Premise
In this 1990s MAJESTIC scenario, Agents are tasked with containing a mass UFO sighting and contact event by students and teachers at an elementary school during their recess break.
Handler’s Notes
This scenario was inspired by the 1994 Ariel School Encounter, an alleged mass contact event by schoolchildren in Zimbabwe. This scenario is presented as a similar event, though several days beforehand, in the continental United States. This scenario deliberately places MAJESTIC agents out of their element; it’s one thing to threaten and intimidate adult witnesses, but how would they manage to handle a large number of children, as well as their teachers and parents? Feel free to use the children to make the Agents’ lives miserable — “Hey mister, what do you have in that briefcase there?” and so on. How upset would a classroom of children be if men in suits came into their art class and started shredding their drawings of the spaceship from recess? You know what to do.
Background
At 12:50 pm on Tuesday, September 13, 1994 at Tomahawk Elementary school in Olathe, Kansas, 80 second and third graders (along with their teachers) on the playground noticed a silvery craft descending from the sky, hovering low near the ground, before extraterrestrial beings exited the craft, making psychic contact with six children and two adults, before the craft departed. All present witnessed the craft, a silvery saucer-shaped object, hovering no more than five feet off the ground near the jungle gym as three small beings with large heads and eyes materialized outside the craft and silently stood in front of a group of frozen children and the two recess monitors for a period of less than thirty seconds, before both they and the craft disappeared. A scene of panic soon gripped the playground, as teachers attempted to hurry the children present back inside. Word began to get around the school, and a special assembly was called by the principal and teachers in the cafeteria to address the frightened and confused children. Afternoon classes resumed shortly afterwards, with anxious students traveling home to further spread the story to incredulous family members. Word began to get out as parents phoned each other to confirm the fantastic story told to them by their frightened and amazed children; as details were confirmed, the story began to spread throughout the community.
The Scene
Tomahawk Elementary is a small elementary school on the outskirts of Olathe. Class sizes are relatively small; no more than 15-20 students, with the school accommodating kindergarten to fifth grades. The events of the previous day have still shaken the student body, but classes are continuing as usual, so much as they can. Principal Davidson has made every attempt to squash discussion of the event by the student body, but it remains a source of wild speculation within the teachers lounge. If the manifestation of the craft left them with difficult to answer questions, the arrival of the Agents will only bring more.
At the site of contact, the grass is coated in a strange, powdery substance in a perfect circle thirty feet across and has begun to turn brown. Paint on nearby playground objects has bubbled up and scorched, as if exposed to an intense, short-term heat.
People
Principal Jack Davidson — A man in his mid forties, having previously worked as a fifth grade math teacher before becoming a school administrator. He did not personally witness the craft and thinks that for the most part, the children merely witnessed something mundane and their overactive imaginations have caused them to be gripped with a very real fear. He finds the reactions of the adult witnesses much more unsettling. He will be reluctantly willing to cooperate with the Agents, but less so if he perceives them as threatening his staff or especially his students.
Ms. Patricia Carmichael — A woman in her late twenties; has taught second grade at Tomahawk Elementary for the last five years. One of the adult witnesses of the craft and unwillingly psychically contacted by the beings inside, which projected visions of environmental disaster and social collapse in the near future, along with a memory of her levitating through the window of her childhood home in a beam of light.
Mrs. Sophia Allen — A woman in her early forties; has only taught at Tomahawk Elementary for the last academic year after moving school districts from Louisville, Kentucky. Images of an alien world and the near-miraculous technical capabilities of the aliens were revealed to her, along with an image of stars against the night sky, possibly corresponding to a star map, which she has been repeatedly sketching since the encounter, including on the blackboard of her classroom.
Lindsey Wallace — A second grader who witnessed the craft descending when playing on the nearby monkey bars, and closest to the occupants when they materialized. The beings projected visions of a pre-Columbian American civilization conducting human sacrifices atop a terraced pyramid. Since her encounter, she has checked out books about ancient cultures from the school library.
Thomas Burns — A third grader given a vision of his home burning with him and his family trapped inside. Since the encounter, he has been unable to sleep, and has been crying in class, necessitating a visit with the school district’s psychologist, expressing a fear of his family dying in such a manner while he is away at school.
Melanie Macdonald — Another third grader, who was playing on the monkey bars with Lindsay Wallace, her next door neighbor. She was shown a vision of her grandmother preparing a Sunday meal for her family, with her infant brother as the main course. She has refused to eat anything since.
Casey Wyatt — From the point of view of one of the beings, this second grade boy was shown a vision of the beings medically experimenting on his parents, held captive in a round, windowless room and being vivisected without anesthesia.
Shawn Gardner — This second grader is epileptic, and upon descent of the craft, was subject to a grand mal seizure, causing him not to directly witness it nor its occupants. After being treated by the school nurse and arriving home, he was visited in the night by the beings, which surrounded him in his bed in a flash of blue light, after which he does not remember. He is afraid to discuss the visitation; he has begun to associate his nocturnal visitation with the rumors by his classmates about the event and his direct presence.
Joshua Moore — This third grader was shown a vision through the eyes of another child, depicting the last moments of a fatal car crash. The style of dress of the child and his parents (unknown to him; total strangers), as well as the styling and appointments of the car they are traveling in, suggest the mid 1950s.
Dr. Karen Dawson — School psychologist serving the school district. She is baffled by the events as conveyed to her by the child witnesses and school administrators; she does not believe that they witnessed an extraterrestrial craft, but the consistency of their stories and the very real trauma they have experienced are giving her pause. She doesn’t know what to make of it.
As for the rest of the witnesses, all of the children will describe/draw the same things; a round, silvery craft over their playground, and small beings with large heads and large black eyes (the classic “Greys”).
Possible Complications
- One of the children that witnessed the craft and was psychically contacted by the beings aboard has missed school, staying home with a 103° fever and deliriously raving about the visions; one of the teachers contacted has not come into work and has not arranged for a substitute. She has not been heard from since the previous evening and her current whereabouts are unknown.
- Two of the families of contacted children claim that they have already been visited and threatened by strange men after the sighting.
- A child psychologist specializing in alien abductions has gotten wind of the incident, traveled from the east coast, and arrived on scene with a handful of grad student researchers in tow to independently interview witnesses.
- A family member has called into Art Bell’s Coast-to-Coast AM, and the child witness is supposed to be interviewed on air that evening.
Objectives
Possible objectives of the scenario include:
- Containment of information — the agents must convince the witnesses that they did not witness an extraterrestrial craft, and guarantee their silence. This includes containing information within the school and community. Rumors within the community and the school must be clamped down.
- Agents must collect and dispose of all evidence of the event, including drawings by children.
- Agents must take witness statements from all present — this might take the form of individual interviews after calling an assembly of all witnesses in the gymnasium, coordinated with school administrators and teachers.
- Agents must collect soil and plant samples from the site, as well as biological samples from contactees, for laboratory analysis.
Credits
Recess was written by David Stucker and Austin Rode for the 2023 Shotgun Scenario contest.
Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jUx0mu2DxK3s2mrGmRYuMniaV9LntMsaYCcAYHbfONY/edit