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The dusk event

The dusk event was an electrical and atmospheric anomaly that struck the party's rental van near the gate of the Sherman Ranch at dusk on October 30, 1992, killing every electronic device in the car and sliding the van six inches sideways.
Type Anomalous phenomenon
Aliases Electrical anomaly; the event; engine scorch marks
Location About 50 feet from the ranch gate, Sherman Ranch
Date October 30, 1992, shortly after sunset (5:25 p.m.)
Cause Never established
First appearance Walkers 03

Description

The party leaves the ranch in the Plymouth Voyager to start the exhumation paperwork in Ballard and to arrange a night-patrol ride-along. About 50 feet from the gate the van dies, and every electronic device in it goes dead. Howard's pager still works, but the walkie-talkie gives only static (Walkers 03).

Outside the van they hear a high-pitched, tinnitus-like whine. Thin, ominous clouds flicker with lightning, and the hair on their necks stands up. They retreat into the car, which Dante (as Kurt) calls "the Faraday cage." The sky then pulses brighter and dimmer in a stuttering rhythm. Howard photographs it, Kurt and the Biz put in ear protection, and Huell gets a pounding headache. Then the car moves six inches sideways, there is a pop, the engine restarts and the sky stops flickering (Walkers 03).

When Rita (as Howard) says they should not be outside, Dante (as Kurt) answers: "No, your hair's standing up. That's fucking lightning." After the car slides, Dante (as Kurt) chambers a round in his sidearm and says: "Must have been the wind." (Walkers 03)

Investigation

Kurt runs a series of safety checks in the manner of his old unit: he tosses trash out of the window, holds his non-dominant hand out of the door and finds static in the air, and tastes the air, which is normal. Tire trails show that the car was dragged sideways, but there is no sign of what pushed it and nowhere to hide a giant electromagnet (Walkers 03).

The watches record the event unevenly. Kurt's battery watch has stopped, the Biz's cheap digital Casio is permanently scrambled, and Howard's mechanical Fossil still works. Kurt wants to compare the stop time with the readings of Robert Bigelow (Walkers 03).

Under the hood, Kurt finds four or five randomly scattered scorch marks where the metal got hot enough to anneal into a different crystal structure. Howard photographs them and mutters about the 1950s Levelland, Texas case (Walkers 03). Howard raises Levelland again in Walkers 04, after the party finds a crow burned to a crisp that tumbled out of the sky. He tells the deputy driving them that in November 1957 a vehicle broke down near Levelland and a UFO was reported. The case is usually attributed to ball lightning, he adds, although witnesses claimed to see a rocket-shaped object overhead (Walkers 04).

Possible connections

Later that evening the party hears loud popping from the substation near the ranch turnoff and sees flickering light. Kurt's Investigate a Mystery roll shows that the equipment is arcing into the ground and being driven far harder than designed, and that something blew into it and created a path to ground (Walkers 03). In the bar, Maggie describes ball lightning that streaked past her car on the ranch's back road and shot straight up (Walkers 03).

The episodes never establish whether the dusk event came from the ranch, the substation, an outside force or something else. It belongs with the other unexplained happenings catalogued under the Sherman Ranch phenomenon. See also the vanishing car and the night event, later anomalies that struck the party's car and house.

Appearances