Grey-Human Experiments in Tennessee

 

Briefing

We are invited to reported to a friendly FBI agent in Knoxville, Tn. SAiC James Darringer is the contact. We are undercover as FBI Agents. We use alternative identities, Helen Atkinson and Jane Doe.

We're shown video of an event that happened four days ago. There's an interaction between a young man and a cashier in a gas station in Alabama, the young man punches the cashier's head off in a single blow! He then ransacks the till, returns to take some pills and leaves. 

The perp held up six gas stations and drugstores across Alabama, Tennesse and Georgia in the last few days, but has been captured and is the next room. He took several rounds from a state trooper who arrested him before going down.

He has non-human tissue on this arms - there is a seam in his arm muscles, and they took a sample, it came back as unknown above the seam, human below. They have developed a serum that might help.

The young man is Billy Ray Spivey. He appears to be simply a confused young man in constant quite severe pain. He is restrained with multiple devices, duct tape, and there are several agents with guns on him.

He has been consistently looting pain medication, which makes sense.

He disappeared 11 days ago, from his home in Groversville. He reappeared 2 days later, unwell. The family doctor examined him but couldn't find anything significant wrong. The suspect had a large appetite, but didn't defecate or urinate. Then he went into a fever, punched through his father's chest 7 days ago, then went on a spree. He appeared manic, but was stealing painkillers.

There were no changes to his skeletal structure according to external examination. There are also changes to his leg musculature. The lack of skeletal changes suggests he can’t use his full strength, he might just rip his limbs off! (This is what SAiC Darringer tells us, presumably it was passed on from the medical staff.)

There are signs of extensive surgery, scars etc.

He bent the state trooper's riot gun before taking four rounds from his pistol, presumed centre mass but possibly in the arms since he was close and had just bent the shotgun. The wounds from the pistol have completely healed.

There is no obvious plan to his route. He seems to have been in so much pain he just went for the next source of painkillers rather than aiming for a specific place. He said that he was in so much pain he didn't think clearly, just reacted to the pain and tried to treat it himself.

SAiC Darringer would like us to go to Groversville and try to work out what's going on.

Billy Ray is an relatively ordinary-looking young man. There are three FBI agents standing guard with M16A2s trained on him. He's very heavily restrained, he's also sedated - it becomes obvious this is to help him control the pain.

The "seams" on his arms and legs are there, as are the scars. The seams look almost like tan lines, the scars look old and faded, they were performed by an expert surgeon. Neither Camilla nor I really have the skills to take this further.

His girlfriend might have more information to help. She is called Jane Allen. He gives us her address. She might have talked to someone about his disappearance. He also has some friends, who he names for us, but he doesn't think they're really close enough to have talked about him. His friends are Robert Mitchell, James Dawson, Frankie Armstrong and Jake Cunningham.

Groversville, Tn. has had some mysterious disappearances recently. The FBI is considering a cover story about a drug dealer.

We tell Darringer that we'll arrange for "someone" to come and pick up Spivey, and head out to Groversville. We alert Delta Green about the need for a pickup.

Mrs. Spivey is presumed to be living at the family home.

In Groversville

We decide to go to the sheriff's first, and let him know we're here and what we're doing.

Groversville is the seat of Grover's County, the sheriff's office is pretty large. Sheriff is Dan Oakley. He rolls out the southern chauvanism about two female FBI agents, but seems happy to see the investigation under way.

Billy Spivey had, previously, been on the straight and narrow. He went to church, but the sheriff doesn't know which congregation he was a member of, nor does he know if he worked. He graduated from high school this year.

Jane Allen, Robert Mitchell, James Dawson, Frankie Armstrong and Jake Cunningham have "dumb kids stuff" - most of them have a speeding ticket or two but nothing more. They're all the same age as Billy and graduated in the summer. A lot of kids are moving away to try and get a good career. They generally go to one of the nearby big cities (Knoxville, Jacksonville, Nashville etc.) especially if they have any aspirations.

He doesn't know which was the Spivey family doctor, there are three family doctors in Groversville. Dr. Zachary James, Dr. Jayden Cooke and Dr. Samuel Clark. They each have practises in multiple locations, but all have a surgery in town.

