Ancient Future:
Written by: James D. Parriot & Gay Walch
Directed by: Lou Antonio
Original airdate: November 16, 1996
Synopsis:
As a tribe of people sit around the fire, a bright object falls from the sky and lands near the mountains nearby.
Many centuries later, a man awakens in his home to see a knife on his night stand slowly spinning. He drives out and finds a collection of rocks floating in the air.
Bach discusses the situation with a scientist who explains the magnetic disturbances are above a fault line in Alaska, and only have a 50/50 chance of being naturally caused. Albano thinks it’s a waste of time to investigate it, but Bach knows Loengard has a nose for this type of thing and if he’s interested in it, they should be as well.
John and Kim meet a reverend named Gary, who after some tense back and forth about the recent tabloid exploitation stories of the floating rocks and religion in general, agrees to let them meet his uncle, Tug, the man who found the rocks originally. He tells them of the story of an ancient clan that saw a star fall to the earth, and was swallowed up underground. They spent their lives guarding the star, due to the instructions of the father who came down to speak to them without words. The father explained that the star should stay buried until a time in the future, when rocks would fly and it would sing its song, and the ground would open up and be exposed again to the sky. The father also seemingly died and floated up to the skies. Tug then shows them what the father looked like, a carving on a totem pole that resembles the Greys.
John and Kim discuss the existence of this friendly Grey, theorizing that the Greys might have been friendly, but are now implanted with ganglions like some humans are.
Tug takes them to the rock location where they notice a helicopter suddenly lose control when flying over the area, then veering off and regaining control. Kim notices the birds stop singing and suddenly the rocks start to float in midair again, and just as suddenly fall back down as an earthquake hits. After it subsides, a gorge has opened and they see the star Tug told them about. John and Kim go to get climbing equipment to get down there, but Majestic shows up. Tug asks John for his help in not allowing anyone to take out whatever is in the gorge.
Bach tries to get the local Air Force base General to assist him in locking down the town, but he resists, reiterating the disaster that is facing the town and surrounding communities because of the earthquake. Bach summons up his authoritarian demeanor and states his demands again, the general finally backing down, for some unknown and inexplicable reason, considering he outranks Bach by several levels.
Inside the gorge, John, Kim, Gary and Tug hear the ship making noises with Kim feeling queasy. They investigate further and find a glowing ship with alien writing on the sides. John notes that it’s larger than the Roswell craft, has less detail on the surface, seems to bend the matter around it and despite emanating heat, the surface isn’t even hot. Tug and Kim both feel uneasy, and decide to retreat, with John remaining unaffected. He theorizes it could be a warning device of some sort, and stays behind to take more pictures and investigate.
Bach explains to Albano that the ship at Roswell is dead, and wants this ship since it’s seemingly working as they begin their move towards the site.
Outside the gorge, Tug questions whether the father he spoke of was evil, but Kim explains he could have been here before they were taken over by the Hive.
Inside, John touches the ship and experiences a vision of the future with him arguing with Bach, a helicopter carrying the alien ship, and skeletons strewn around the land, with an older version of John waking up on the ground, as a man explains the skeletons are the remains of throwbacks, as they look up and see a hive ship flying above. As John awakens from his vision, Bach’s men arrive to take him out of the cave but he faints.
John awakens hours later to realize Bach is evacuating the town, deeming it a disaster site. John explains his vision to Kim who questions whether it could be changed. As Tug goes to Gary and prays with him, Kim and John move towards the guards under the ruse of wanting some coffee but grab their weapons and escape with a helicopter. They fly towards the site where Bach is ready to lift the alien ship out, and face off against him, threatening to take out both copters if they continue. Bach backs off and as they fly away, the ship explodes safely underground, leaving the area safe for the town citizens to return.
History As We Know It:
This episode, and the next (Inhuman Nature) were played out of production order. Of course, we opted to watch them in the intended order.
We’ve seen director Lou Antonio before, he directed 4 episodes of Dawson’s Creek in S1 and S2. He’s also a bit of a character actor going all the way back to 1960.
The 1964 Alaskan earthquake, also known as the Great Alaskan earthquake and Good Friday earthquake, occurred at 5:36 PM AKST on Good Friday, March 27. Across south-central Alaska, ground fissures, collapsing structures, and tsunamis resulting from the earthquake caused about 131 deaths.
Lasting four minutes and thirty-eight seconds, the magnitude 9.2 megathrust earthquake remains the most powerful earthquake recorded in North American history, and the second most powerful earthquake recorded in world history.
There were hundreds of aftershocks in the first weeks following the main shock. In the first day alone, eleven major aftershocks were recorded with a magnitude greater than 6.0. Nine more struck over the next three weeks. In all, thousands of aftershocks occurred in the months following the quake, and smaller aftershocks continued to strike the region for more than a year.
The closest I could find to the mentioned clan, is the Tlingit clan, which consists of many tribes within that clan. There are approximately 16000-17000 members still alive today.
Inhuman Nature:
Written by: Melissa Rosenberg
Directed by: Rodman Flender
Original airdate: November 9, 1996
Synopsis:
A farmer runs into his field when he notices his cattle are starting to get restless, and finds himself witnessing a group of Greys surrounding a dead cow, extracting its insides, and then transporting away to their ship.
