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Jack Frost: MAJESTIC From the Inside
🕑 Added 2020-03-27 19:43:57 +0000 UTCI first published Delta Green: Jack Frost in Pyramid Online in the last two weeks of 1999. Republishing it as a stretch goal from the big Delta Green Kickstarter means a lot more work than just slapping new art on the old text. For one thing, I'm a better writer and scenario designer than I was 20 years ago. The whole scenario needed restructuring and in many parts a completely new vision.
A large part of that rework has been dropping the original scenario's concept as a Majestic-12 operation being infiltrated by Delta Green. I came to that decision pretty late in the rewrites, but it became more and more obvious. Jack Frost is already a complex scenario. Removing the infiltration removes several scenes and assumptions that strain credulity ("Why don't the security people notice all this?"). It simplifies things for the players so they don't get lost in the details as easily. It allows the Handler to share slices of Delta Green lore with the players.
And it lets me explore a couple of interesting questions from the "classic" era of late 1990s Delta Green, such as how did a major MAJESTIC operation actually work on the ground? And what were some of the limitations and complications that made MAJESTIC, seemingly all-powerful and invincibly ruthless, ready to crack at the seams?
HOW IT BEGAN
Weather radar detected the first manifestation just after midnight, 21 DEC 1998, and called it an unusually dense storm front. Analysts with MAJESTIC’s Project MOON DUST saw more. Enough to raise fears and ambitions.
The alert went out quickly. National Guard soldiers from the 20th Special Forces Group, based in Birmingham, set up a perimeter around the town under the pretext of a training exercise. They were told nothing of the actual situation and are not cleared for anything related to MAJESTIC. Their orders are to assist a secret Air Force operation. They assume it’s a satellite recovery mission.
Next to arrive was a large team from the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations driving trucks with trailers to use as offices and bunks. They took custody of the detainees, told the Special Forces operators to remain at their perimeter, and began building layers of cover stories. The AFOSI investigators are actually part of the deadly National Reconnaissance Office’s Section Delta, part of the disinformation arm of MAJESTIC.
Then came the operational teams. First were hazmat-suited pararescuemen from the 41st Rescue Squadron, in helicopters from Moody Air Force Base in Georgia. They, too, are from MAJESTIC: Operation BLUE FLY of Project MOON DUST. They specialize in confronting alien incursions and recovering alien technology.
Last to come are the Researchers: scientists from MAJESTIC’s Project PLUTO, which studies alien technology.
ARRIVAL
The Researchers touch down at Huntsville International Airport at 9:03 P.M. Central time. They arrive on a transport that set out from Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, with the PLUTO researchers. It picked up the Researchers at Kirtland Air Force Base, a 90-minute drive south of Los Alamos. They flew across the cold night with dead-eyed security officers as escorts, guards wearing trenchcoats and dark suits like a uniform. The escorts are plainclothes agents of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI). At least, that’s what their badges say.
At Huntsville, they board a Black Hawk helicopter with seating for 11. Then it’s a night flight of about 30 minutes over the woods, hills, and waterways of northern Alabama. Even in the coldest winter nights, the lakes here do not freeze over. But the air gets colder and colder by the minute.
They pass over a small town, Russellville. A few minutes later, they land in a field closer to their destination, the tiny crossroads community of Willis.
WHAT THEY KNOW
The Researchers are assigned to Operation WEATHERWATCHER, a special-access program being run out of the Pentagon and managed by the Air Force. They are to investigate a lethal weather event that transpired in the tiny town of Willis, Alabama.
BACKGROUND: "JACK FROST" EVENTS
Alabama winters are typically icy and wet, with heavy winds and lightning and evening temperatures hovering around the teens. Snowstorms, when they occur, typically are not seen until late in winter or even early spring, usually around March.
The occasional “Jack Frost” weather incidents are highly localized cold snaps that arise in the region around Willis and Russellville. They usually last no more than a day, not long enough to freeze watercourses. Their exact cause is unknown. Interplay between the easterly jet stream and the polar vortex cause cold snaps across the eastern U.S. every year.
Some meteorologists think geography—Moulton Valley in the broad Cumberland Plateau’s Warrior River Basin—channels arctic blasts into the area, but many disagree. Willis and Russellville are in the hills that rise south of Wheeler Lake. Nothing readily explains why they should receive arctic blasts when nearby Muscle Shoals, Moulton, and Decatur do not. “Jack Frost” remains a mystery.
THE INCIDENT
At approximately 12:05 a.m. on 21 DEC 1998, an area approximately 10 km (7 miles) in diameter experienced a sudden, unexplained drop in temperature. It went from the typical low of 3 degrees Celsius to −30 degrees Celsius, and remained there for about four hours. A snowstorm set in, blanketing the whole region in slush. The weather pattern shifted so its exact epicenter cannot be discerned. This storm was worse than any before.
