Hostile Convergence:
Written by:
Story by : Brent V. Friedman & Bryce Zabel
Teleplay by : Javier Grillo-Marxuach
Directed by: Perry Lang
Original airdate: December 7, 1996
Synopsis:
A New Mexico policeman named Lonnie chases a speeding car. He ends up seeing a bright flash overhead and witnessing an alien aircraft hovering near the ground, before flying right over him.
As John and Kim remain on the run, John wonders if Kim is getting tired of the life they live, or just tired of him. A phone call home to Kim’s family reveals that her mother doesn’t approve of John, her opinions shadowed by what they have heard about him from the government. Kim wants to go home for her sister’s wedding, but John is adamant about investigating the UFO sighting in New Mexico, trying to persuade her to visit the site first. Kim calls him out, asking how long they will continue to do this, putting their lives on hold, while they wait for Kennedy to become president. Eventually she gives in, and they head for New Mexico.
Meanwhile, Majestic watches over Jack Ruby, theorizing what they could learn from him, specifically about who the third shooter at the JFK assassination was and what else he might reveal. Allen Dulles says he will work his way onto the upcoming Warren Commission, a group dedicated to learning about how the president was assassinated. He also wonders if the Hive will attempt to do something about Ruby, as he seems to not be completely taken over by them, but rather existing somewhere in a halfway state.
In Ruby’s cell, he is visited by Steele who refuses to strengthen him as he did to other Hive agents before. He instead tells Ruby to eat his lunch, which upon doing so, finds one of the Hive’s predators inside of his hot dog. Ruby later starts banging his head against a wall as the leech works its way through his mind.
As John and Kim arrive in New Mexico, they find their old friend Jesse Marcel is there as well. He and John head off to investigate the policeman, while Kim stays behind to eat and talk with the waitress. She confides to her that she’s worried about missing her sister Andrea’s wedding, and the waitress suggests a bus leaving in 20 minutes, and getting a new man seeing how obsessed John is with UFOs.
Jesse and John listen to Lonnie describe what he saw, as he explains he saw two men coming out of the ship, dressed in coveralls. He also shows them the insignia he saw near the door before shouting to them below. Jesse and John confer later and Jesse tells him about his friend Clark Balfour who didn’t support Jesse back in the Roswell crash days. Balfour had recently contacted Jesse, saying he wants to make amends after a terminal cancer diagnosis. John discovers Kim has left with a note telling him to not come after her, and that it may be good for them to spend a little time apart. Unfortunately, the waitress is a Hive agent and contacts Steele to let him know where Kim is going.
At a hospital, John and Jesse meet with Clark, who tells them that the New Mexico sighting was a man made vessel, and not alien. He also has the plans for the ship, giving them a key and directions before drifting off to sleep.
Back in Texas, Bach and company examine Ruby after his apparent attempted suicide, and they discover the leech inside of his mouth, unaware of what it is. Later examinations reveal that it has removed the ganglion remnants from Ruby’s brain.
Jesse and John find the plans that Clark told them about, but it comes with the stipulation that the sealed documents are invalid if the seals are broken, meaning they have to open the container in the presence of the public.
Meanwhile, Kim talks with her family, fending off invasive questions from her mother, and getting to know her sister's fiancée, Rob. John contacts her to let her know that they are going to open the container soon with the press in attendance. Kim stresses concern about the fiancée and looks at his wallet, finding a business card that John recognizes as a Majestic field office. Kim’s sister finds her snooping, forcing her to explain that Rob is a government agent. The sisters begin arguing but Rob cuts in and tells her that it’s all true.
John begins to get cold feet about opening the container after calling the hospital and hearing that they have no record of Clark being a patient there. Jesse is desperate to have some redemption after the last 17 years, but John cautions him to not be blinded by revenge. John decides to leave for Denver, and get back to Kim.
Rob tries to tell Andrea that while it did start out as a job, he did in fact fall in love with her. Steele and the Hive break into the house and shoot Rob after he gets a shot in at one of the agents. Kim gets her mother out of the house and grabs a gun from the shot Hive agent. Kim manages to shoot Steele, with Rob recovering enough to cover her back. All the while, Steele manages to escape. Again. Surprisingly.
At the local cafe in New Mexico, Jesse opens the container alone with a friend, and it shows plans for a Nazi flying saucer. Jesse sees through the ruse as a cover story to try and make people believe that aliens don’t exist, and that the space crafts they see are actually just man made aircrafts.