He recommends Merle's Shut-Eye, a 12-room motel. Merle is a local big-wig and head of the town alderman. We get a room with two beds (down, no lesbian fiction tropes here) and then head over to the family house.

As we leave the motel parking lot, we notice someone is keeping an eye on the coming's and going's, perhaps more closely than is normal.

The Spivey House

We head to the Spivey house, about 1.5km south of town. It's a farm, so we stop to observe it from the road before approaching. It looks a little unkempt - the grass is uncut, the most recent rubbish wasn't taken out to be collected. This is probably understandable in the circumstances. The road is gravel, and we park and approach.

Mrs. Spivey answers the door after a few minutes. She is middle-aged and a little out of touch with current fashion.

The house is fundamentally well-cared for, but it's been neglected over the last few days, plates left out rather than cleared away and the like. She offers us coffee and the like and we ask her to talk through things.

Billy Ray left 11 days in the evening (2130) and came back two days later in the morning. He didn't seem to think any time had passed, which was unusual, he would stay out occasionally but usually let them know.

He wasn't well, so they took him to see Dr. James, the family doctor. He did some tests for whatever is going around, and gave him some pain medication, which he took like candy. A couple of days later, she was out, came back to find Billy Ray outside with blood up to his elbow, then her husband dead inside. She phoned the police and everything went on from there. Billy Ray ran off and is, as far as she knows, still missing.

They attended the Cross of the Holy Flame Baptist Church and Mr. Spivey has been buried by them. He didn’t want to be embalmed, which led to him being embalmed in two days. That seems really fast?

She can't remember any difference in Billy Ray's behaviour in the week before the night he disappeared. He has occasionally disappeared for the odd night, drinking with his friends or "alone time" with his girlfriend up at The Reservoir. This is a kind of teen hang out where the sheriff lets them all blow off some steam, drink a bit and so on, as long as they don't get too out of hand. 

He had applied for a job at the Saturn Autoplant in Smyrna (a nearby big town), and was waiting to hear if he was going to get a final interview.

She appreciates that they are only 18, but Billy Ray and Jane seemed well suited to each other and she hoped that they'd settle down together.

We asked to see Billy Ray's room. Fundamentally it's a pretty normal teenaged boy's room, although it's somewhat tidier than normal - because Mrs. Spivey has cleaned up after the murder of her husband, and the ME and the police moving in and out. We find some random porn and a bit of weed. We tell her, in euphemistic terms, what we found, put in a bin bag and put it in the rubbish. Since that's being collected tomorrow, we put her trash out for her.

We decide to try and interview Jane Allen next, because the family doctor is probably not in his office on a Sunday afternoon in a small town in Tennessee.

The Allen House

We observe from the road again. There's nothing that stands out about the house. Mrs. Allen answers and seems friendly, but Jane isn't there. When we ask if she knows where Jane might be, she says she doesn't but the way she answers is really odd. It seems like she's stoned. Camilla keeps questionning her while Harriet observes her. Harriet is pretty sure that she's not actually drugged. Mrs. Allen said "the aldermen should know where she is" but then claims this refers to Mr. Allen, not Mr. Merle, who is an alderman and works at the town hall. This seems contradictory. Both Camilla and Harriet heard her use the plural form. It would have been odd to refer to your husband as “the alderman” rather than “my husband” or by name too? Although Jane is an adult and has left school, expecting her to check in and let her father know where she is, not enlightened but it seems reasonable for rural Tennessee. 

Mrs Allen's body language has changed, she seems to be focussed fully on us. None of Jane's friends have come to visit in the last few days. She seems terse and angry when she answers this question.

Harriet, after further observation, is not sure what's going on, there are magical ways to cause the effects we're seeing in Mrs. Allen, but there are psychological disorders as well - DID, Bipolar disorder at least, probably others.

Jane has been missing for about a week, and Mrs. Allen strongly suggests that she's told the sheriff about it. She gives us her phone number. (The sheriff didn’t say anything about this, and we did ask about Jane.)

The Allen family doctor is Dr. Cook.