In and around Willis, more than a hundred people froze to death. Hardly any of them were outdoors. This is a far greater death toll than anyone would expect from even a cold snap that severe.
Then came spectral imaging from satellite and terrestrial sensors.
LOW-FREQUENCY RADIATION
Extremely low-frequency (ELF) radiation built up gradually in the storm.
ELF radiation occurs naturally in the upper atmosphere when lightning disturbs the Earth’s magnetic field. There was no lightning in this storm. ELF radiation is created artificially in a handful of facilities that emit it through underground antennae which stretch beyond the horizon and can communicate through water with submarines. There are no such facilities here.
As the storm progressed, the ELF radiation shortened to radio waves. At the height of the storm, a sudden spike brought the emissions into frequencies used by emergency services, then ham radio operators, and then commercial radio stations. Then it was no longer heard as radio.
THE AURORA
Satellite footage picked up an aurora in the upper atmosphere above the Willis storm. The aurora lasted a few minutes and was visible to passing airplanes.
An aurora is caused by the interaction of electrons or other charged particles with the magnetosphere. A burst of high-energy radiation such as X-rays or gamma rays could explain the aurora, but that is only a hypothesis.
X-rays are generated by stars and other astronomical objects, in nuclear decay, in medical X-ray devices, and in particle accelerators. Most X-ray detectors were built to study astronomical sources. But X-rays do not penetrate the Earth’s magnetic field, so those detectors are stationed on orbiting satellites.
Gamma-ray detectors must be calibrated precisely to work at all, but gamma emission is an unlikely explanation. Intense gamma-ray bursts are generated by nuclear explosions and by lightning. No lightning was present in the storm, and there were no nuclear explosions at that time.
The PLUTO Researchers do not know any device that generates ELF or radio as well as high-energy radiation that might shed electrons in the upper atmosphere.
OPERATION WEATHERWATCHER
At Operation WEATHERWATCHER headquarters, the Researchers are to report to Maj. James Farrell of the U.S. Air Force.
The Researchers disembark into the icy air of a forest overtaken by a government camp. The field holds five more Black Hawk helicopters, superficially similar to the one that brought the Researchers.
Half a dozen trailers near the airfield serve as makeshift offices and housing. A rented tractor-trailer is parked near each. Humvees and SUVs drive by. There are Air Force pilots and pararescuemen in jumpsuits, wearing the patches of the 41st Rescue Squadron out of Moody Air Force Base in Georgia. Two walk by in hazmat suits. Security officers like those who flew with the Researchers stand guard. They carry rifles and wear thick coats against the cold.
A guard escorts the the Researchers to the command trailer to meet the mission leaders: Ramsey Lewis and Elton Harris, both with AFOSI, and Air Force Maj. James Farrell. Two personnel are there from the 41st: helicopter pilot Capt. Jonathan Lukman (a patch shows his call-sign, “Lucky”) and pararescue team leader Master Sgt. Jacob Hardy. Lukman and Hardy are available as player characters.
Special Agent Elton Harris is a tall and hawklike African American in a black suit and overcoat. He is in charge of operational security, which means the security officers and all information that goes anywhere about this operation.
Major James Farrell is a graying Caucasian in an Air Force uniform. He leads the field operation, which includes the pararescue teams and the Researchers.
Special Agent Ramsey Lewis, the mission leader, is last to arrive. He is about 50 years old, short and wiry, with black hair, pale skin, cold eyes, a few gold teeth, and an Alabama drawl. He wears a black suit and an expensive winter overcoat.
Lewis officially reads the newcomers in on Operation WEATHERWATCHER. He reminds them that Farrell, Harris, and other personnel are cleared for only those parts of Project PLUTO that pertain directly to WEATHERWATCHER.
Lewis, on the other hand, is cleared for everything. “I’m special,” he says. Gold glints in his smile.
A perimeter has been set at three kilometers in all directions around Willis. Nobody comes in or goes out. The perimeter is watched by teams of National Guard soldiers from the 20th Special Forces Group, garrisoned in Birmingham. They are under orders to not venture inside the perimeter. They are not cleared for anything to do with WEATHERWATCHER.
COVER STORIES
The task force is working in the region under multiple layers of cover.
- LAYER ONE—NUCLEAR MATERIALS: They are here to recover nuclear materials that were being transported when a truck went off the road. That’s what the 20th Group special operators on the perimeter tell outsiders.
- LAYER TWO—SATELLITE: They are here to recover a fallen military satellite. That’s what the task force’s leaders told the 20th Group operators.