History As We Know It:
We’ve seen director Perry Lang before, he directed 5 episodes of Dawson’s Creek from seasons 3-6, the first of which was “The Longest Day” when Dawson first finds out about Joey and Pacey’s relationship. He’s a steadily working TV director and actor.
We’ve also seen writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach before, he actually got his start writing 3 episodes of Seaquest 2032 (season 3). He followed that up with this episode of Dark Skies, and has worked steadily since then on many major shows.
German UFO theories describe supposedly successful attempts to develop advanced aircraft or spacecraft prior to and during World War II, and later secret underground bases in Antarctica, South America, or the United States, where the ships were hidden and developed along with their creators.
In World War II, the so-called "foo fighters", a variety of unusual and anomalous aerial phenomena, were witnessed by both Axis and Allied personnel. While some foo fighter reports were dismissed as the misperceptions of troops in the heat of combat, others were taken seriously, and leading scientists began to investigate them.
In at least some cases, Allied intelligence and commanders suspected that foo fighters represented advanced German aircraft or weapons, likely because the Germans had already developed such technological innovations as V-1 and V-2 rockets (The rockets traveled at supersonic speed, impacted without audible warning, and proved unstoppable, as no effective defense existed) and the first operational jet-powered Me 262 fighter planes.
The Avro Canada VZ-9 Avrocar was a VTOL aircraft developed by Avro Canada as part of a secret U.S. military project carried out in the early years of the Cold War in the 1980s. It would blow exhaust out of the rim of the craft, letting it float and in the air, it would have resembled a flying saucer. The project was repeatedly scaled back over time and the U.S. Air Force eventually abandoned it. A German designer commented that the design was similar to what was being worked on in Germany during the war.
Josef Allen Hynek was an American astronomer, professor, and ufologist. He is perhaps best remembered for his UFO research. He specialized in the study of stellar evolution and in the identification of spectroscopic binary stars. He began however as a skeptic and non-believers of UFO reports, thinking they were ridiculous and the witnesses unreliable. That changed.
In April 1953, Hynek wrote a report for the Journal of the Optical Society of America titled "Unusual Aerial Phenomena," which contained one of his best-known statements:
Ridicule is not part of the scientific method, and people should not be taught that it is. The steady flow of reports, often made in concert by reliable observers, raises questions of scientific obligation and responsibility. Is there ... any residue that is worthy of scientific attention? Or, if there isn't, does not an obligation exist to say so to the public—not in words of open ridicule but seriously, to keep faith with the trust the public places in science and scientists?
As UFO reports continued to be made, some of the testimonies, especially by military pilots and police officers, were deeply puzzling to Hynek. He once said, "As a scientist I must be mindful of the lessons of the past; all too often it has happened that matters of great value to science were overlooked because the new phenomenon did not fit the accepted scientific outlook of the time."
In a 1985 interview, when asked what caused his change of opinion, Hynek responded, "Two things, really. One was the completely negative and unyielding attitude of the Air Force. They wouldn't give UFOs the chance of existing, even if they were flying up and down the street in broad daylight. Everything had to have an explanation. I began to resent that, even though I basically felt the same way, because I still thought they weren't going about it in the right way. You can't assume that everything is black no matter what. Secondly, the caliber of the witnesses began to trouble me. Quite a few instances were reported by military pilots, for example, and I knew them to be fairly well-trained, so this is when I first began to think that, well, maybe there was something to all this."
He first used the term “close encounters” as a part of a scale to better catalog UFO sightings and would actually be a consultant on the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and had a cameo near the end of the movie as well.
Close Encounters of the First Kind
Visual sightings of an unidentified flying object, seemingly less than 500 feet (150 m) away, that show an appreciable angular extension and considerable detail
Close Encounters of the Second Kind
A UFO event in which a physical effect is alleged; this can be interference in the functioning of a vehicle or electronic device, animals reacting, a physiological effect such as paralysis or heat and discomfort in the witness, or some physical trace like impressions in the ground, scorched or otherwise affected vegetation, or a chemical trace
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
UFO encounters in which an animated entity is present—these include humanoids, robots, and humans who seem to be occupants or pilots of a UFO
Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind
A Close Encounter of the Fourth Kind is a UFO event in which a human is abducted by a UFO or its occupants. This type was not included in Hynek's original close encounters scale. A colleague of Hynek’s argued that this level should include "cases when witnesses experienced a transformation of their sense of reality", so as to also include non-abduction cases where absurd, hallucinatory or dreamlike events are associated with UFO encounters. (Reference the movie The Fourth Kind).
