Welcome to Antarctica - an extract / Short Story

Chance of A lifetime

In the summer of 2012 I was invited to spend 12 weeks in Antarctica, as part of the British Antarctic Survey at the Rothera base on Adelaide Island. Mid summer is January near the South Pole and although not bitter like the constant darkness of winter, it still gets very cold, barely rising above zero.

I had long sought a route to the South Pole and had won by submission, one of a few artistic scholarships to the base. It was my intention to document by photography the life of the scientists stationed there, both at work and at rest in the living accommodation, which is quite comfortable, but designed along the lines of military barracks. They spend a lot of time indoors and there's plenty of recreation time for me to explore the base. I wouldn't have fixed hours like most of the scientists but I would be accompanying several missions which were tightly scheduled in advance. Although I had to undergo military style & rigorous survival training specifically for Polar Emergencies, nothing could prepare me for what I was to eperience there and to this day I'm still not sure I believe the explanations I was given.

The Long Trip

I was met and greeted at Heathrow airport in London on a frosty January morning by my tour guide; a cheery, weather beaten polar veteran from Norway, called. Jan Arthur. "Ah the photographer, come to reveal all of our secrets" he said with a twinkle in his eye. It was clear he was no stranger to the cold, his skin was leathery and tanned and his beard was the kind of length mountaineers wore. You could not see his mouth at all and his entire neck wore it's own scarf. My taxi had been delayed and I was a bit late so was quickly bustled into a private lounge off to the side of the check-in desks where the 11 assorted scientists sat chatting in small groups.

They looked like quite trendy, hipster people and I was quite surprised. "Here's our photographer, all smile" quipped Jan which helped break the ice a little. I had felt a bit nervous joining the company of genius minds with which I couldn't hope to compete with. As it turned out, I was to become the object of their fascination with my tales of the real world and a glamorous lifestyle photographing celebrities, who to me, were just normal and quite vulnerable people, some of whom were friends, but to others, were these huge, epic hero figures. It seemed to balance itself out and I felt relieved.

To further break the ice and get them used to me being around, I snapped off a few shots of the small groups making sure they met my eye. I was going to be around, in their faces for the next three months so the quicker they got used to it, the better. I had a specially polar insulated Nikon D series camera and it was quite big so I had popped on a short 50mm lens to make it a bit less intrusive to work with. As I knew well, looking at someone while taking their picture often made them feel easier about it and I was determined to gain their collective confidence from the outset. Some of those first photos from our departure lounge actually made the final selection.

The results of my work were going to be included in a special B.A.S publication and it felt like a real privilege to be part of a scientific project rather than the entertainment world to which I belonged. Although the fee for my bursary was a token payment for the rights to publish the photography, I wasn't going to be spending a penny for the next three months, my apartment was rented out, the camera kit was on loan and the clothes would be mine to keep on our return.
They would be no use to anyone else being an exact fit and I'd be hoping to make use of them again.

It was going to be a long trip and as quickly I tried to pick out the loners as I surveyed the group, one particularly attractive young woman in a black bobble hat and white hoodie caught my attention sitting alone. She was busily engrossed in texting, probably to her boyfriend and had hardly looked up yet. I was just catching a snap of her profile when Jan announced we were to go "straight to the gate to board folks". She and everyone else bundled up their flights bags, handed him their passports and she looked straight at me and smiled, "You're the photographer, are you allowed to photograph anything you want?" " It's consensual, I mean it's up to you, if you don't mind" was my reply. "I'm Katya, ice cores and she winked with a reassuring manner". "Tom, Tom Brand, photographer,". It was obvious who had who's confidence. It wasn't long before we were up in the air, eating microwave Lasagne and talking rubbish, heading straight for Buenos Aires where we would switch flights to South Georgia in the Falkand Isles. A B.A.S cargo supply transport would then take us on a straight hop across the sea to Adelaide Island, Rothera which has it's own runway, weather permitting.

The Base

As we flew onto Adelaide Island I caught a glimpse of the green buildings in the distance. It was like a little village, if you were going to build a village on the moon, in the snow. The first thing you noticed was the observation tower, watching over the other building and a couple of submerged building lost in the snow. A big green block which looks like a school building, which I knew was Bransfield House where everyone lived and ate. There was a big long tube shaped storage building called miracle span and the machine shop, then a cluster of windowless buildings dotted around quite a large area. I could see figures in the snow, real people. It suddenly dawned on me that we were a very long way from anything else and a really long way from home. I admit in those first moments I was afraid at the thought of being stranded here. I'd been to some faraway places in my time but this was different, I'd never been this far out from civilisation, who had ?

