You’ve often wondered, when watching horror movies, why the characters are so resistant to actually saying “zombie” or “vampire” or whatever. They’re always making up weird nicknames instead of saying the obvious out loud.

You get it now, though. Even as you read through the entries from Dr. Valentina’s journal – even when it’s obvious what she’s talking about – the word “aliens” still feels clunky and artificial on your tongue. At first, she calls them simply “the visitors,” or “the travelers.” Then, in an entry from October 11, 1975, they get an official nickname: “The Spinners.” Because of the ship they found in the woods, you infer, neon-colored and playful as a light-up top.

Even now, you find yourself saying “Spinners” whenever you can instead of stating the obvious.

“Did you believe in – you know – before this?” you ask Alex that evening.

“I mean, as a possibility, maybe? Like, panspermia? Not little green men in UFOs.”

You vaguely remember learning about panspermia – the theory that early life was seeded on earth and other planets by a common source – but it hasn’t been a big focus of your biology degree. Even that theory felt fringe, before.

Now nothing seems as certain. Ellen Valentina was a respected scientist, accomplished, committed to the scientific method. And yet here she is writing about making contact with Spinners, receiving secret communications from them that only she can understand, decoding the messages they send to her.

It would sound crazy, except that you’ve been receiving strange messages too. Is this a prank? A coincidence?

Or the beginning of something much, much bigger?