Town Hall

Despite it being a Sunday, Mr. Allen is working, but the clerk is claiming he's working on taxes, in September! We don't believe her. We bully her into getting Mr. Allen but when she heads into the back of the building Harriet follows her and she just turns around and comes back, telling us that she's notified Mr Allen. This is clearly a lie and Harriet calls her on it. She then phones through on an internal number, but there's no one on the other end. 

Harriet threatens her with arrest for obstructing the FBI with an investigation but she sticks to insisting that Mr. Allen has been informed and is on his way.

We eventually get her to ring again and she says he'll be around in about 90 minutes. Camilla goes to search his office, there's nothing obviously out of place, but there's nothing recent there, nothing newer than about three months ago. It's not clear if he's only working on older stuff or if he hasn't been working in his office for a while. The clerk is fluttering around with Camilla, Harriet comes along and points out that the clerk was heading to the conference room before, not the office. She heads along to the conference room, listens, hears nothing and opens the door.

Inside there is a protoplasmic blob with faces in it. Apparently this is "The Aldermen". Harriet shrugs, shuts the door and steps back. The clerk yells at her saying the Aldermen will have to restart their work, they seem more keen in chasing in our intrepid investigators!

Part Two

The Chase

It turned out that both Camilla and Harriet ran quite a bit faster than the Aldermen-blob. Camilla added extra fun after she threw a flash-bang at the blob which went off at its feet and caused it to flail around momentarily. 

We reached the car easily and took off to the north, Harriet at the wheel, as that was the fastest way out of town and we wanted to limit exposure of the townsfolk to the sight of the Aldermen-blob. Their reaction was odd, they waved or seemed confused as to why it was chasing us. It was very large - it had completely filled the corridor in the Town Hall and if it had had more structure it might have struggled to push through it. We speculated that they might all be mind controlled in some way? 

Once we were in the car we easily pulled away. Although we were stuck to the roads and it could cut across gardens, car parks and the like, having a top end of 75mph beats "a bit faster than a human can sprint" pretty easily, especially on these nice straight American streets. On the highway near the edge of town we deliberately stopped and let it catch up. Camilla made use of the shorter range and lack of bystanders; she shot it twice with her handgun and it seemed completely unaffected by the actual bullets, but it did turn back. We thought this seemed to be linked to it being the edge of town but we were not sure.

We trailed the creature cautiously back into town. It seemed to be aware of us but not willing to turn and engage us. Was it under orders or something else? Assuming orders, what might those orders be? Stay within the town limits? Protect the Town Hall? Something else? Equally pertinent, if it’s under orders, from whom, or what?

Back to the Motel

We checked our room and our stuff, very cautiously, hazmat suits and everything, but it was safe. We cleaned out of the room and then went to check out the room of the person who had been spying on us in the car park when we left earlier. This developed into a story of two people, and this transcript will split that out into those two parts as much as possible.

Jane Allen

The person in the room who was spying on us was very cautious, but it turned out to be a quite pregnant Jane Allen. She was very hungry, and we got her a snickers to persuade her to talk to us. She said she had only found out that she was pregnant about three weeks ago, but Tristan, who joined us whilst we were checking the room, reckoned she was about six or seven months pregnant judging by her shape. She was scared about what her parents would think if they found out she was pregnant.

Jane had lost some time, about eight hours, about four weeks ago. Scott Adams, a new name in the investigation, had been helping her and had been planning to take her to a doctor in a different county because, he had said, the town was too small to keep a secret and he didn't trust anyone here. He said there was something afoot. Jane told us that this whole town had gone strange. She couldn't be sure exactly when the strangeness began but she hadn't really noticed it before she lost the time.

Camilla calmed her down somewhat. Jane didn't really know anyone who had moved away from the area to one of the big cities for work. The idea of moving her away from the motel to a friend's is a non-starter.

When she was asked how long it had been since she last saw her father she was not really sure. When pressed and prompted she could not clarify at all, it was still vague and a few weeks ago. She seemed confused about the fact that she couldn’t really pin it down more precisely. This seemed like more evidence of mind-fuckery to us. 

When asked about the lost time, she told us that she was at home watching TV in the morning, and essentially lost a working day. Boom, she was suddenly in the same place but it was evening. This, apart from her confusion over the last time she saw her dad, is the only other thing she's aware of where she has inexplicable confusion about her memories.

