Men in Black: The Condor Incident Part 5

This entry concludes with today's post.  (Aren't you relieved?)

In the end, all we have of yesterday is our memories.  Those who exist only in the present may claim “Memories are for losers,” but for the rest of us, memories represent our most precious treasure.  Through remembering who we are, and where we have come from, we rate the progress of our own journeys through life.  Unfortunately, we live in an imperfect world, where anything we possess can be taken away from us at any time.  We’re just not used to the idea of our memories being stolen away from us, overwritten, or corrupted like an old computer file.

Turk claimed he never said anything, but somehow word got around about those empty beer cans, and the Condor monitoring project dropped us.  As they decided our observations couldn’t be trusted, no one investigated our claim about not being able to pick up one of the birds’ transponder signals.  For a while, there was talk about prosecution, and I thought about going to the doctor to get my blood tested.  But I couldn’t find a trace of any punctures in my skin from syringe needles or IV drips, so what would I have said?  “Hey Doc, I was bitten by a rattlesnake, but no one believes me.  No, I can’t show you the bite marks, but could you test me for Crofab antivenom?”  Yeah, right.

There’s a reason why, for the most part, no one talks about UFO sightings, alien visitations, and of course, alien abductions.  It’s because we live in the so-called information age, or if you prefer, the age of science and reason.  Such events can no more be proven than the existence of God.  We don’t even believe in demon possession, or ghosts, or miracles anymore.  Instead, we explain everything in terms of what can be demonstrated or proven, and what cannot is consigned to the realm of Fantasy.  Thankfully, even though they chose not to believe us, the Condor monitoring project decided against using their limited funds on litigation.  So that prospect faded with time, as did, regretfully, my relationship with Turk.   

At last year’s convention, Lowell Cunningham seemed to disappear after his Guest of Honor presentation.  I finally tracked him down in the bar Saturday night, where he was surrounded by a group of fans.  I joined the crowd, and followed a discussion that shifted topics faster than ocean waves break and reform.  This was largely due to him, as whenever someone broached the subject of a covert government agency, or cited an “unsolved” incident, he deftly changed the subject.  It was such a subtle thing, so artfully done, that I didn’t recognize it at the time.  But looking back now, it’s obvious he’s learned to ward himself from participating in such discussions. 

I’m not suggesting that the Men In Black were involved in what I think of as The Condor Incident, even though the movies based on his comic books play with the notion that aliens might disguise their shape and size.  But after my experience, the aspect of the movies that most concerns me is a device called a Neuralyzer (spelled Neurolyser in his comics).   I’ve wondered if the device were merely a product of his imaginings, or had some basis in fact.  If it did exist, and one’s memories could be erased or changed by such a human agency, it might help explain what happened to us that weekend.  It might not erase the question mark, in some people’s minds, as to our soundness.  But it might help during job interviews, when, after the person has asked me all the preliminary questions, he or she pauses, as if in thought, and then says, “I noticed something odd when I was preparing for this interview.  I was wondering if you could explain it?”

I don’t regret all those weekends of scientific observation.  Did you know that, during the Pleistocene epoch, the California Condor was abundant on our continent, and feasted on animals like giant sloths, saber-toothed cats, and mammoths?  They possess the longest wingspan of all North American birds, and fly so gracefully that they are often mistaken for small, distant airplanes.  And they fly a lot, sometimes as far as 160 miles a day.  Well, you get the picture.  I still think of them as a fascinating species. 

These days, my observations of them are limited to those on display at the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Safari Park.  I think I could still stare at them for hours, if given the chance.  Occasionally, one of them will stare back at me for a time, and I’ll wonder, “What’s he thinking?  What’s going on in his mind?”  If it’s a particularly large male, my thoughts will return to that long ago weekend, the large male that hung back from the others, and the fact that we only picked up three transponder signals, when there should have been four.  Then I’ll feel a tug on my arm, and turn to recognize that ever-so-patient look in my wife’s eyes.  I’ll nod and smile, and allow her to pull me away.

Dragon Dave

Men in Black: The Condor Incident Part 4

This post continues on from yesterday, but you don’t really need me to say that, do you?

When I wondered aloud why the hospital staff had returned us to such a remote location, Turk’s eyebrows rose.  “What're you on about?” my partner asked.  His eyes widened as I related what the nurse had told me about the hikers finding us, being airlifted to the hospital, and receiving the antivenom, a product called Crofab, within the critical time window.  Then he shook his head and pointed to his watch.  “Look, I don’t know what all...this is, but as things looked so promising, I agreed we could spend the additional day monitoring.  Then, don’t ask me why, but I agreed to work all yesterday afternoon as well.  But, come on, you promised me we’d be out of here by dawn.  I don’t know why my alarm didn’t go off, but I know I set it.  I know you’re a heavier sleeper, but really, the onus was on you."  He sighed, then waved at my tent.  “You know what Carly’s like, and I don’t have a clue what I’m gonna tell my boss.” 

