As you flip through Dr. Valentina’s journal, the shape of events becomes gradually clearer. It’s difficult, because she was taking notes for herself, not writing for posterity. She goes on tangents, leaves out details, refers to people and places by initials or nicknames. And there are many pages that are completely inscrutable, filled with codes and diagrams you don’t understand at all.
But eventually, you piece things together. Fifty years ago, neon lights appeared in the sky over the region, growing brighter every night, flashing in sequences that did not seem to follow any known pattern. This was long before the internet or social media, but the town was buzzing with speculation: every student paper, every coffee shop conversation, mentioned the lights. What were they? Weather equipment? Soviet satellites?
Dr. Valentina had theories of her own. No recognizable reference to existing programming languages, she writes early on, but lights might make more sense in base 8??
She writes about the visible spectrum of light for different animals, and documents similar reports in tabloids and historical records. Interspersed with these research notes are her frustrations about the mundane happenings of daily life. She is constantly overlooked for grants and research opportunities in favour of her male colleagues. An experiment isn’t working the way she wants it to. Someone overhears her accent at the grocery store – Dr. Valentina was born in Romania – and calls her a “dirty commie.”
Suddenly, the research and speculation shift to action. A senior researcher in her lab has come down with an unexplained illness, and she is asked to replace him. She is nervous, but ecstatic. The university has received a strange report from a local farmer. There is an emergency meeting. She has been chosen as part of the response team. I will report back as soon as I can, she scrawls hastily before she leaves.
After that, there is a gap of several days – the longest she has gone without writing since the beginning of the journal. Then, in an entry dated September 27, 1975, she writes a long report of what they found in that farmer’s field. It begins, in emphatic capital letters:
EVERYTHING I USED TO BELIEVE ABOUT THE UNIVERSE HAS BEEN PROVEN WRONG. WE ARE NOT ALONE.
“Kilo-Charlie, this is Base. Do you copy? Over.” “Affirmative. Go ahead. Over.” “I need you to scan the crash site for critical evidence: a key, a soccer ball, a puzzle piece, a duck, a snake, and a butterfly. Over.” “Roger that. Scanning the site now. Stand by.”
“Base, this is Kilo-Charlie. I have visual on all critical evidence. Over.” “Outstanding. Mark their locations and return back to camp. Over.” “Wilco. Out.”