Dark Skies Season 1, Episode 3: Mercury Rising

The Awakening

Arriving in Washington D.C. on the heels of the election of President John F. Kennedy, Kimberly Sayers finds work at the White House as boyfriend John Loengard plunges into his job as an aide to Congressman Charles Pratt. Sent to look into the Air force's investigation of UFO sightings, John meets a couple who claim to have been abducted by aliens. And back in Washington, he's accosted by the mysterious Navy Captain Frank Bach, whose history with UFO's dates back to when spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers was downed over the Soviet Union while pursuing an alien spacecraft. Though warned that it's too risky, John confronts Bach and is recruited into the top secret Project Majestic, whose most closely guarded secrets include the body of an extra- terrestrial. With his girlfriend and his boss in the dark, John is sent to interview an Idaho farmer who has been inhabited by a parasitic alien life form that Bach says are taking over human bodies. Then, as Kim suspects John's comings and goi

93 min

Moving Targets

Following the Kennedy assassination, Bach heads for Dallas to recover the artifact Loengard used to prove the alien invasion to the President. However, when he's sent by Robert Kennedy to get it too, John meets Jesse Marcel, a government official who was in New Mexico when President Truman learned firsthand of the invasion, and who claims that an alien craft long suspected to have crashed there was really shot down.

Dark Days Night

Tracing alien radio transmissions received in New York City, Loengard and Sayers suspect the Hive is planning an operation around the American debut of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. At the studio where preparations are underway, they find nothing suspicious. However, after learning the radio operator they're tracking died recently in a mysterious traffic accident, they find a second phone number for another suspect operator. Meanwhile, Bach stumbles onto evidence that the Hive has been rejecting some abductees.

Dreamland

With $500 in poker chips they found on Steele, Loengard and Sayers head for Las Vegas. As John makes his way to the gaming tables, Kim lands a job and meets Susan Swenson, a cocktail waitress who already knows more than she wants to about a scheme to use casino winnings to finance a Hive operation. Meanwhile, as John zeroes in on some big winners he suspects are using telepathy beat the odds, he and Kim are brought in to meet with the eccentric casino owner, Howard Hughes.

Inhuman Nature

Following some sightings in Wisconsin, Loengard and Sayers question dairy farmer Kester Boehm about the strange lights he's been seeing and the unusual deaths of some of his herd. Finding one of his cows implanted with a trio of triangular nodules, they head to the University of Wisconsin to see Mark Waring, a veterinary school graduate student familiar with Boehm's problem. Though already warned by Majestic against discussing the case, Waring is persuaded to talk and reveals that the implants found in Boehm's cow were not unique.

Ancient Future

Following up on some mysterious magnetic disturbances, Loengard and Sayers head North to Chiliwack, Alaska. There, Reverend Gary Barrow, a local minister, introduces them to his uncle, Tug Barrow. Told of an old Tlingit Indian legend about a star that fell from the sky 2,000 years ago, John and Kim suspect the tribe had contact with the Hive long ago and may even be guarding a ship that crashed near their village in 100BC. But, while investigating the sacred Tlingit site, John and Kim are caught in the massive Alaskan earthquake of 1964.

Hostile Convergence

Loengard's wife Kim decides that she cannot miss her sister's wedding in Denver and sneaks away from John while he meets with one of the few people who know his terrible secret. The man that Kim's sister is planning to marry is Rob Winter, but he isn't what he appears to be ... he's a Majestic agent. During the course of his assignment, Rob really does fall in love with Kim's sister and in the end, kills the people sent to harm Kim and her family instead of doing the job that he was sent to do.

We Shall Overcome

Following a message from his congressional colleague Mark Simonson, John and Kim are drawn to Meridian, Mississippi, where the struggle for voting rights is clouded by the disappearance of three civil rights workers. As Kim senses the Hive's presence in the town, news that Loengard is in Mississippi prompts Bach to act. Then, after being contacted by Etta Mae Tillman, John and Kim are led to where Simonson is hiding after escaping the deadly fate of his three missing civil rights co-workers.

The Last Wave

Following the suspicious suicide of college classmate Robert Dewey, John and Kim arrive in Los Angeles to see their old friends Nat Heller and Gina Abbott. Learning that Dewey's corpse was mysteriously confiscated by someone claiming to be with the coroner's office, Kim heads to the funeral home to investigate. Upon discovering a cameraman lurking in the bushes, she meets film student Jim Morrison, who has documented the removal of Dewey's body. And though John is suspicious, Kim befriends Morrison to find out just what he knows.