When we stepped out on the ice the cold slapped me in the face immediately. It was a still dry cold but not as cold as I had imagined it would be. My eyes began to water as if onions had been sliced right in front of them. I put my ski mask on and an instant sleeping bag over my eyes cut out the harsh glare and it felt like I was in a very big ski resort. I was told later that it was minus -8 degrees on arrival at the base. I had skied in colder weather and had walked in much colder temperatures at night. This Antarctic summer was milder than the Swiss Alps, where I had survived in regular ski clothes. I was going to be ok, as long as I kept my hat on, my gloves on, my extra socks on.. etc

Welcome

We were met by a snowmobile team and as a much larger Ski-doo began to wind itself across the snow with our baggage in tow like a huge caterpillar, we were whisked at high speed, straight towards the residential block and were welcomed by a small team of smiling, t-shirt clad hosts. Jan was enthusiastically hugged by various members of the team and he introduced us like family, one by one. We had all got to know each other quite well on the 27 hour trip out and I no longer felt like the new kid at school. It was obvious those who had been to Antarctica before knew the ropes and immediately the group began to fan out, shaking hands, chatting with a busy stream of passers by, mostly dressed in joggers, t-shirts, baseball caps, bobble hats, and ice slippers. It was kept nice and toasty inside the building to compensate for the the extreme cold outside and I began to feel hot, peeling off my outer layers, gloves and coat, hat & snood. I'd get used to kitting up at least 3 or 4 times per day, my record being seven times in one day. That's about 4 hours in total of your day spent getting in and out of outdoor clothes.

A large, burly commando styled man in his 50's wearing a short sleeved shirt approached the group and beckoned all the visitors over with a huge sweep of his massive arms. Once everyone had gathered around he smiled. "Hi guys, I'm technically a Major with the S.A.S but you don't need to call me Sir, this is a civilian base. Here I'm plain old Robert Campbell and you can call me Bob. Welcome to Santa's Grotto, dinner is at 6-8, breakfast is a 6-8 and lunch is 12-2, snacks can be bribed from the mess with a smile or a joke." If you're out on the ice, ration packs will be assigned. Your rooms are ready and I'll be taking you on an introductory tour in the morning. It's near constant daylight here so you may find it takes a few days to adjust. If anyone loses so much as a glove, a finger or a toe, you report it to me, if anyone gets a sniffle, sore throat, feels homesick, can't sleep, you speak to Dr Ross immediately. We don't airlift unless you're about to die, ok. Go eat people. Tonight's movie is The Thing. I highly recommend it*

What Happened Next Defies all Explanation

We had been settled in for a couple of days. I was bunked in with a young American guy who was like me, a non scientist. He was a plant engineer from Nebraska called Neil and he was here on this third season. His main job was to look after the ski-doos and other track locomotive vehicles which were the lifeblood of the community. He could also fix pretty much anything so helped the technicians with scientific equipment, ice drills, etc. He was the scientists hero, quiet and he had a calm air about him. I asked him why he kept coming back. "I just like the peace out here man, it's a bit like home, the money's good and the food, you know.. it's great, I don't have to cook. I like snow", he added with a wide grin. We would become quite good friends over my stay and I would take many photos of him, at work and at rest.

I was free to roam, find my way around the first week. I knew some of my best photos would come from the rec. room and dining hall. It was day three and I had just finished a very large cooked breakfast with pancakes and maple syrup, I figured why not, help keep out the cold ?

It was 7.45am local time and the usual sleepy faces on the AM shift were all in line at the buffet. I was looking out of the 4th floor window of the rec. room at the endless view and a wonderfully ice blue sky with low wispy cloud. Tiny people like small dark Yeti's awkwardly clambering about in the snow, then all of a sudden a bright red light went flying past the base at about 500 feet height, the speed of a jet plane or maybe even faster. It illuminated the the clouds above and the snow below with an incredible pink glow, made no sound then arced in a seemingly impossible 90 degree climb and disappeared up through the low cloud base. My first thought was I'm dreaming.

