Ch. 3 What's Going on in Dust Bowl, Arizona?

I knew it would happen eventually. Today, the main doctor who sees me informed me that I am deemed well enough to be debriefed about what happened in Dust Bowl. I have an appointment tomorrow morning after breakfast to talk about my experiences there. I won’t be walking to the appointment myself, of course. I’ll be wheelchaired in.

I’m actually surprised this hasn’t happened a lot sooner. I’ve been conscious and well enough to answer questions for weeks. I mentioned that to the doctor when he was here in the room. He said that they also wanted me to be in a good state of mental and emotional recovery, too, for the debriefing. I can appreciate that.

In the meantime, I’ll be debriefing you some more, dear reader, before I slip off to sleep tonight. Last time, I was in the Ford Expedition with Rachelle and was just opening the Dust Bowl, Arizona mission briefing video.

The video started with a map of Arizona zooming in on a region northwest of Phoenix, and well off any interstate or highway, in other words, barren desert. In that region was a small town, Dust Bowl. A woman’s voice started in Rachelle’s headset.

“Dust Bowl, Arizona was founded in 1912 as a mining camp. Although efforts to have a successful mine there proved in vain, the town hung on. Today it has a population of about 2000 residents. The town supports itself primarily with tourism, including a Native American History and Culture Center, a memorial to native son and decorated World War II hero Lt. Leonard Sees-Like-A-Hawk, a transgalactic alien welcome center (due to a long history of having a high incidence of UFO or UAP sightings in the area), and the Dust Bowl Cactus Forest and Wildlife Refuge.”

The video changed scenes to show shots of each of the mentioned tourist attractions while the narrator's voice continued.

“Despite tourism being the make-it-or-break-it sector of Dust Bowl’s economy, during the week of Memorial Day each year, the entire municipality shuts down. All stores, hotels, restaurants, and other businesses close. This has been going on annually since at least the 1950’s and perhaps further back than that. Normally, Memorial Day week should be an important week to such a town, the opening of the summer tourist season and a time of year in Arizona when temperatures are still somewhat comfortable before the blazing heat of July and August arrives.”

The video changed scenes to show shots of store fronts, hotel signs, and restaurant logos. Then, it changed to vacant stretches of desert highway.

“It has been noted that Dust Bowl has no corporate franchises. None of the restaurants, hotels, or stores has to explain to any out-of-town higher corporate management why they choose to close down this week every year. Dust Bowl residents go to great lengths to prevent outsiders from being inside the city limits during this week, even going so far as to place “Road Closed” signs on the road going through town at distances of five, ten, fifteen, and twenty miles in both directions from town. No actual road maintenance work has ever been observed during this time. Checks with the State of Arizona have confirmed that no state scheduled or authorized road construction was ever scheduled for these times as far back as records exist.”

The video scene changed to what looked like a cross between a G****e Earth image and a weather map. It was clearly the same area as the video’s first map display, with major interstates and highways labeled, as well as Dust Bowl and other settlements, including Alamo Lake. There was a swirling brown cloud over Dust Bowl.

“Each year, an atmospheric phenomenon, twelve to fifteen miles in diameter, forms after midnight Sunday night, in the wee hours of Memorial Day Monday morning. The phenomenon dissipates in exactly one week, before midnight the following Sunday night. These images and similar ones have been captured each year since the technology to produce them has been available. The phenomenon is similar to the Great Dust Bowl of the 1930’s, although the 1930’s Great Dust Bowl effects were much larger in scale and generally affected areas further east than western Arizona where the town of Dust Bowl is today, primarily Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico.”

The video began showing photographs from the Great Dust Bowl 1930’s event. Then, it showed the narrator, standing in front of a map similar to one used for the weather segment of a news program. She had shoulder length curly black hair and wore what looked like a paramilitary uniform. The uniform had insignia but I didn’t recognize it.

“This annual phenomenon at Dust Bowl was discovered when a field team was assigned there in 2022 to determine whether Dust Bowl regularly experienced actual UFO/UAP activity or whether Dust Bowl simply built such a reputation for tourism purposes. It is believed that though the satellite images go back many decades, the phenomenon was simply overlooked, not noticed due to both its relatively small, localized size and to Dust Bowl’s remoteness. It has been noted that the residents of Dust Bowl have twice, once in 1993 and once in 2010, voted to turn down an offer from the State of Arizona to connect their town to either Highway 72 or Highway 95 with a proposed upgraded four-lane road that would be more straight that the meandering two-lane road that presently exists. It would seem that the residents of Dust Bowl do want visitors, their tourism industry depends upon it, but not too many visitors.

“It is your assignment, as a member of Field Team 42, to visit Dust Bowl during Memorial Day week this year, study the phenomenon, and provide Control with an official Assessment Report.”

As the video finished, I removed Rachelle’s headphones and closed her laptop, staring out the windshield for a moment.

“I noticed the video didn’t say what happened to the field team that was there before to study UFOs.”

Rachelle agreed with a smile, “No, they didn’t.”

“They also didn’t say whether the UFO activity was determined to be real or not.”

“No, they didn’t.” She laughed. “Welcome to Control, Field Agent Leighton. I’ve been driving since Chicago and I need a break. How about we stop for something to eat and after the break you drive?”

“OK.”

Rachelle seemed to accept all this weirdness with a cheerful fatalism. Her smile made her good mood contagious. As we scanned for road signs advertising a good place to eat, I playfully asked, smiling also, “You weren’t recruited by a guy named Mr. X, were you?’

“Mr. Y, actually. There’s more than one of them.”

“Them?”

“Welcome to Control, Field Agent Leighton.”