Jonathan Ford, once a respected investigative journalist for the Charmouth Gazette, found himself jobless and disillusioned after a round of layoffs left him scrambling to rebuild his career. Once known for hard-hitting exposes and in-depth reporting, he now spent most of his days scrolling through online job boards and sipping lukewarm coffee in his modest apartment.
But Jonathan wasn’t the kind of man to give up easily. Deep down, he believed he still had one great story left in him—something groundbreaking. Something that would put his name back on the map.
In a bold move, he decided to invest in a state-of-the-art drone—equipped with a 4K camera, thermal imaging, and long-range flight capabilities. “If the stories aren’t coming to me,” he thought, “I’ll go find them.” He began exploring remote cliffsides, ancient ruins, and desolate coastlines, hoping to stumble upon something worth writing about.
One afternoon, with storm clouds rumbling over the horizon, Jonathan launched the drone from a cliff near the Jurassic Coast. The area, rich in fossils and steeped in legend, had always held a certain allure. Locals whispered about hidden caves, wartime bunkers, and even government cover-ups. He figured if nothing else, the scenery would make for great footage.
As the drone soared over the coastline, Jonathan sat in his car with the controller in his lap and the live video feed glowing on his laptop screen. The drone swept low over the rocks, scanning for signs of geological activity or unusual animal behavior. But then, something unexpected appeared in the frame.
At first, he thought it was just a large piece of driftwood. But as the drone got closer, he could make out sharp angles—unnatural lines half-buried in underbrush and mud. His pulse quickened. He adjusted the drone’s altitude and zoomed in. That’s when he saw it clearly.
A metallic structure, partially camouflaged by vines and soil, nestled deep in a forested ravine. The shape was almost triangular, like a wing or panel. Strange symbols—etched or possibly burned into the surface—flashed into view briefly before the wind blew the foliage back over them.
Jonathan’s hands trembled as he maneuvered the drone closer, but just as he tried to pan around the structure, the video feed flickered. Static. Then nothing.
The screen went black.
“No, no, no—come on!” he muttered, tapping the signal relay. He rebooted the system and tried to reacquire the feed. After two long minutes, the signal returned. But the camera now showed only trees swaying in the wind. The object was gone—or hidden again.
He downloaded the footage and rewound to the exact moment he’d spotted the object. He paused the frame. It was real. It had to be. And judging by the scorch marks and the unnatural angles, it wasn’t something anyone had simply dropped or buried by accident.
That night, unable to sleep, Jonathan uploaded the footage to multiple drives and backed it up to the cloud. Then he made a call—to the local police, then to a private investigator he used to work with. But the reaction was always the same: doubt, followed by vague reassurances.
Then something stranger happened.
By morning, the footage was gone from the cloud. The drive he’d plugged into his laptop the night before? Corrupted. When he went back to the ravine to search for the object himself, the area was blocked off—no trespassing signs, fresh tire tracks, and a group of men in unmarked vans standing guard. One of them saw Jonathan watching from the hill. Their stare was enough to send him walking the other way.
Now Jonathan knew one thing: this wasn’t just a story. It was a secret someone didn’t want uncovered.
As the days passed, strange things began happening. His mail was opened. His phone buzzed with silent calls at 3 a.m. Once, he caught a figure outside his apartment window—watching him from a parked car that drove off the moment he reached for his phone.
Still, he couldn’t let it go. Whatever he had seen was real. And if it was dangerous—or powerful—people deserved to know. So Jonathan did what he’d always done best: he began digging.
The deeper he went, the more questions emerged. The location matched up with reports of strange lights in the sky. Disappearances. Even unexplained tremors that the local geology board had chalked up to “minor seismic activity.”
But he knew better. And he wasn’t the only one.
One day, an unmarked envelope appeared in his mailbox. No stamp, no return address. Inside was a single sentence, typed on an old typewriter:
“You saw too much. But they saw you too.”