Despite Turk’s protests, I insisted on breaking out the equipment.  While he swore and stomped off toward my tent, I pulled out the leather-bound notebooks and scanned through our entries.  There, in our own handwriting, we had separately recorded our observations for the preceding four days.  Then Turk’s legs appeared. I looked up at his narrowed eyes, saw my cooler in his hands.  “You want to explain this?” 

I rose to look into it, and saw well over a dozen empty cans of Blue Point Toasted Lager.  My lower jaw fell.  

He shook his head.  Suddenly, he looked as he had been kicked in the stomach.  He set the cooler at my feet, then turned and walked slowly back toward my tent. 

I blinked, hurried after him.  “I don’t understand.”

He cast the occasional glance at me as he walked inside my tent and knelt before my duffel bag.  

“No, don’t worry about this," I said.  "I can do it.” 

He grunted as he packed away my clothes, books, lantern, flashlight, and other personal items.  “Roll up your sleeping bag, and I’ll help with the tent,” he said tiredly.  He rose before I was halfway through, and grabbing my campstool, carried my duffel bag outside. 

“Turk—“

“Later.”

Why didn’t he remember our hospital stay?  Why did both our logs record a full afternoon of monitoring on Friday?  And even if the hospital staff had returned us here, and they had drank the beer before returning, how likely was it that they would all drink my favorite brand, brewed in Long Island, New York, (and only available in a few of the smaller local stores), unless I had packed it and brought it all with me? 

Even if I hadn't brought the beer with me, or drank any, the mere presence of those cans violated the terms of our volunteer monitoring agreement!

Then I heard Turk pounding away at the tent stakes, and I hurriedly finished rolling up my sleeping bag.  I didn’t want to make him wait any longer, in case he got any other ideas of what he could do with that hammer.

This entry will conclude in Men in Black: The Condor Incident Part 5.

Dragon Dave

Men in Black: The Condor Incident Part 3

This post is continued from Part 2.  (Obviously).

To this day, I don't remember the fangs digging into my flesh.  The next thing I knew, I lay in a hospital bed, my right arm enveloped in dressings.  It seemed as though I could barely string two coherent thoughts together.  Physical movement proved nigh impossible.  Pain shot through my head like a high-speed drill when I attempted to lift my right arm.  Even my left arm seemed reluctant to obey my commands.  I managed to lift it an inch or two, but the effort left me breathless, the room swimming.  After awhile, a nurse entered the room.  I could only listen as she told me that hikers had happened upon our still bodies several hours ago.  The good Samaritans had called for emergency services, and in due course we had been airlifted to this hospital. 

As incredible as it seemed, both of us had received antivenom within the critical six-hour time window.  I might experience a rash, but that was a small price to pay in comparison to losing my arm or death.  After assuring me that Turk was also doing fine, I promised her I would rest.  I stared at the white walls, and thought of watching TV, as that usually relaxs me.  But I couldn’t reach for a remote control, and then I realized that I didn’t have a television.  Not even pictures adorned the white walls.  My thoughts felt like minnows swimming through sludge, so I closed my eyes, and after awhile drifted off to sleep.

Imagine my surprise when I awoke to stare up at the interior of our tent.  Outside, Turk was yelling at me to wake up.  Amid his cursing, I heard the sounds of equipment being hurriedly packed away, the impact of containers hitting his tailgate, and their screeching as he dragged them across the rusty and pitted bed of his truck.  I crawled out of my sleeping bag, and found my right arm unbound and unblemished.  It seemed...incredible.  

My head ached as I moved, and once or twice I found myself staring at the tent, or the floor, but Turk's curses, and the occasional shout of my name, helped me pull all my clothes on, in the proper order.  Eventually.  

I unzipped my tent and stepped out to find that Turk had collapsed his tent, and was hurriedly rolling it up.  The synthetic fabric resisted his efforts, bunching up, and trapping unwanted air inside it.  The containers holding our observation equipment were already strapped down in the back of the pickup.  “What’s wrong?” I asked him.

“What’s wrong?”  Turk paused in his rolling to straighten and press down the dense, folded-over layers of fabric.  “You know what day it is?”

I blinked, glanced down at my watch.  It took a moment for my brain to make the connection.  Tuesday.  Tuesday?  We had arrived on Friday afternoon.  We should have left Sunday afternoon.  We always left Sunday afternoon, after a long morning of observation and a late lunch.  Where had the weekend gone?

