The Shadow Taker

After the Antarctic Treaty of December 1959 12 countries including Norway and Britain united to work together scientifically in Antarctica. In 1956 the British established Halley Research Station to study the Earth's atmosphere.

The team of six British explorers, commanded by Captain Sterling were assigned to Antarctica to investigate the disappearance of Captain Flynn and his four men who had worked since 1956 at the Halley Station of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), on the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica.

When arriving at Halley Station Captain Sterling and his team discover Captain Flynn's diaries and proceed to read them. Scanning through five days of logs the Captain found no clues to what may have happened to Captain Flynn and his men.

He began reading the diary further:

Day 6 17th February 1961 

Although my team and I are all hardy individuals, and believe me you need to be when it's -60° in Antarctica; I have noticed a certain edginess in my men I have not seen before, they would usually laugh and joke about but for some inexplicable reason they lack energy for banter. I hope they shrug themselves out of this rut soon!

Around 2100 hours one of my men, Corporal Jennings, got excited saying he caught sight of someone moving outside, looking in the kitchen window. Everyone thought he must be hallucinating. He got quite angry and huffed to his bed.

Shortly after midnight last night our wooden hut took a beating with gusts of over 100mph; luckily our huskies were protected back in the small out-building behind the hut. Found some cracks in two windows, but fortunately that's all the damage we sustained. I don't think any of us slept well last night, because the wind was as noisy as a steam train…it just wouldn't stop!

Day 7 18th February 1961

1200 hours. A very unsettled day, we are experiencing a snow blizzard and a significant drop in temperature outside. it's -45°,whereas in the station we are at 8° Fahrenheit just at a comfortable level. Our engineer is making sure our paraffin heaters are all working properly. I hope he discovers that one or more of them is under par so he can get to raise the temperature.

Tomorrow we are going to make our way to meet the Norwegians at their camp, to join forces to do some scientific tests. 

Maybe my team will feel better when they have work to do!

Day 8 19th February 1961 

At 0700 hours we prepared the sleds and our Siberian huskies for the day-long, 100 mile trip to the Norwegian station. It always fascinates me how much strength and stamina these four legged hero's have, and how beautiful they are with their blue eyes.

After the halfway point we pitched up our tents and rested for an hour before trekking off again.

An odd thing occurred as we put back our tents on the sleds. All the dogs turned their heads in synch, staring fearfully at something on the hill, some half a mile away in front of us. Suddenly there was a loud bang which startled the dogs making them howl madly. My theory is probably a large ice boulder fell from the slope. Anyway later, we rallied the huskies up to pull us away through the last 40 miles to the Norwegian station finally arriving there by 1700 hours. Fortunately for us it's daylight here all day, so we didn't have to worry about it getting dark! 

Professor Fredrik Andersen, smoking a pipe, is in charge of the Norwegian station, he came outside to greet us. Soon after, my men and I now exhausted after our long journey, went to bed in the station.

Day 9 20th February 1961 

0800 hours l had breakfast with Professor Fredrik Andersen. He told me what scientific work he and his team were doing in Antarctica. 

At 0900 hours both my team and Fredrik's introduced each other and we learned what our assignments were to be.

The Norwegian scientific team have lots of experience after being at the station since December 1958. Doing important scientific experiments on Antarctica. 

After lunch both the Norwegian and my British contingent sat down and listened to Fredrik go over what they had discovered in Antarctica. By 1600 hours I rested on my bunk, whereas my team played cards with some of the Norwegians. 

By 2200 hours most of us, including myself, went to bed, still feeling fatigued. 

Day 10 21st February 1961 

Professor Andersen explained our duties for the day. Being a trained meteorologist I was assigned to take temperature readings and wind speed. This also involved sending up a weather balloon, Which I helped launch with two of the Norwegians. My team also assisted the Norwegians with various scientific experiments.⁹

By 1700 hours everyone stopped for a meal and rested. After dinner we prepared for more work outside, but a snow blizzard had prevented us from doing any more work!

At 2230 hours everyone turned in for the night.

Day 11 22nd February 1961 

Everyone's sleep was interrupted throughout the night by the snow storm's heavy winds, until it abated by 0600 hours. The sound of the wind was so loud all the men including myself plugged our ears with cotton wool, which only helped a little to dull the sound.

1700 hours: A very busy day today, both teams worked hard together with doing scientific research. Later British Doctor Howard Davis gave everyone a medical. No one failed it!

A strange thing happened around 2100 hours one of the Norwegian scientists swore he saw someone staring through the kitchen window as he was alone making coffee! He rushed out to everyone including myself in the laboratory, looking panic stricken and very pale.

The Professor tried to calm him down and gave him some brandy. 

I wonder if this was just a coincidence and like Corporal Jennings, he hallucinated? Such anomalies are known to happen to explorers after long stays in one place.