We Shall Overcome:
Written by: Bryce Zabel and Brent V. Friedman
Directed by: Oscar L. Costo
Original airdate: December 14, 1996
Synopsis:
A group of young men drive at night, frantic to get away from cops pursuing them, but seem to have left behind. In an attempt to find a phone, they approach a church, with one of the men going to see if there is anyone to let them in.
Inside the church, an older white man named Clayton Lewis looks on, astonished, as he watches Reverend Poole, a black man, speaking a weird language to several other men as they pull dirty and slimy objects out of a strange mound of dirt and goo. Clayton shows disgust towards Reverend Poole, which he understands as being a reaction to his skin color. Clayton tries to escape, but the other men in the church grab him, and together they go to the church altar where Reverend Poole begins talking of The Singularity. Summoning the ball of light, he wants Clayton to touch it, but he refuses. The Singularity then disappears when they hear a noise from outside, catching a glimpse of a man peering in through the window.
Meanwhile, John hears from his parents who received a call from one of his old Washington workmates, Simonson, referring to one of their earlier conversations. Kim wonders if it has anything to do with the case of three missing civil rights workers in Mississippi, so they head out to investigate. Once there, John is disheartened to see segregation in full force in the town of Meridian, while Kim starts to hear a buzzing noise as she passes Clayton Lewis and another man. A tense interaction occurs, broken up by Reverend Poole commenting nearby, and John and Kim leave, continuing on their way to find Simonson.
Bach talks with a committee consisting of high ranking military personnel and government officials, such as General Nathan Twining (Chief of staff of the Air Force from 1953-1957, and third chairman of the joint chief of staff from 1957-1960), Hubert Humphrey (senator and future vice president), William Paley (the head and creator of CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting Company, played by famous UFO radio host Art Bell), and Allen Dulles (CIA director) amongst others. The focus is about changing Majestic’s purpose from observation to confrontation, but Humphrey in particular is more concerned about rumors of a conspiracy, Majestic’s possible involvement in the assassination of JFK, as well as the notion that Majestic may not be as secret as it used to be, revealing stories of it being mentioned amongst others in conversations elsewhere.
Clayton heads to Poole’s church with his crew and faces off against the Reverend, while the reverend tells him that the Hive answers to no god. Clayton decks him and leaves, with Poole telling him they will talk of forgiveness soon.
John and Kim receive a message on behalf of Simonson, from a woman named Eda Mae, to meet later, out of the public eye at night. Mark tells them that he was with the missing three men the night they disappeared. After his friend Mendel ran from the church, they tried to drive off but were pursued by police, eventually stopping and running off in different directions, but the group never reunited. Simonson tells them of then seeing a bright light in the sky, belonging to a flying ship. With the news that the FBI has shown up and are pulling a car out of the river, John and Mark go undercover as agents to see what they can find out, however Majestic soon shows up as well.
Elsewhere, Kim and Eda Mae decide to investigate the church, with Eda distracting Reverend Poole while Kim checks out the basement. Kim discovers Clayton who reveals he has a ganglion inside of him, but hasn’t been fully taken over yet. He tells her that Poole had tried to get him to kill the three missing men, but he wouldn’t do it. He then asks her to help him get the ganglion out of him, saying that he and her are the same, that whites gotta stick together. Despite his comments, Kim decides to help him and brings him to Eda’s place, where John reveals that Majestic has captured Simonson. While Kim starts to perform an ART, John takes her advice to try and tip off the FBI in order to get Mark off the hook with Majestic. Clayton continues to make racist comments, but Kim and John decide to help him regardless.
At the church, Albano and crew raid the basement and kill two of the men working with the strange objects in the dirt. They gather what they can and then under threat of the FBI showing up with J. Edgar Hoover himself leading their charge, Majestic burns the church to the ground. Bach tries to reason with Reverend Poole, but the ganglion inside him says that while Poole may die, the Hive will continue on. J. Edgar Hoover shows up and tries to get Bach to explain himself, but Bach tells him that he outranks him. Bach also laughs him off when Hoover tries to tell him that he isn’t going to let Majestic do what they do on his watch anymore.
Back at Eda’s, the ART works and the ganglion is extracted, with John trapping it. However, more Hive members have arrived and begin breaking into the house through the roof. Kim and Eda rush to the car while John starts to carry Clayton. He is stopped by the Hive members who crash through the roof, but John throws them the ganglion and they let him escape.
Hoover later meets with Albano who has a package for him. They are documents that Hoover thinks will explain what Majestic actually deals with, but instead the information within details personal information from Hoover’s life, most notably his relationship with the second in command of the FBI, Clyde Tolson, effectively making Hoover back down from his crusade against Majestic before it could even start.
