“I Want To Believe.” — Moulder
“Good morning investigators!” The presenter says a little too loudly into the microphone. She pauses and looks nervous. “I wanted to start out saying good morning and welcome back!” *indistinct muttering and discussions wane as the group gathered in the large bland room quiets to listen to the presenter* We are so enthusiastic to have you here, those who could locate the convention center” *nervous laugh that is only half-kidding* “Seriously we want to extend a big welcome to day 2 here at the Mariot Hotel convention center in Dysmal Nitch. We had a great meet and greet last night that I hope you all attended and took the time to fill out and submit the pretest over night. ”
“So let’s just jump right in to the pretest results. We had a 105 test responses and 42% of you identified this as the outline of a space alien, write in answers included ‘a Gremlin’ and ‘The Beast of Gevaudan’.
Although we accepted all answers, what we were looking for was Canis latrans, the Coyote.
“Coyotes are common and sometimes they hybridize with local dogs, wolves or have natural variations. Like we always say, ‘search the Internet before publishing your documentary to the Discovery Channel.’ Next slide please:”
“So many of you have reported these alien foot prints in the snow. And this is what we were saying last night at the welcoming pizza party mixer, that bad paranormal investigations make us all look foolish and people don’t take us seriously – over 70% of you identified this as a supernatural print that was entirely unidentifiable on this planet.”
*many nods of agreement, knowing looks exchanged, exasperated tone of presenter ignored*
“This is a bunny track. Anyone who has gone through the woods after a snow will recognize this. Children recognize this as a bunny track. We gave you 24 hours to finish and research the answers to this test, these tracks are easily found online.”
*raised hand* “By ‘bunny’ do you mean the supernatural monster, Bun’ Yee?”
*Question gets ignored* “One of you made a 3 part television documentary series investigating these tracks that was published to the Travel Channel, now I am not going to name names but this is half-baked at best and embarrassing.”
Please play the following sound clip [YouTube Fox MP3] and answer the question: what made this sound. You can use the visual cues in the video.
“This next test prompt required you to listen to a sound clip. The sound clip was clearly labelled, ‘fox’ but over 85% of your reported it could not be from this plane of existence. One person reported that the eerie vixen scream originated from another dimension was so disturbing they could not join us here this morning.”
“In conclusion to part 1, we can clearly see that we need a better focus on local species possibly learning the names, calls and footprints of basic animals you’ll commonly encounter.”
*raised hand” “I did not sign up to become a Biologist!” *many angry mutterings of agreement*
“Okay let’s skip to part 2 of the test” — presenter looks agitated and nervous. She had hoped this would go better.
Investigating 101
“This question was probably the most difficult on the test. It really required you to read it slowly and imagine yourself in the scenario.”
‘You are in the desert a 100 miles from any town, you have stationed yourself on a mesa with binoculars. A large square retention pond is below you with an industrial liner. Unmarked trucks arrive at intervals from the well maintained highway. Where are you and what should you do?‘
a.) A toxic dump site, who knows what they’re filling that pit with, you take a couple of photos from a distance and go home.
b.) The pit probably has to do with alien sightings nearby so you should go and investigate after dark ignoring the tall fence and explore the miasma in the pit with all five senses. After seeing the square shape and liner you know this could not be man made.
c.) Confront one or more truck drivers, demand the truth, take their photo and tell them, YOU KNOW — then investigate the pit by touching the goo that must contains alien eggs being looked after by the truck drivers to hatch and bring about the alien apocalypse. Because the trucks are unmarked: it must be the government.
d.) Run through the entrance of the fence and jump straight into the pit which is undoubtedly a portal to another reality, world or even space ship. [DO NOT DO THIS]. [THIS IS NOT THE RIGHT ANSWER]. [PLEASE PICK ANY OTHER ANSWER]
“So what we were really looking for here is for the realization that this is a dangerous situation. Most of you will find yourself working in isolated desert locations but the reason why a decent highway runs through the region is to accommodate the trucks that are there to dump waste products. Ordinarily the trucks that are dropping off the waste will be unmarked as to not be associated with a business entity.”
“Many of you failed to reason out there could be fumes, and we’ll have a half day seminar about what fumes are coming up, but for now please know that breathing in the plasma soup of toxic waste is ill advised.”
“I know that one was difficult – let’s move on.”
When Should I Research?
1am – 4am is the best time to research any phenomenon.
“Ending on a good note, not one of you missed the questions about the best time of day to look around abandoned structures, pits, swamps, houses, forests, basements, crawl spaces, caves, deserts and mine shafts.”
“52% of you said you never bring a backup light source, that was also correct.”
“Most of you indicated you were unfamiliar with the term, ‘head lamp’.”
“93% of you said that when putting out a live animal, such as a tethered lamb or calf as bait for the monster / alien / interdimensional being that the best location for the camera system with night vision was outside the holding pen and not directly on the animal. We accepted any other location besides watching the animal(s).”
“85% of you indicated that when a repel was necessary you would never bring a long enough rope, which was correct. We also appreciated the lack of helmets and proper training.”
“92% of you indicated that you did not know how to use a shovel correctly or own safety equipment.”
“All of our participants here today own dowsing rods which was really promising. So good job everyone on equipment!”
“Additionally we had full compliance in everyone either owning a black SUV or white van to conduct investigations from.”
“We’re going to take a break now and when we get back from lunch we have an exciting presentation from the extension center at the Community College entitled, ‘The Scientific Method: What Is It’ to be followed up with ‘Men in Black, The Government is Behind IT’, So we look forward to seeing you back here at 1pm! Thanks!
***
Authors Note: I absolutely adore a good paranormal documentary series.
Authors Note 2: This is based on a true story.
