else would see them.

  Dave heard the helicopter circling overhead. A cable was lowered and attached to the cargo container. More decontamination spray was used and Dave signaled Major Cole to hoist the container up. A moment later the helicopter was on its way over the mountain and lake to the visitor center parking lot. It was the only way to get pieces of the wreckage out of the crash site area until they could build a road for the army trucks. He looked at his watch. It was time to call the General. He decided to walk over to the decontamination tent and get cleaned off. He wanted to take off his facemask in the command tent and get some fresh air before he made the call.

  * * * *

  At the Pentagon, General Anderson had decided to spend the night on the couch in his office. There was too much to do and he didn’t have time to drive home, come back to his office a few hours later and prepare for his meeting this morning with the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff and the Secretary of Defense. He decided it would be much smarter to stay in his office and get a few hours of sleep before the alarm went off at 5:30 a.m. Besides, there were several other people hard at work collecting all the data they could from NASA, NOAA and the Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) regarding all that happened to the ISS and the incident with the UFO. There had also been troubling reports on solar flare activity and its potential impact on U. S. military satellite operations, communication links, global positioning systems, ground-based radar systems and electrical power grids. He was also waiting for confirmation on what they found at the UFO crash site. It would only make matters worse, he thought, if what they found was really alien. He wasn’t entirely sure what the Secretary of Defense would do, but he knew it would be of vital importance to keep everything ‘Top Secret’ until they could assess the military situation for the President.