John and Kim meet with Bobby Kennedy who lays out his plan to become Vice President in the election, and then president after that, at which time he can finally put in place an executive order that can override a previous one that protects Majestic 12. John and Kim are impatient but Kennedy tells them they have to play it safe lest all be lost, and offers them money as well as a weapon, at John’s request. Slightly down, John and Kim go to investigate the report of the farmer they heard about.
Upon arriving at the Castor Boehm’ home, they talk with his children, but the farmer shows up soon enough and orders them off his land at gunpoint, sensing their cover story is a lie. Kim instead tries the truth and he calms down, deciding to talk with them.
Meanwhile, a veterinarian student named Waring studies Castor’s cow, documenting it, but is interrupted by Albano who starts confiscating everything in the room, and bullying the student into signing an agreement on not talking about this incident to anyone lest he face charges.
John and Kim arrive and find Waring exhausted and hesitant to talk with anyone but he relents when John reveals he knows about Majestic and their tactics. Together, they developed a roll of film Waring took and didn’t hand over to Albano. They find several mysterious markings that John recognizes from another one of Farmer Boehm’s cows and they ask him to bring in the animal for inspection. Waring extracts a long black tube like object from the side of the cow, whereas John discovers the cow has an extra heartbeat. Waring theorizes it could be an abnormal pregnancy and decides to try and biopsy a growth they found inside with an X-ray.
Meanwhile, Bach’s daughter suffers from nightmares when her father isn’t home, complaining of monsters under her bed, despite him previously telling her it’s his job to make sure there are none. Even his wife is upset with him as he phoned her once again from out of town on Majestic business, keeping her in the dark as to his actual job.
Kim talks with John and suggests that maybe it’s a good thing that Kennedy has asked them to be patient, reasoning that it could be their chance to take a break, and to not fight the war so hard because there are others who are there to help as well. John says that Hive won’t just stop, but she pleads with him, reminding of how they wanted to start a family together, mentioning how Kennedy has a large family, and even Bach does as well. John comforts her, telling her that they will have that as well someday.
Waring extracts a large black sac from the cow and is ready to open it up, but John tells him it could be dangerous as he arms his weapon. Suddenly the sac starts to open up with a seemingly human toddler emerging. As John and Waring discuss what's going on, with John revealing to him about the Hive and the extraction process, Kim begins trying to clean the child up. John admonishes her, with Waring saying that this is all over his head and has to alert his supervisor. John suggests talking to Majestic to do an examination, due to their facilities, but Kim says that allowing them to cut open the toddler would make them no better than the Hive.
Bach goes to the Boehm farm and sees that Castor has shot all of his cows, freaked out when he saw the child emerge from the black sac.
Waring does a basic examination and clean up, and finds the child is normal except it does not have a naval. Majestic arrives and Kim gathers the child up. John warns her it may not be human, but Kim retorts that THEY still are. Kim goes with Waring to escape, and John stays behind to try and wipe the area clean but is caught.
Waring goes back to help John while Kim eventually gets to the service tunnel entrance, but finds the door locked. The receptionist for the hospital appears and tells Kim that she can’t take the child cause it belongs to “us,” revealing herself as a Hive member. She pushes Kim down and starts to unlock the door, but Kim attacks her from behind and grabs the boy, escaping through the tunnel.
As John refuses to give Bach anything, Bach starts to order his men to check the entire building. John sees Waring return and calls to him to get out, but Albano thinks it’s a ruse before Waring suddenly attacks him. Together, the two subdue Albano with Waring securing him as John reunites and escapes in the tunnels with Kim. They are suddenly stopped by a Majestic agent who radios Bach. John talks to the agent, distracting him slightly so they can escape and hide.
Bach shows up and says that all they want is the creature. John devises a ruse with the child’s blanket, covering some rats to attract Majestic away from the door. John and Kim escape with the child, locking the door behind them. They sleep in the car with the child, vowing to lay low for a while. In the middle of the night, a bright light appears, the car door unlocks by itself, and the child leaves, walking towards a bright light on the ground and is teleported away.
History As We Know It:
Cow mutilations go back as far as the 17th century. A rash of 200 mutilations were reported between April and October in 1975 in Colorado. An investigation was opened with the FBI concluding that it was all just common predators, whereas local officials strongly disagreed.
“I've been around cattle all my life and I can sure tell whether it's been done by coyote or a sharp instrument,” Sheriff George A. Yarnell of Elbert County.
Other explanations besides aliens, are satanic cults, larger than normal wolf sized wolf creatures, and odd humanoid creatures with yellow eyes in trees. Reports of flying circles in the skies have been reported at several mutilation sites.
Veterinary pathologists point to the fact that scavengers tend to eat the soft tissue of a dead animal first, which might explain the missing external organs commonly described on the dead bovine. Bloodlessness, meanwhile, might be attributed to livor mortis: When an animal dies, the heart stops and the blood stops circulating, thus settling the blood via gravity, creating a “bloodless” effect in some surface parts of a carcass.
In Washington County, Arkansas in 1979, the sheriff’s department conducted an experiment: It placed a dead cow in a field for 48 hours and found it looked a lot like the ostensibly mutilated ones. Bacterial bloating had caused its skin to tear in an incision-like manner similar to what had been described in some ranchers’ reports. Maggots and blowflies, meanwhile, had cleaned out the animal’s organs.
Resources:
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Dark Skies IMDb
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