I stared again at my right arm.  No puncture marks from fangs, needles or IVs.  Yet we had set up our observation post on Friday afternoon.  We had spotted those two male Condors competing for the female’s attention, and the other one that had looked on.  And the puma.  And the snake.  But then, what of the hospital we had woken up in?  If it had all been a dream, it should only be Saturday morning.  Where had those three extra days gone?

This entry will continue in Men in Black: The Condor Incident Part 4.

Dragon Dave

Men in Black: The Condor Incident Part 2

This post is continued from Part 1.

It was while Turk and I were fiddling with our tracking equipment, trying to locate the signal from that fourth radio transmitter, that I noticed the puma.  He crouched at the edge of the bushes, watching the two males competing for the female’s attention, as well as the larger male studying his fellows’ antics.  My heart threatened to stop beating: that was the last thing we needed!  The California Condor’s existence might not have been as tenuous as it once was, but the population didn’t need any thinning.

Then I cursed silently for my hesitation, as we always came prepared for such a contingency.  Without looking back, I reached for the rifle loaded with tranquilizer darts.  Experience had taught me to read the animal’s body language.  Even from here, without looking through the rifle's scope, I could tell that the puma was readying itself to pounce.  I’d have to shoot it, even if my action interrupted the birds’ interactions, and prompted the female to abandon her nest.  But my fingers couldn’t find the metal, and as they dug through the dirt, their action produced an annoying rattling.  I looked back, and my eyes widened.  My fingers hadn’t made the rattling sound: a four-foot long snake, with yellow-brown coloring and darker brown diamond blotches, lay atop the rifle. 

From its coloring, I recognized it as a Crotalus Oreganus Helleri, more popularly known as a Southern Pacific rattlesnake.  Its venom was highly toxic, containing myotoxins and hemotoxins that could easily produce a fatal bite.  The snake coiled atop the barrel of our rifle, which lay parallel to my position.  The snake’s long thin tongue darted toward me, as if warning me to back off.  That I could not do, not easily, as we only had enough space for Turk and I to kneel side-by-side. With the bushes to our back as well, we would need to stand up before we clambered backward over the scrub oak.  “Turk,” I whispered between gritted teeth, my facial muscles frozen.

“What?”  Then, in a whisper: “How do you want to handle it?”

Theoretically, I should remain frozen, and wait for the snake to lose interest in me.  But, perhaps in response to Turk’s question, its head was slowly rising above its coiled body.  Should I make a grab for the stock, and attempt to fling the rifle, and hence the snake, into the surrounding bushes?  Or would that only compel the snake to attack me?

That tongue kept flicking at me.  Those eyes bored into me.  That damned rattle kept rattling.  Ever so slowly, I arched my body to the right, and then extended my right arm toward the barrel, ready to halt the movement if the snake’s attention left my head to follow my hand.

I heard a strange hiss, not long like I expected, but short and sharp.  Then another.  Suddenly I was falling forward, the snake’s face was leaping toward mine, and I knew I had made the wrong choice.

This entry will continue in Men in Black: The Condor Incident Part 3.

Dragon Dave

Men in Black: The Condor Incident Part 1

Life often teaches us to keep quiet about some stories that should be told.  The looks of disbelief, the expressions of disdain, and the relationships that fracture or sever when faced with the seemingly impossible, have led me to keep my silence.  But Condor, my local science fiction convention, invited Lowell Cunningham as its guest of honor to last year’s convention.  At the time, I dared to hope that he might shed light upon an incident in my past that limited my career prospects, and has separated me from my fellow man. 

Lowell Cunningham is one of those brave souls who dared to write about the Men In Black.  While he claimed, at last year’s convention, that his stories had no basis in fact, we all know that the government wields innumerable secret operations.  The fact that covert agencies sometimes allow writers to fictionalize their exploits further obscures their existence.  While he refused to discuss any real-life incidents, such as the one I was involved in, he asked us a simple question.  How better to dispel popular belief in a covert agency than to allow Hollywood to make a Sci-fi comedy that parodies its activities? 

This year, as I contemplate my renewed outlook and goals, I made a decision.  If Lowell Cunningham dared to tell the world about the Men In Black’s various operations, albeit in a fictional context, at least I could relate my story.  It may seem incredible.  You may not believe what follows.  But if any of you have endured a similar experience (and worse, the uncertainties, fear, and isolation that inevitably follow), I hope my story will help you feel a little less alone.

Several years ago, I volunteered for a group that monitored the endangered California Condor.  My last weekend of scientific observation started like any other.  Turk and I established a campsite in a grassy clearing sheltered by tall pine trees.  (I’ll share with you my then-partner’s nickname, but not his real name.  Nor will I say where exactly we camped, for legal and environmental reasons.  Let’s just say we were in a remote, mountainous region, and we needed Turk’s four-wheel drive truck to get there).  After bolting down some protein bars, we made some initial readings, then picked up our cases of equipment and headed off in the direction indicated. 

