Story
It is August, 1952. Europe has largely recovered from the Second World War, and the first signs of the Golden Age of Capitalism are beginning to appear across the Western world.
In the United States, presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower holds a fourteen-point lead over his Democratic opponent, Adlai Stevenson. The country is deep in the grip of the Red Scare. McCarthyism is at its height, and accusations of communist influence touch every level of society.
On television, The Today Show premieres. I Love Lucy airs its now-famous Vitameatavegamin episode. The PGA begins allowing Black golfers to compete. Emmett Ashford becomes the first African-American umpire in organized baseball.
In Washington, D.C., panic spreads when multiple unidentified objects are detected on radar and reported by pilots. Fighter jets are scrambled over the capital. The incident will later be referred to as the Washington, D.C. UFO sightings.
Out west, in the New Mexico desert, the Alamogordo Bombing Range has been integrated into the White Sands Proving Ground under the control of the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps. Its mission is the development of guided missiles, including captured German V-2 rockets. The area is highly restricted.
It has been seven years since the Trinity Site witnessed the first nuclear detonation. Radioactive fallout remains poorly understood.
In the small town of Alamogordo, population just under seven thousand, residents are beginning to feel the pull of the modern, space-age future. The year is among the driest on record. Temperatures have held between 93 and 95 degrees for months. Segregation in schools has only recently been abolished.
As the town adjusts to a changing world, a few people quietly disappear.
They are not seen again.