Then my immediate concern turned to the people outside who began to calmly make their way to their nearest building as if this was a routine occurrence and that was odd! Why were they not running. A few seconds later, a silvery disc, flanked by two futuristic looking and very black coloured delta wing fighter jets appeared from the same part of the sky the red light had come from. As the disc followed the trajectory of the ball of light, the jets continued in a straight line, disappearing out of sight as quickly as they had appeared as an almighty boom like a clap of thunder but with no after rumble shook the whole building. By now every window was occupied with faces pressed up against the glass and half eaten breakfast sat on rows of tables. You could feel the anticipation in the room. The red ball appeared again through the cloud base with a huge pink glow ahead of it and the room let out a collective gasp as it stopped and began to fall slowly toward the ice, lighting up the ground like a flare as it approached. The jets re-appeared and as they passed overhead in the opposite direction, this time without the sonic boom, the red light glowed so bright momentarily I had to squint my eyes. The whole scene was now bathed in a blood red glow and the ice seemed to glow with a laser like intensity. The clouds above appeared like undulating and fleshy curtains. It was both beautiful and horrifying and I suddenly felt very far from home far from reality and very alone. Everyone was rooted to the spot and in that moment I could have sworn time had stood still. Nobody was going to believe this happened, ever !

A black Apache type helicopter then appeared seemingly from nowhere without a sound and circled the object at a few hundred feet as it slowly landed and began to pulse. I couldn't see a solidity within the light. It was really weird, just a light about 6-8 feet across like an unseen bulb, seemingly under intelligent control. The disc now re-appeared through the cloud and hovered silently above the ball of light. it was a classic UFO and the underside seemed to be spinning very fast. It was a dull kind of shiny metal and it was quite perfect. The two craft, if that's what you could call them began to pulse in sync with a rate which increased and decreased making me feel slightly nauseous. The disc seemed to spit out a trio of white lights of it's own and I wasn't sure if these and the red thing were perhaps creatures of some sort. It felt like they were more like animals than machines and I sensed it knew, they knew that we were watching. Spooky. The disc pulsed a bright white light. They all then simply disappeared, faded out like a magic trick or a special effect on a film and the helicopter turned rose into the and departed heading south, but now with the familiar blade chopping sound which reminded me we were still on planet Earth.

I couldn't believe my eyes had just seen this and kept waiting to wake up. But I wasn't alone and I had just had my breakfast which I could still taste in my mouth. My jaw was literally on the floor and my hands were pressed firmly up against the glass. To the right of me in the next window, Katya was looking at me with wild eyes, the biggest smile on her face and she was holding her hands up to her mouth, jumping up and down. "Oh my f*cking, what the... Tom, did you see that, Tom?" All I could do was nod. Then Bob appeared. "Right people, what you just saw, you didn't see. First season visitors into rec2 immediately please and he pointed at Katya then me."

Bob very calmly explained what we had just seen was probably very difficult to believe but what happened at Rothera stayed at Rothera. It was just part of life out here and frankly it was none of our business either. I was stunned at the normalcy of it all. It was obviously a well rehearsed speech and he delivered it with a poise and just the right pauses to make you feel like it was the most normal thing ever.

He looked straight at me "Tom, no photos please, we have a job to do here and winked". I was taken aback. My camera was on the table right where I had just finished breakfast. "What you just encountered was not of this planet. We are the visitors here my friends. They have been here for many thousands of years and the red light, well that's kind of hostile, not to us, but to the others. The disc you saw was indeed what you all thought it was and I can't tell you anything about it's inhabitants except we know they are friendly, they are flesh and blood and they like ice cream. As I said, It's nothing to do with us, it's their thing and we just happen to be in the middle.

Those military escorts you saw are an international coalition of G10 members just like the base is and they areour people, we're just watching here, observers so to speak. There have been, let's say, territory disputes over this area for as long as we've been here. Scott reported the lights and the discs, as did Amundsen, you didn't know that did you ?

We don't use the term war because there are no casualties. The red light you saw disappear. That was just deported by the disc craft to another place, a dimension if you like, we're not sure what that means", he paused smiled pensively "but it was escorted there by the disc. We don't know where they go, but we do know that they generally don't come back. You didn't see this. You don't speak about it to anyone else other than the people in this room now, understood? We both nodded, acknowledged it.

We know it can become psychologically damaging to keep quiet and we do care about our people, so the people in this room may become your lifelong friends, whether you like them or not. Yes, we are not alone people. If you have any question, problems arise, go see Dr Ross, we have a few documents on the intranet that you can read at your own leisure, no downloads, I will know. dismissed." Katya looked at me, looked at Bob, raised her eyebrows, and pointed at the exit. We left holding hands, both shaking with excitement. We were to become more than lifelong friends.