- LAYER THREE—EXPERIMENTAL AIRCRAFT: They are here to recover an aircraft that went down loaded with experimental technology. That’s what the task force is to “admit” to the 20th Group operators if any of them see too much.
If anyone outside WEATHERWATCHER sees so much that the first three layers no longer work, the task force members are to inform Lewis’ security officers. They will handle it from there. No one but them is cleared to know what “handle it” might mean.
ANALYSIS
On-site analysis is conducted by a team of physicists, engineers, and biologists from Area 51. All are part of Project PLUTO. They are led by Dr. Phila Bimmel (described on page XX), and include four player-character Researchers and five NPCs.
The NPC analysts include:
- Joan J. Galligan, nuclear and quantum physicist, age 50
- Ron C. Howard, astrophysicist, age 42
- Jesus R. Putnam, nanoscale physicist, age 34
- Darwin L. Smith, gravitation physicist, age 45
The analysts have bulky testing chambers at the command post, and a field medical station with full biological quarantine capability.
ABOUT PROJECT PLUTO
According to official records, Project PLUTO was founded in 1957 to develop nuclear-powered ramjet cruise missiles, which could in theory fly for months at a time before being directed to a target. It was shut down in 1964 when intercontinental ballistic missile technology won that particular rocket race.
All of that was a cover.
Project PLUTO studies extraterrestrial technology. It started in the aftermath of the Roswell incident in 1947. It developed over the decades with further encounters with the Reticulans, better known as the “Greys.”
PLUTO is headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, under the cover of the Air Intelligence Agency’s National Air Intelligence Center (NAIC). NAIC was for decades called the Foreign Technology Division and insiders still refer to it as “FTD.” PLUTO is jointly administered by FTD, the Naval Intelligence Support Center, the NSA’s Office of Research and Engineering, and the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology.
PLUTO is buried so deeply within the bureaucratic maze of the government’s national-security programs that uncovering any corner of it reveals nothing useful. Public knowledge of its existence would threaten lives and security on a global scale. PLUTO is safeguarded far more stringently than any nuclear secrets.
While PLUTO’s headquarters are in Ohio, its research is conducted at a top-secret, underground laboratory complex called S-4. That lab is built into a mountain of the Papoose Range, a few kilometers south of Area 51 of the Nellis Air Force Range.
As incredible as PLUTO’s secrets and opportunities may be, further discoveries are absolutely critical. As far as you know, PLUTO has not recovered new materials for examination in decades. Part of the reason for that may lie with Operation BLUE FLY, which deploys special-operations teams to recover extraterrestrial artifacts and biological materials. BLUE FLY’s officers are too concerned with the safety of their men. That is a hard and unpleasant thing to say, but the fact is that men are replaceable. Alien technology and organisms are not. BLUE FLY’s team leaders may need to be pushed to take the necessary risks when new samples are at stake.
ABOUT OPERATION BLUE FLY
Operation BLUE FLY is part of the ultra-secret Project MOON DUST. MOON DUST has moved from unit to unit in the Air Force since the 1940s. Every couple of years it is deactivated and redesignated and given a new cover. From the Cuban Missile Crisis until the fall of the Berlin Wall, it was supposedly dedicated to studying captured Soviet technology. In fact, it uses missions to recover nuclear and foreign technology as a cover to investigate extraterrestrial incursions.
Project MOON DUST is headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, under the cover of the Air Intelligence Agency’s National Air Intelligence Center (NAIC). NAIC was for decades the Foreign Technology Division and insiders still call it “FTD.” Operation BLUE FLY is activated when it’s time for the most highly trained soldiers in the world hit the ground, investigate, and secure whatever’s there: pararescue (“PJ”) veterans trusted with the nation’s most staggering secrets.
BLUE FLY’s PJs are officially assigned to the Joint Services Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) Agency (JSSA) at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, on a black budget allocation. JSSA provides pararescue training and develops pararescue doctrine. BLUE FLY’s teams are assigned to pararescue units like the 41st Rescue Squadron as needed to explain their deployment in a given region. In squadrons like the 41st, they fly combat rescue missions, support NASA launches and recovery, and find and contain crash debris, biological hazards, and technology such as satellites and spy planes that are critical to national security.
BLUE FLY is commanded by Col. Robert Coffey. Coffey came up through Air Force intelligence, not pararescue, but is the closest any officer has gotten to keeping up with what PJs have to do. When a mission is confirmed extraterrestrial, Coffey is likely to lead from the front. That way he can see what the teams are dealing with, and can put bullets into it himself if necessary.
