On December 13th, a small object entered the Earth’s atmosphere mostly undetected and dropped into the Atlantic Ocean - somewhere near the infamous Bermuda Triangle.  Most UFO sightings occur at night, daytime reports are rare.  But early afternoon that day, a couple reports were radioed in seconds apart from two fishing boats just off the coast of Cape Canaveral.  On Marine Channel 16, the US Coast guard had received the same basic message: 

*Green, glowing fireball-looking object just spotted off our stern*

*Blueish light beam tracking on ocean surface*

*Descending in a NNE direction coming off SSW*

US Coast guard dispatchers were trained to first request location and then determine if the situation was an emergency and summon help if necessary.  If not, the relayed message would be keyed into a centralized system along with a few descriptive tags and recorded. The two reports were recorded almost simultaneously by two different dispatchers:

*Charlie-Bravo-One-Seven-Two-Four-Echo-Alpha, 28.43, -80.37*

*#UFO #Fireball #Laser #Green #Fast #130 #Visual*

*November-November-Nine-Four-Six-Three-Romeo-Tango, 28.30, -80.49*

*#Object #Meteor #Beam #Blue #SuperFast #130 #Visual*

The system collected reports from all agencies across the US, generating reports and delivering them to the various responsible personnel for post-analysis every morning.  It was a relic from the 20th century and hadn't seen a patch or tech refresh in years. Cyber security was all the rage nowadays (and even that department was severely underfunded.)  DUFOs (*typical government-speak meaning Daily UFO reports*) were unreliable and had no linkage to prior events, nor any access to any external systems for cross-referencing.

Making matters worse, all the career analysts in charge of monitoring those reports were off on their usual vacations, holidays and such.   A couple of interns filled in and were assigned the task.  Their job was to comb the reports each morning and report any anomalies up the chain of command.  Ziv and Noma had the basics down, but had zero training in identifying any strangeness in those reports. A page count was the only thing they really paid attention to, and that really hadn't changed all that much.

In reality, the size of the DUFO had grown tenfold over the past two months.  Maybe a half page back in the fall, and now up to seven-eight-nine pages some days.  Sightings were being reported from the peaks of Mt. Hood in Oregon to the swamps of southern Georgia.  And it wasn’t just the US, every continent on the planet was experiencing the same phenomena - and no one knew it.  NATO countries had other pressing issues, mainly the virus and managing unstable world leaders.

As the sheer volume of encounters and the whispering amongst neighbors grew, the US Government was finding it increasingly difficult to shuffle these reports aside.  The public wanted answers. The advent of the internet and cellular phones had started to change transparency years ago.  Recorded "UFO" sightings were even showing up on the dark web - ones that originated from US Navy fighter pilots out on practice missions.  The Department of Defense was forced to declassify several reports due to public outcry.  YouTube had even recently devoted a channel to the cause which had attracted millions of viewers overnight.

And unbeknownst to Ziv, Noma, the US Government, and the World, this oversight was going to be a **big** problem beginning later that very morning.

Science Fiction

"A mysterious, green glowing object descends near the Bermuda Triangle, hurtling towards Earth at an astonishing speed. Amateur UFO sightings pile up, but the US government is forced to relegate these reports due to the virus and unstable world leaders. Meanwhile, strange occurrences begin to overtake every continent on the planet. As investigators and interns scramble to make sense of the events, an ominous revelation is on the horizon. Read about the increasing chaos and pressure as the public demands answers in 'The Bunker and Belzart Mission 142'."

THE BUNKER AND BELZART MISSION 142

Nerds in this story