Now after reading through Captain Flynn's diary up to Day 11, Captain Sterling had a train of thought, he wondered if there could be some kind of connection with these strange sightings and the British team's disappearance?

Day 12 23rd February 1961 

An extraordinary thing happened around 1200 hours while everyone in the Norwegian station were having dinner, after more scientific work, suddenly everything went dark. The electric lights all powered off, as if we had a power cut. But what was weird was we couldn't see daylight through the windows. Some of the men switched on torches as it was pitched black. Professor Andersen opened the main door to look outside; he shouted out in a startled voice: 'Skynd deg!'(hurry) for everyone to come outside and see what he was observing… Something massive had blotted out the sun! Professor Anderson looked perplexed, he could not understand how he and his team could forget… a total Solar Eclipse was due today. He asked one of his men to bring him his calendar so as to reaffirm the phenomena. Back inside the station he Shined his torch on the calendar and searched through the pages until he reached 23rd February 1961…he found no such thing was to take place that day!

Seconds later, the electric lights came back on and we could see daylight through the windows again.

Everyone rushed outside to see what was covering the sun but we couldn't see anything! Normally you would be able to observe the moon moving across the sun. Whatever it was, it must've been a very large object, and yet, somehow it mysteriously vanished. Even more odd is the sky was completely clear with blue sky. There was nowhere this object could be hidden behind clouds!

Day 13 24th February 1961

During breakfast all the men talked about yesterday's strange occurrence. No one had any idea what the object was that blocked out the sun yesterday, and probably never will know!

Anyway, it was back to normal as usual. And it was thought that the men needed a break from work, so the professor got out his collection of Laurel and Hardy films to change the men's mood, and set one movie up on his projector. 

By 2230 hours the Laurel and Hardy films had done the trick. There was a happy atmosphere in the air. The men and I were nice and relaxed, combined with a little help from some alcohol. The men went to sleep in good spirits.

Day 14 February 25th 1961

A very busy day preparing for another weather balloon launch for 1100 hours. I and two Norwegians connected the radiosonde instrument to the end of the balloon for measuring temperature, pressure and humidity in the atmosphere. This balloon could reach upto 30 km before finally bursting.

We were to launch the balloon some 10 miles from the station. With three sleds, and three packs of huskies we made our way through the Antarctica snow desert…Known as the: ‘land of snow and ice’. It is made up of an ice sheet 2,450 miles long with a terrain made up of mountains, plains and valleys.

Finally, we reached our destination in just over an hour. Ahead of us the air was so clear we could see a mountain some 100 miles away. I could see some clouds over the peak.

I put out some seal meat and water for the huskies, then helped the two Norwegians carry the balloon to the launch site, just some 50 yards away from the dogs resting by the sleds.

I attached the radiosonde to the base of the silver balloon and we inflated it with helium gas. We held it a short while and released it into the air. It only took a few seconds for the balloon to ascend a couple of hundred feet, changing from a typical round balloon to transforming into a giant mushroom as it enlarged itself, climbing to higher altitudes.

As we all looked up at the balloon ascending the huskies suddenly became excited. They started barking madly towards the mountain. Emanating from its peak was a strange, yellow sphere. Moments later a second globe appeared, and then a third. All were stationary and now pulsating red above the mountain! I grabbed my kodak camera from my rucksack and managed to take two photos of the objects before they shot off vertically up in the sky at incredible speed, and disappeared. I have read some newspaper reports about such objects, some call them flying saucers or UFOs.

Frustratingly, I don't think my camera would have recorded good photos of the lights, it's not sophisticated enough!

After getting back to camp the two Norwegians and I were so excited we were bursting to tell everyone what we had witnessed. The Professor stopped us in our tracks, asking me and the Norwegians to come and see him in his office right away.

Unbelievably, Professor Anderson looked very serious and told us not to speak to anyone about the lights because it could unsettle the men, and that he would not be logging this experience in his diary. It could jeopardise the whole Norwegian research station to the point of closing it down. All three of us were extremely disappointed and frustrated!

Day 15 26th February 1961

Sadly, it's the British team's last day at the Norwegian station, being assigned to help the Norwegians only for a week due to funding issues. After saying our farewells to Professor Andersen and his team we left at 0800 hours to travel back to Halley Station for the 100 mile journey by husky sleds.

When we got halfway into our trip a strange blizzard hit us from nowhere. I say nowhere because there were no clouds. It was a clear, blue sky when we were sledding! The team and I had never seen such a thing before! It got so bad we had to stop and put up the tents, which was extremely difficult when unable to see properly. Not only that but the temperature suddenly plummeted. It got so cold that we could hardly bend our fingers to grab the tent pegs and hammer them into the ice to erect the tents! Finally, what seemed like forever, we all got safely into our tents after covering up the dogs.

