Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Getting quieter - minus the noise

With several large departures of summer folks on "straight-throughs", where you fly to McMurdo and wait out at Pegasus Field for the C-17 to arrive and carry you on to Cheech in the same day, Pole's population is down to a still-respectable 126. It seems much quieter around here than that number, considering we will need to usher out another 81 (or so) people before we're down to the target winter crew number of 45 souls. I'm not really antsy for the station to close, and am just enjoying the company of friends/acquaintances that won't be staying overnight with us until November.

Some parts of the spectrum aren't so quiet, though. A number of projects on-station, including some of mine, are being interfered with by some strange radio transmission. We're doing spectrum analysis and trying to geographically pinpoint the locus of the transmissions, but have not had any luck thus far. Inevitably, mention of this causes jokes of aliens, etc. to be bandied about. I think it will end up being something pretty simple that we're overlooking right now. Until then, keep your CDC-issued IR camo suit, case-less ammo smart rifle, and trusty flamethrower handy, lest the aliens and predators come charging out of some entrance to their sub-ice temple structure...

"It was no ape, neither was it a man. It was some shambling horror spawned in the mysterious, nameless jungles of the south, where strange life teemed in the reeking rot without the dominance of man, and drums thundered in temples that had never known the tread of a human foot."
~Robert E. Howard

1 comment:

Becky said...

Whatever you do, don't look too closely at the eyes of the tentacled horror. The unnatural geometries will drive you beyond madness....
And enjoy the quiet.