Prologue: Lights in the Sky

MARCH 15, 1996

It's an uncharacteristically warm spring day when you and your group of friends head out to investigate those strange lights in the sky you've been observing for a while now. You've spoken to the police but of course they don't believe a bunch of kids that anything strange is going on, even though you've clearly seen the lights and can't find another explanation for them than UFOs.

Tonight, you’ve snuck out of your houses equipped with flashlights, cameras, and snacks, without telling your parents of course, to once and for all solve the mystery behind the strange lights above the woods. You have brought a device to help you, a homemade photon deductor that gathers information about light and analyzes it. Sixten built it with the help of Ing-Marie Blankäng, the local expert on UFOs and the only adult who would actually listen to you.
You’ve sat for an hour and a half in the woods east of the cove that cuts southward through the eastern part of Svartsjölandet and nothing has happened. You’re out of snacks and ghost stories and you're starting to get on each other's nerves...

David stands up to stretch, the long wait making him nervous and giving him pins-and-needles on his butt.

He is disappointed, but all that he's read about UFO sightings cannot be wrong.
"We should see something any minute, I'm sure... They say that the reason most people don't spot any unexplainable stuff, is because they give up too soon." He turns to the others, "But that's not us, right? Right?"

He shrugs and finds a tree branch that is the right height for him to show off some pull-ups. He checks Jillian with the corner of his eye to see if she's looking, then starts the exercise to impress her.

Jillian sits, hunched on the ground, tinkering with the machine they had brought with them.

When David starts up (again!) about the UFOs, she rolls her eyes and tuts.

"My dad said it’s probably just the Russians flying around in their jets. Or the Americans." she says with a shrug, as if by saying it, it made it true.

Jillian didn’t think, for a second, that they would encounter aliens out here. But whatever this UFO thing was, well… she wanted to be the one to crack the story. She needed to be the one!

Sitting on a stump, in her usual pile of oversized clothing, this evening's attire being bundles of sweats and an extra large hoodie, Mette stares into the sky immediately oblivious to David's flexing and Jillian's tinkering with Six's latest gizmo.

"Do you think its true that aliens abduct people and do experiments on them?" She asks absently; not taking her gaze off the skies.

Jillian is tempted to look shocked, but stuppers it before the look crosses her face. Instead, she simple rolls her eyes again at the talk of aliens, and instead just looks up at the sky, waiting for someone else to field an answer to the ridiculous question!

Sixten watches Jillian playing with the device. "If there's anything out there, my photon deductor will get a reading!" he says proudly, smirking while pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. "David's right, we might get something any minute." His eyes scan the sky for several long seconds. "Any minute," he says again.

His attention is focused until Mette's question cuts the silence again. "Uh, yeah, I mean, it only makes sense, right? First of all, there are waaaay too many people with similar stories, all over the WHOLE world, for it to be a coincidence. Plus, I know if I flew across the galaxy to find an alien race, the first thing I'd want to do is run some tests."

"You bet they are abducting and experimenting!" he agrees as he drops off the branch, "But... think about it... this could be to mankind's advantage. A civilisation already capable of interstellar flight -while we can manage to get to the moon at best- could even... enhance us, with their unimaginably advanced technology! I'd be up to be kidnapped!" he says, enthusiastically. "I might come back with some superpowers..."

"Well, even if there were aliens… and even if they did abduct people… Have you heard what they do to them? My dad says… well…"

Mom always told dad to stop right about now when dad got talking about the UFO quacks!

You spend some time talking about aliens (and whatever rational explanations there might be for them), until suddenly, you see what you came here for. Flashes across the night sky, lights moving in patterns that no place or military aircraft could.

Sixten points his photon deductor at the lights and measures that they move at a speed of approximately Mach 2. Their movements appear random until, without warning, they suddenly adjust their course downwards. You watch as the lights descend, soon threatening to hit the ground, not far from your position, right by the coast where Svartsjölandet hits the surrounding lake.

Jillian starts to try to explain what they are seeing. And then stops. And then threatens to start again. Eventually, she settles into a kind of annoyed, confused open-mouthed expression as she watches.

"That’s the lake! Let’s go! Right? RIGHT?!" and with that, she takes off at speed. Whatever this thing was, there had to be some reasonable reason for it. The quicker she got there, the quicker she could file what she had just seen away in a sensible manner!

his jaw drops seeing the spectacle, hair standing on end. "Unidentified... Flying... Objects..." he whispers slowly, like in a trance.

Hearing Jillian, he snaps out of it and follows "Heck Yeah!! Let's goooooooo!!!". He rushes after her towards the lakeshore.

"That's them!" Sixten exclaims, "So COOL!" He quickly stands, holding the photon deductor aloft. "They're going so fast, and did you see how they course corrected, changing directions at sharp angles. No airplanes can do that. Okay, okay, yeah - let's go." He takes off with the others.

"Hey! Wait up for me!" Mette calls out as she rises from the stump and gathers up the abundant pile of her oversized clothes. She grabs handfuls of the fabric of her sweat pants and tugs them up to keep from tripping, as she chases after the other three.

You run towards the lake coast just as the lights continue to descend towards it. On the other side of the water, you see the moving lights reflect in the three metallic radio telescopes of the Clovers facility, the enormous observatory meant to broadcast into and analyze signals from outer space.

As you continue to race the descending lights to the beach front, they impact the ground a good bit ahead of you. A blinding flash of light throws you backwards and off your feet. Your ears are ringing and you're briefly disoriented.

The lights in the sky have disappeared and it is quiet and dark once again.

Jillian rubs her back as she climbs to her feet. She’s sore, and upset. And quiet confused to go along with all that!

"Why didn’t they abduct us, do you think…?" she starts up in her usual, smug I-told-you-so way!

"Ouch... as close encounters go, this is quite lame..." he comments, massaging his back after the fall.

He straightens and looks at the others "What the heck happened, there? Did you see that?? Did they crash?"

He stands and points at the impact site some distance away. "Let's go check! We might get to see... THEM!!" he hobbles along, half-limping.

"Oooow!" Mette cries out as she recovers from being thrown backwards onto the ground. She sits up, rubbing her back and butt through the pile of fabric, then stands and brushes the dirt and leaves off her backside. "This is starting to not be so fun, guys. Let's stick together."

As David points at the impact site, you all see... someone there. Or maybe something? It's hard to tell in the dark but it looks like a person.

There is no impact crater or anything like that, but whoever - or whatever - it is you're seeing, they seem to be lying on the ground, pretty much exactly where the lights would have hit the earth.

"Is that..." Sixten starts, halting in his tracks, pointing. "DUDES! IT's a frickin' alien!" He instinctively takes a step forward. "It, uh, looks hurt, right?"

"Whoa! No way!" Mette says in disbelief at what her own eyes are seeing. She stops short beside Sixten and peers through her bundles at the figure on the ground. "It does look injured...or dead." She agrees with him.