We then got into our sleeping bags to try and keep warm. The noise from outside was now deafening as the sound of the howling wind intensified, and relentlessly blew our tents. During this time I became so sleepy, but just managed to shine my torch on my watch to find it was 2000 hours before I drifted off to sleep. 

Upon waking up, I noticed the wind had stopped and it was all quiet again. Looking down at my watch, without needing the aid of my torch it was 1600 hours. Somehow, there was something wrong with my watch, or the time went backwards! I woke everyone up and asked them to check their watches … all said the same, 1600 hours.

the odds of everyone having something wrong with their watch at the same time would be incredibly unlikely! Therefore something fantastical had caused all of us to go back in time by nearly four hours!

The logical reasoning would be that it had something to do with the strange blizzard earlier. Anyway my men and I carried on back to the Halley base, getting there finally at around 0400 hours the following morning. After arriving back at base we all were so exhausted we collapsed into our beds.

Later, in the afternoon every member of the team including me noticed they all had strange puncture marks on their genitals!

I spoke to our team doctor, Dr. Howard and he was very cagey about it, giving me a look as if: You can put two and two together can't you?

Day 16 27th February 1961

Later What Dr. Howard said earlier took a while for me to realise what he meant by his remark. Then I recall a newspaper article about a couple who had strange marks on them after being abducted by so-called aliens.  

During breakfast the main topic of the day was yesterday's odd time experience. The men all gave theories as to what happened, and even our doctor couldn't explain it…Not even saying it was some kind of mass hypnosis or something.

The troubling thing is …we all have the same strange marks on our body! But the doctor kept quiet about that!

Captain Sterling continued reading Captain Flynn's diary, but found nothing of value until Day 21.

Day 21 4th March 1961 

 Things getting nerve racking for the team, including myself. It appears we have some company, this time not one but two of my men spotted a strange figure looking through our kitchen window around 1200 hours. They only saw the figure for a few seconds and then it was gone. Everyone now is carrying a pistol on their person, fearing for their safety.

At 1330 hours myself and the Corporal, being military trained, scanned the station outside to see if we could find this fellow. Due to no recent snowfall for a while we should have a good chance of seeing footprints in the ice.

Looking down I spotted some footprints in the snow, leading up to the kitchen window. After about an hour the Corporal and I went back into the station building.

Day 22 5th March 1961

More drama! At around 0145 hours while all the team were in bed we heard someone on the roof. Sounded like they using an hammer or something making, a tinkering and clattering, metal sound. It went on for about twenty minutes, then it went all quiet after that!

Later in the morning my feet and hands were like ice blocks. Everyone else too were complaining that their feet and hands were freezing. Dr Howard turned on the Kerosene heaters to warm up the rooms in the station. After an hour it felt warmer.

As we sat around the table to have some breakfast, and talking about the noise on the roof, the Corporal said he felt giddy; and I myself was finding it difficult to keep my eyes open. Suddenly Dr. Howard got up from his chair, spilled his coffee and shouted to the men… 'everyone quickly open the door and turn off the heaters!'

Everyone asked 'why?'

He fired back it's carbon monoxide poisoning!' With that we all got dressed and went out into the fresh air, taking deep breaths.

The doctor said it must've been that noise we heard in the early hours. He advised us to check the flues on the roof!”

Later the Corporal and I got on the roof and discovered someone had blocked the flues with some kind of metal. Next to the base of one of the flues I was surprised to see... a small, black, metal swastika on a chain! After an hour we managed to unblock all the flues.

Everyone now were even more adament about leaving the station. 

Day 23 6th March 1961

We had arranged to leave Halley Station. Our radio operator

contacted the McMurdo American Antarctic Research base, for a Ski plane to pick us and the dogs up. Problem is they are located on Ross Island about 2500 km away. Meaning with stop-overs they said the plane would take about 2- 3 days to get here.

Day 24 7th March 1961

0900 hrs: The men are so nervous they feel they can't wait much longer!

At 1200 hrs the men said they would rather take their chances on the dog sleds and at least make their way to one of the nearest research bases. The nearest one was the Norwegian base we earlier went to but they are having trouble like us it, wouldn't be a good idea to go there, being like going… out of the frying pan into the fire!

At 1830 hrs Corporal Jennings and I tried desperately to calm the rest of the team down, including Dr. Howard; but they had made up their mind to leave the station in the morning. 

Finaly, Captain Flynn logged:

1000 hrs they want us to go with them! We have no choice, it's leave the base now or die!

Whoever finds this diary, remember... if the sun goes dark, get out immediately and run for your lives; they are coming! 

At that moment, a dark shadow cast over the diary Captain Sterling was reading!

Ends