She first met Scott Adams about a week ago and he went missing about 3 days ago. Although she's a bit confused about the exact timings, this seemed to be more because she's been stuck in the same motel room for a week, and she's stressed about the pregnancy, she's hungry etc rather than anything more significant. She can remember the events ok, but she's not sure if it was six or seven days ago exactly, that kind of thing. It's just the confusion of stressed teen who hadn’t been out of a tiny room for several days.

She hadn't seen Billy Ray's mates for a few weeks, but she has seen them since she lost time. She preferred to spend time alone with Billy Ray than with the group of them if she could. 

We grabbed a takeaway meal for Jane and, whilst we were out, arranged for a Delta Green pick up since it seems almost certain that her pregnancy is anomalous. 

As Jane was eating, her body language changed and she grabbed a knife and tried to stab herself in the throat. Tristan noticed and gave enough warning that Camilla and Harriet sprang to action. Camilla grabbed her arm, Harriet threw herself over Jane's head and neck. She was quickly subdued and handcuffed. After a few minutes she snapped out of it. We explained about her change in personality and her actions and she seemed really upset. Thankfully she trusted us enough that there was no doubt in her mind and she accepted being handcuffed without complaint.

The Delta Green pickup was not until the morning, so we arranged a suicide watch for Jane.

Scott Adams

Jane believed that Scott Adams was a reporter, and was supposed to be staying in the motel, in a different room but she hadn't seen him for a few days. 

Whilst we were not sure exactly why Scott Adams came to town, Groversville had been in the news with all kinds of random paranormal events. UFO sightings, Elvis sightings, singing karaoke with Elvis, little grey men and the like. 

There was more about Scott that we would find out tomorrow.

The Next Morning

In the ungodly hours, around 3am, Sheriff Oakley came by and told us that the Town Hall were not happy with us and that they were considering filing a formal complaint. He also informed us that if we wanted to interact with the Town Hall from that point on, please go through him. Harriet, who was awake on suicide watch when he arrived, informed him that we have no intention of going back to the town hall in the foreseeable future. (Tactfully, she neglected to mention that if we were to go back, if might be with large amounts of explosives. Or an airstrike.) 

Camilla asked him if he could remember anything Scott Adams, but he said the name didn't ring any bells, but he did tell us that there have been lots of reporters in town recently with all the excitement, UFO sightings and the like. It appeared to all of us that he was not being mind controlled.

In the morning, Delta Green successfully extracted Jane. 

Scott Adams, redux

We had breakfast, then asked at the motel desk about Scott Adams. They cooperated and gave us his room number and the spare key. The wonders of an FBI badge!

They hadn't seen him since the day before we arrived (which was yesterday).

The space under the door was blocked by a towel. When we peered the wrong way through the peephole, we could tell that the lights were off. We went around to the other side and persuaded the window to open. Both the blinds and blackout blinds inside were closed. Harriet listened at the blackout curtains and heard nothing. Vampires?

Harriet got a baton out, lifted up the corner of the curtains and blinds so we could all see into the room.

There was a smell of rotting flesh from inside, clearly a corpse but at this point nothing to say it was human, and we could see part of a somewhat disorganised room. There was also a plugged in Mac Powerbook.

Harriet put on her hazmat suit again and went in. In the bathroom there was a body that, at first glance, looked like a suicide by slitting wrists and bleeding out in the tub. Apart from the obvious, there is a large protrusion on his head that looks very odd. We didn't find a suicide note, given Jane's actions yesterday it's impossible to be sure whether Adams realised he'd been affected and ended it or was mind-controlled and ended for him.

Harriet opened up the room and let everyone in. The Powerbook was not password protected! We also found a notebook. Useful information from the notebook is attached below.

According to his ID, Scott Adams is an independent UFO researcher for Watch The Skies, a UFO Newsletter. The body in the tub is, after matching to his driver's license, that of Scott Adams.

Camilla tried to forensically collect evidence from Scott Adams' clothes, but he had been pounding the pavement all over the place and she didn't find anything useful.

We called Delta Green again to ask them to remove the body and clean the room. We seal it up so that they have a couple of days to organise the resources and get it done. The fact that he had a different, but probably related anomalous growth on his head seemed to cinch the deal. We probably need to develop the skill set among us to clean a room and dispose of a body.