Turk and I passed a pond in which ibis and ducks frolicked.  We spotted what looked like some young deer or antelope.  Our footsteps eventually led us to a cliff, and we took another reading, and then headed south.  Our progress slowed as we lugged our equipment through tall, wild grasses and shrubs.  When Turk signaled a halt, I peered over his shoulder.  My jaw dropped.  A female Condor guarded her nest in an indentation among the rocks.  Two males competed for her attention with their sexual displays, while another, this one a little larger than his fellows, watched the others dispassionately. 

This might not constitute the strangest activity we had ever witnessed, but it was certainly worth recording.  As the birds hadn’t yet noticed us, we snapped a few photographs, Turk with his cellphone and me with my Nikon.  Then we left the cliff area as quietly as we could, and backtracked through the scrub oak, until we selected an observation site among the bushes.  We pushed aside the shrub oak bushes, set up our monitoring equipment, and settled in to watch the birds interact. 

As everyone knows, the San Diego and Los Angeles zoos captured the surviving California Condors in 1987.  After raising their numbers, they slowly released them back into the wild.  Each bird, whether hatched in captivity or the wild, was tagged with radio transmitters so scientists and volunteers could individually chart their life journeys.   But try as we might, Turk and I could only pick up three transmitters with our tracking equipment, not four as there should have been. 

This entry will continue in Men in Black: The Condor Incident Part 2.

Dragon Dave

Getting Out There

The next explorer of the red planet.

Since I’ve returned from England, I’ve seen several movies in my local multiplex.  Two of those were highly anticipated installments in popular franchises.  Last year, I had the honor of meeting Lowell Cunningham, who wrote “The Men in Black” comics upon which the film series is based.  So I enjoyed watching “Men in Black 3,” even if it didn’t feature nearly enough screen time with Tommy Lee Jones.  This is no slight against Josh Brolin, whose portrayal of young Agent K was masterful.  It’s just that there’s only one real Agent K, and his name is Tommy Lee Jones.

The other highly anticipated installment wasn’t a sequel, but a prequel.  “Prometheus” suggests a backstory to “Alien,” and offers an ending that could provide a new direction for the franchise.  Director Ridley Scott is not like the author Steven Brust: he doesn’t even pretend to be a storyteller.  In his own words, he creates worlds.  His incredibly stylized imagery reminds one of Stanley Kubrick, another director who never sought to fully flesh out his ideas and make them coherent.  Instead, explanations are never offered, and the audience is left with more questions than answers.  His style thus marks him as “Ridley Scott: The Incomplete Package,” but oh, to be so incomplete!

Venturing to England this year, and exploring the various James Herriot sites (including, of course, the wonderful Ritz Cinema), was an invigorating experience.  The trip shall no doubt remain one of the highlights of my life.  I learned so much, felt so much, and embraced so much that was different.  I returned a new person, with a better understanding of myself and my world.

“Men in Black” suggests that many intelligent alien species are not only Out There, but are Here, living with us, while you read this blog post.  They land in New York City, get Visas, work permits, and extraterrestrial Green Cards.  They share the planet with us.  Some may be unfriendly, and intent on destroying our world.  Yet meeting and learning from our interstellar neighbors aids us in defending everything we hold dear.  

“Prometheus” suggests that aliens visited Earth in the past, but if we want to meet them now, we must go Out There to find them.  While we may face life-threatening dangers, we are promised discoveries that can transform us into new people with a better understanding of ourselves and the universe. 

Curiosity awaits discovery.

Knowing how travel and exploration have enriched me, I long for humanity to really get Out There.  Decades ago, we ventured to the moon, but we’ve yet to return.  We are sending rovers to Mars, and while that’s undeniably cool, such efforts cannot replicate the benefits of travel.  At best, they assemble guidebooks on what we might find Out There when we finally venture from our comfortable home.  The data we gather from such probes can suggest Points of Interest or a possible itinerary, but we cannot be transformed into new people with a better understanding of ourselves until we actually get Out There.

Through my writing, and through my exploration of our planet, I seek to transform myself into a better and more productive member of society, someone who can help us all move forward.  (I’m sure each of us seeks to do the same).  I hope that in this election year, we find leaders who won’t cancel space programs, but actually initiate, fund, and complete them.  As a species we need such leadership.  I can only imagine how we might all grow wiser, and transform our world for the better, if only we would build upon the dreams of our beloved and visionary Fiction, and finally get Out There.

Looking upward,

Dragon Dave

Related Dragon Cache entries

Men in Black: Inspiring a Franchise

Movie Trailers That Turn Us Off

Steven Brust: The Complete Package

Related Internet Links

JPL video: Rover Curiosity lands on Mars