John meets with Bach at the ruins of the church. They release Simonson, but decide to keep Clayton in order to study him since he is now an ART survivor. In the end, Bach agrees to help the parents of the missing men give their children a proper burial, as an anonymous source tipped the FBI about where the men’s bodies could be found. Furthermore, someone mysteriously donated money to help the church rebuild as well, with John choosing to believe it may have been Clayton, hoping that people, and by extension the world, could change.
History As We Know It:
Oscar L. Costo is another familiar presence on The Rewatch, having directed 5 episodes of Seaquest across seasons 2-3, and 4 episodes of Sliders through seasons 2-3.
Ralph Sbarge plays Mark Simonson, who was portrayed by Frances Guilin in the pilot.
The three men were Andrew Goodman, Mickey Schwerner, and James Chaney (African American). Not Andrew Mendel, or Lance Taylor or David Gould.
On June 21, 1964, James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman were tortured and murdered by the KKK with help from the deputy sheriff near Philadelphia in Neshoba County, Mississippi. The three young men had traveled to Neshoba County to investigate the burning of Mt. Zion Methodist Church.
The trio were shot and murdered by the Ku Klux Klan because Chaney was African-American and Goodman and Schwerner were both Jewish. Throughout the rest of June and July, authorities (including President Lyndon Johnson), claimed that the disappearance of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner could be a Civil Rights Movement publicity stunt. While investigators dragged and searched the rivers, they uncovered the bodies of eight other African Americans, and ultimately found their bodies, buried in a dam site in Neshoba County, on August 4, 1964.
Those found guilty on October 20, 1967, were Cecil Price, Klan Imperial Wizard Samuel Bowers, Alton Wayne Roberts, Jimmy Snowden, Billy Wayne Posey, Horace Barnette, and Jimmy Arledge. Sentences ranged from three to ten years. After exhausting their appeals, the seven began serving their sentences in March 1970. None served more than six years. Sheriff Rainey was among those acquitted. Two of the defendants, E.G. Barnett, a candidate for sheriff, and Edgar Ray Killen, a local minister, had been strongly implicated in the murders by witnesses, but the jury came to a deadlock on their charges and the Federal prosecutor decided not to retry them. On May 7, 2000, the jury revealed that in the case of Killen, they deadlocked after a lone juror stated she "could never convict a preacher".
Forty-one years after the murders took place, one perpetrator, Edgar Ray Killen, was charged by the state of Mississippi for his part in the crimes. In 2005 he was convicted of three counts of manslaughter and was given a 60-year sentence. On June 20, 2016, federal and state authorities officially closed the case, ending the possibility of further prosecution. Killen died in prison in January 2018.
The journalist Jerry Mitchell, an award-winning investigative reporter, wrote extensively about the case for six years. Mitchell had earned fame by his investigations that helped secure convictions in several other high-profile Civil Rights Era murder cases. Mitchell was aided in developing new evidence, finding new witnesses, and pressuring the state to take action by Barry Bradford, a high school teacher at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois, and three of his students, Allison Nichols, Sarah Siegel, and Brittany Saltiel, who produced a documentary for the National History Day contest that presented important new evidence and compelling reasons to reopen the case. Bradford also obtained an interview with Edgar Ray Killen, which helped convince the state to investigate. Partially by using evidence developed by Bradford, Mitchell was able to determine the identity of "Mr. X", the mystery informer who had helped the FBI discover the bodies and end the conspiracy of the Klan in 1964. Mitchell's investigation and the high school students' work in creating Congressional pressure, national media attention and Bradford's taped conversation with Killen prompted action. In 2004, on the 40th anniversary of the murders, a multi-ethnic group of citizens in Philadelphia, Mississippi, issued a call for justice. More than 1,500 people, including civil rights leaders and Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, joined them to support having the case reopened.
There’s an urban legend of J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, dressing up in his mother’s clothing hours after her death but no hard evidence. Clyde Tolson was Hoover’s second in command and the two were rarely seen without each other, and were very close. They ate together twice a day, took joint vacations, attended sporting events together, double dated with presidents and their wives, or various stars of stage and screen, and were always together at White House affairs. Rumors were rampant, with some senators even threatening to out it on the House floor. In return, Hoover often sent agents out to track citizens who would even suggest he was gay. He also took part in The Lavender Scare, the firing of a huge amount of homosexual workers in the government because they were more susceptible to coercion and influence by enemy agents (Commies). This was during the Red Scare headed by Senator Joe McCarthy.
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