We decided to head out to the reservoir and cross that off our to do list. This would give us time to compile an action list from Scott's notes so we could try to retrace his steps, but that would take a bit of organising.

The Reservoir

We dressed down for the trip and took some beer and ciggies and asked the kids down at the reservoir about all the things in the notebook. It took a while, but they gradually validated everything in the notebook. They had all seen the lights, mainly in the night out in the countryside, but not that far out. A few have lost time. The mutiliations etc. are well known.

All these rumours have started within the last six months, there is not an exact start date we can pin down, but it's of that sort of period. 

Thoughts

We are trying to work out what we are facing. This could be cultists or servants of an elder god using magic. But the alien sightings could be the real deal. We're leaning towards aliens at this point. 

We have a vague timeline. The strange events, lights etc, started between one and six months ago. It seems likely there's been an escalation? The lights might have started about six months ago, maybe establishing a base? If it's aliens, first contact. Then there's an escalation starting in August, with mutilations, lost time etc. That's six weeks ago. 

There have been chopper sightings in the last four days, including tactical engagements. Is this US military action? A covert operation? MAJESTIC?

Future Plans And Information from Notebook

The notebook contains the following information, plus phone numbers for all the people, except Robert Gum.

Livestock Mutilations

• Jeff Owens 
  • 3 cows 1-AUG, 4-AUG, 8-AUG
• Margaret Allison
  • 1 goat 2-AUG
• Jeremy Dark
  • ~20 chickens 6-AUG

Livestock Alterations

Robert Gum, 1 cow missing udder but in good health.
Others like this operated on and released?
6-SEP - spotted three more in roadside survey, owner unknown

Missing Time

• Bud Aldrich 
  • 8-AUG 1 hour 
  • 15-AUG 1 hour
  • 29-AUG 3.5 hours
• Louisa May
  • 10-AUG 3+ hours

Chopper Sightings

• Ameley's Hills Area (North)
  • 6-SEP 2100
  • 6-SEP 2300
  • 7-SEP 2240 (muzzle flash and discharge)

Lights

Many-everyone has seen a few. No correlation (Adams) could find, but reports are noted as sketchy and unreliable. (NOTE: we got reports that they're limited to the countryside just outside of town.)

Crop Circles

• Bo Larame
  • 26-AUG
  • 3-SEP

J.A. (this is Jane Allen)

• P. three weeks=six months. Refuses Rx, got a room for her at the Shut-Eye
• Allen, Barn, Thomas, Jacobs, Cartwright and Anderson never go home (these are the aldermen).

Audiofile

There is an audio file that is backwards and slowed down. It says:
“...dealing with. {Garbled} has been a long time and we have many things to do and you are not sure what you are doing. Stop now. Stop now.” (Is this from MAJESTIC?)

Document sze,t

(denotes marginalia from Harriet. Judging by the typos it’s a draft, although we don’t have a sample of his publication to judge against.)
I was wondering about the possibility that the brain translates information in terms of the extra-sensory, and that's why it achieves intuition and common sense.

for evidence of esp, or extra sensory perception, look for coincidences especially within words of significance. (Why?) if i leave you with a few words that are significant to me personally as examples if you write down the word choice, underline the letters oi of choice and insert the binary code that's oh 1 of course, you will see that the difference between the i and the 1 is of a number with no head on it. (So? We have a convergence of convenience of two symbols we write a lot into a vertical stroke with some ornamentation to distinguish them. Is that deep and meaningful, or human laziness at work?)