It is necessary more often than not. A meteor recovery a few years back went especially bad. The story is that something came out of it and killed three BLUE FLY PJs, along with a bunch of medics and civilians. Coffey put the thing down himself. Ever since then, BLUE FLY’s unofficial policy is to shoot E.T. first and recover it alive if possible.
Incursions are not frequent. The “Greys” are real, all right, but they haven’t been seen in years. Any given BLUE FLY team gets called out two or three times a year. It turns out to be a genuinely extraterrestrial event maybe a quarter of the time. When it does, it’s weird, confusing, and deadly.
PERIMETER SECURITY
The perimeter is guarded by 83 operators from the 20th Special Forces Group (or just “20th Group”), Alpha Company. They include six Operational Detachments-Alpha (“A-Teams” or ODAs) and one Operational Detachment-Bravo (“B-Team” or ODB) as headquarters.
The headquarters team is stationed just off the highway at the east side of the perimeter. The headquarters team includes company commander Maj. Raymond Smidt; the company executive officer, Chief Warrant Officer Henry Brown; and experienced noncommissioned officers. The headquarters team is indicated by the code “ODB2110.”
The ODAs are indicated by the codes ODA2111 through ODA2116. Each ODA is led by a captain, assisted by a master sergeant. It has nine or 10 other operators, all experienced noncommissioned officers. They include experts in communications and signals intelligence, demolitions and engineering, and a medical officer equipped and trained for emergency trauma surgery. All the operators are between 29 and 34 years old. An ODA can split into two six-man teams if necessary.
Maj. Smidt and most of his men deployed to Iraq in 1991 and to Bosnia in 1995. Smidt sees this assignment as politically risky, since it’s on U.S. soil. He wants to follow the letter of the orders without attracting attention.
On paper, the 20th Group soldiers have been activated to support the Air Force and Alabama state law enforcement in recovery of nuclear materials. That activity falls outside the Posse Comitatus Act’s restrictions on the military acting as law enforcement.
The operators are under orders to defer to the Air Force teams, which includes its civilian experts like the Researchers, except where doing so would interfere with keeping the perimeter secure. The 20th Group operators have been told that this is a recovery operation for nuclear materials, presumably a fallen satellite or missile components dismounted in a road accident. They are worried about possible radiation or chemical exposure for anyone going too far into the perimeter.
Each ODA is charged with a sector of a three-kilometer perimeter around Willis. Each team has three Humvees. Most man roadblocks at public and utility roads. One watches the lake with three boats unofficially commandeered from local fishing sheds.
When people come to the perimeter from outside, the operators say there’s a training exercise that will be over in 72 hours. Eventually, FEMA will set up to provide an explanation for the 100 deaths in Willis, but the operators expect to be gone by then.
AFOSI IN CHARGE
The pararescuemen of the 41st Rescue Squadron are here to investigate and recover the supposed fallen technology. The soldiers of 20th Special Forces Group maintain the perimeter around the area. But the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations is in charge.
In most circumstances, that would be a very strange arrangement. AFOSI investigates Air Force-related crime and security risks, and employs civilian as well as military personnel. That extends to preventing security leaks in Air Force operations, but they do not ordinarily call the shots. And calling in special forces teams to maintain a perimeter in the middle of nowhere sounds like a staggering waste of their training and capabilities.
These are not ordinary circumstances. In Operation WEATHERWATCHER, controlling access and information is the highest priority.
On paper, the security officers in Operation WEATHERWATCHER all come from the Air Force Office of Special Investigations’ Region 7, Detachment 702. Region 7 is responsible for counterintelligence and security around special-access programs, the most highly restricted kinds of secret projects.
AFOSI Detachment 702 is headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. Wright-Patterson is also home to the USAF National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC; it was the Foreign Technology Division until 1993 and is still often called FTD), which studies foreign aerospace technologies. NASIC also happens to be the home of Project PLUTO, which studies technologies that are as foreign as you can get.
PLUTO’s researchers work in Nevada, but they see Detachment 702’s officers at Area 51. Region 7’s manpower must far exceed what AFOSI reports in public document. Wherever Detachment 702’s killers come from, they are using AFOSI as a cover, off the books but with the obvious blessing of Air Force brass.
AFOSI Detachment 702 is, of course, a cover for the National Reconnaissance Office’s Section Delta, a service that is buried among the most secretive program of the U.S. government. On paper, if you have sufficient clearance to find any papers about it, Section Delta is charged with security and counterintelligence around military satellite programs. In reality, it handles wetworks for the MAJESTIC program: blackmail, disinformation, illegal rendition and interrogation, and murder. Its agents look at the rest of the WEATHERWATCHER task force as nothing but more bodies waiting to hit the ground.