but if consciousness if omniparent (meaning: produces all things), or just is, or if consciousness shall we say is on open network, we would expect in one or more of the languages the word for choice to contain THE BINARY CODE! (Why? It’s been a long time, but I vaguely remember DNA uses four letters and clusters of three of them to encode for proteins or something (strictly it’s mRNA and amino acids, but Harriet did a lot less biology than Hecate) so why a binary code rather than base 64?) but we all also expect in one of the words for reason, the on (sic: presumably one) representing a consent code in the same way as the ability of on (sic: presumably one) on the hte (sic: the) computer is a consent code (rarely, computes don't really operate at the bit level any more. His powerbook requires 32-bit architecture to run for example.). and you wsee (starting a sentence with a conjunction, wsee is clearly a typo for see) if we read across the word reason in english, it would say RE AS ON. (This is not how I parse REE-zuhn, / ˈri zən / in my accent, but ok.) if you write down the word neuron, and with the same meaning the word neurone, you will see that the last few letters of the each word neuron (sic, presumably each of the words neuron and neurone?) is they would say the words 'you are on' by sound using letters as symbols. (Letters are symbols, that's why there are different alphabets around the world. German uses the ß and regards ä, ï and ö as different letters. Gaeilge normally counts only 18 letters, no j, k, q, v, w, x, y or z. Japanese has no less than three writing systems. This is utter bollocks) the word neurone is able to say in the last few letters 'you are one.' (See above) if (you) write the word science, underline the letter i of science, write down genius, and two words i don't know whether you know in french, je suis, they spell j-e-s-u-i-s, the mean 'i am,' of course, you see it is able to say 'jeeze, you is.' no it is not about abysmal stupidity of the religions, it is telling you whether the religions like it or not, whether we like it or not, consciousness is omnipresent (alternatively language emerges from human consciousness and you are reaching. I is the fifth most commonly occuring letter in the English language, and it crops up in a lot of words...) and on an open network that's why we breathe in and breathe out molecules, and that we why eat drink and excrete molecules (or, reaching back to school science classes again, basically everything exists as molecules except a few things that exist as ions instead?), because if consciousness is omnipresent, and on open network, then even molecules achieve an ability to to code as do the atoms withn (sic: within) them as do sub-atoms within them because they belong to consciousness. so if not only expresses or explains the food chains it also explains fission and fusion or the creation of of stars, galaxies, planets, rock (document ends)
(Scott Adams may have had his instincts in the right place with regards to getting Jane Allen out of town, but he's a bona fide conspiracy theorist spouting insane nonsense. Had he seen too much or was he always like this?)

Part Three

Further Investigations

Tristan wants to go and interview the farmers who have had their livestock mutilated or experienced missing time. He's not keen on trekking out into the countryside.

Because it's the best firm location we have, we think that investigating the chopper sightings is the best bet we have before night falls after the afternoon at the reservoir. Delta Green have sent Hibiki as backup, given the number of calls we've made to them over the last couple of days.

We pick her up and head out to the Ameley Hills, about 10km north of town. We aren't sure about big guns against helicopters, but we make sure that they're in the boot of the car.

We search around through the area and notice a depression in a field. On closer inspection it turns out to be left by a mid-sized helicopter, a military troop carrier perhaps?

We find tracks from military boots and shell casings from rifle rounds. We also find a body. Everything has been here for a few days. We take some photos, then Hibiki searches the body, but the pockets have been emptied, so no clues there. Cause of death: rifle round to the back of the head. Camilla examined the back of the skull and found powder burns around the entry wound: he was probably executed. 

Harriet checked one arm for signs of a muscular graft, but there was nothing obvious there. She asked Camilla about fingerprints but the fingers were probably too decayed to be useful; Camilla suggested dental records instead, so we took them. 

We decided to stay out and watch for lights from here overnight. Hibiki was on first watch. About an hour after it got properly dark, about 9pm, she noticed some lights in the sky to the west. We observed them and tried to work out where the lights were based. This took a couple of hours, then we headed on over to where the lights were coming from.

We drove to about 800m away from where we thought the lights were based, then followed Hibiki in. We were very stealthy behind her. 

We found it was an old, abandoned farm and when we observed it from cover we couldn’t see anyone, nor could we see where the lights disappeared to.

We waited, Harriet's years of patient observation training coming back to her, the lights had not been very frequent, and after about 45 minutes we observed a light fly into one of the barns, through the hayloft. The hayloft door was ajar, and there was no noise from the light, but it appeared to be a big glowing ball. Definitely something weird. 

We approached the barn, still stealthily, and tried to look in through a window - really a ventilation space, just a hole in the wall. It was shuttered, but not protected, so Harriet easily opened it and peered in.

All the interior walls had been removed. There was all kinds of weird equipment inside with an odd biological look. There were also five tubes in amongst it, one contained the corpse of a young boy.

There were six little grey men moving around in there, preparing for an operation, on the boy's body.

We decided to observe rather than intervene now. We settled on watching from the toolshed, about 20m from the barn, so we were closer to intervene if we have to. The farmhouse was about 50m from the barn. Good call, for the wrong reasons. 

About half an hour later a Blackhawk landed, and a squad of marines (13) disembarked and swept the area in a fairly cursory fashion - they clearly expected this to be a safe area - and one fire team went into the house. There was a civilian who remained by the chopper, with a second fire team. The third fire team patrolled. They were on a dark patrol discipline, and stuck to it well.

Camilla and Harriet tried to take photos of the civilian, but it was too dark and they weren’t really expecting this.

After a while, the cigarette-smoking man went into the barn and seems to argue with someone. There is a discussion about "cover being blown." This looks like MAJESTIC. The door has sound-proofing on the interior. The window-shutter did too.

The marines were all in full-black kit, but no unit insignia, rank insignia etc. The squads rotated their duties, and around 3am flew off. About an hour before dawn, Harriet snuck over to the barn window, and peered inside. The operation was complete and the boy's corpse was in a different tube and was dissolving. She took photos of the interior. 

A couple of hours after dawn, Camilla snuck over to the barn. The body had gone, save for a few bones, the Greys were still working on random things.

We decided to check out the house, very cautiously. The interior was much nicer than the outside. There were snacks, well-kempt furniture, cots in some of the upstairs rooms and the like. It looked like a rest area. Harriet searched for surveillance equipment, feeling paranoid, Camilla searched more generally. Camilla found random hidey-holes and nice snacks, a few bottles of beer and the like. Harriet confirmed to her satisfaction that there was no surveillance gear here. We, well Camilla dusted for prints in the house as well. Hibiki tidied up after her.

Whilst the forensics work was going on, Harriet went to Nashville, and bought some surveillance gear to bug the house, each room, the window of the barn and a parabolic mic to try and listen to the group by the helicopter from some distance - last night the civilian spoke into a phone for a period and it would be nice to hear what he said if that was repeated tonight. She added a hunter's blind to the list, to try and shield them from the Blackhawk's sensors if they surveyed the area before landing. 

We asked Tristan to check with Sheriff Oakley and he said that there's no one missing. We didn't completely trust his testimony, we knew there was mind-control in the area, we were just not sure if the sheriff was controlled or complicit. Harriet checked with the State Troopers and the Tennessee Highway Patrol. There had been no reports of missing people for the last year - however, this seemed pretty reasonable for the size of the town.

Harriet also handed the FBI the dental records, under the auspices of SAiC James Darringer with instructions to copy her in too. She also brought back food for everyone. Whilst setting up the mic for the barn, she noticed the Greys seemed to be just standing still. 

After everything was set up, they camped for the rest of the day and slept. This was a calculated risk - they were deep in the woods in the middle of nowhere and all the suspicious activity seemed to occur at night.

That night, the helicopter arrived early. We saw people arrive early, haul heavy equipment into the barn and then start spreading petrol around.

The Greys came out and said that the self-destruct sequence was ready, as was the virus. It was obvious that they were pulling out. They talked about too many questions being asked and a failed abduction attempt. On us? (Yes, OOC, the night that Tristan slept really heavily... but Camilla and Harriet stayed wide awake.) The virus seemed to be a deadly plague to cover their tracks. We waited, observed and documented as they prepared, and then destroyed the barn.

We discussed ways to try and restrict the spread of the virus, but as we were heading back to the road to try and stop people getting into town and thus getting infected, the National Guard showed up to set up a quarantine! Apparently there's a smallpox outbreak. We avoided them. 

After thoughts

We avoided multiple several chances to have TPKs as well, go us!

This was our first real contact with MAJESTIC. We can be pretty callous, some of us more than others. But all three of us drew the line at releasing a biological weapon on a town for the "mistake" of having been experimented on by aliens under the auspices of MAJESTIC. We didn't have the training or the equipment to take out a Blackhawk as it was landing, nor the foreknowledge of their plans and three of us against 13 marines would have been suicide.