The Enemy Within

Following the deaths of both President Kennedy and his assassin, Bach realizes that the alien hive has planted a spy inside Majestic - and all the evidence points to his trusted aide, Jim Steele. However, Steele escapes into the Majestic complex after a failed attempt to eject the alien ganglion from his body. Meanwhile, Loengard and Sayers return to John's childhood home in California, where an uneasy reception from John's older brother Ray revives long-standing tensions between them.

The Warren Omission

With the Warren Commission looking into the assassination of his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy asks John to testify. Despite Bach's warning, Kennedy paves the way with his own testimony before Loengard describes the events that led him into Majestic. And while John has a long way to go before convincing a skeptical Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren and his fellow commission members of his story, Bach decides to thoroughly discredit him anyway.

White Rabbit

When Soviet operatives fire on a Hive ship over the Gulf of Tonkin, Bach claims that US naval vessels were their target and starts the country's involvement in the Vietnam War. After air strikes down a Hive ship, Bach kidnaps Loengard for a reconnaissance mission. Yet, when military officials express reservations about having Majestic's Juliet Stuart co-ordinating with Russians also tracking the Hive, Bach joins Loengard for the trip himself. Teamed with Vietnamese guide Tay Ma, Loengard comes across a crazed American soldier as he finds a Gray's severed head. And when John finds that the crash site has been visited by the Viet Cong, Bach orders him to destroy it while requesting an air strike that could kill them all.

Shades of Gray

Despite tensions between Loengard and Albano, Bach is determined to get a glyph decoder held by Juliet. Realizing that it's just the weapon that could help with a takeover of Majestic, Juliet agrees to let Bach use it to attract an alien ship. As Loengard, Sayers and Juliet work to replicate the crop circles suspected to denote landing sites, the young daughter of a widowed farmer slips into where they are working. And upon taking her home, John and Kim can only hope Monica Gresham hasn't seen too much. Then, as their ruse succeeds in attracting a ship, an attempt to capture it and the crew goes awry. So Bach gives John and Kim time to find a wounded Gray on their own. Seeking refuge at her father's farm, the alien enlists Monica's help by promising her a chance to see her dead mother. Sensing that the Gray is nearby, Kim and John set up surveillance. Finding Monica looking for another critical artifact left behind by the ship, they follow her home to where the Gray is hiding. And thou

Burn, Baby, Burn

When Kim feels strangely compelled to have her baby in California, Bach sends her to a doctor working with pregnant mothers who were at one time abducted by the Hive. As Kim arrives on the West Coast where she will be observed along with expectant mother Ruby Thomas, race riots have broken in Watts. Then, as Loengard befriends fellow father-to-be George Thomas, the Gray being kept under observation at Majestic emerges from its coma as Kim and her unborn son are kidnapped in L.A. by the Hive. And using one of Majestic's alien artifacts to communicate with Gray, Albano learns that it feels betrayed by Kim.

Both Sides Now

As Steele works on Sayers to willingly accept returning to the Hive, Loengard seeks anyone he believes can lead him to his wife. So, when Bach Juliet to Berkeley where the Hive is infiltrating the growing antiwar movement, John insists that he go along, to, unaware that he's being used to locate Kim. Although John spots her, he is unable to stop Kim from Joining Steele on a trip to visit her son. And as John and Juliet question antiwar activist Jerry Rubin about here whereabouts, back in Washington Bach sees that the Vietnam War can be used to increase funding for Majestic.

To Prey in Darkness

When film of Truman's meeting with the aliens is stolen, Bach sends Loengard to see Carl Hertzog, a retired Majestic doctor. After denying any knowledge of its whereabouts, Hertzog is hanged to death in what appears to be suicide. Then, as Albano discovers the film in the hands of TV personality Dorothy Kilgallen, Kim learns that her child is destined for greatness with the Hive. Once Loengard and Juliet track her down to New York, Kilgallen asks reporter Ed Hawkins to air the film if anything should happen to her. And when Kilgallen refuses to heed Loengard's warnings, Albano's surveillance of her apartment spots Steele trying to recover the film. But before anyone can get there, she is killed. Meanwhile, as Kim infiltrates CBS as an assistant to their network news anchorman, Albano turns to network president and Majestic board member William Paley for help.

Strangers in the Night

Following a disturbing message from the Soviet Union's counterpart to Majestic, Bach assembles a team that includes Loengard, Juliet and Army Major Colin Powell to investigate. While the team discovers most of Aura-Z's personnel are dead, they find a pair of researchers who survived. As Ludmilla and Pavel tell of experiments with prisoners that backfired and of the convicts who are now holding the head of Aura-Z and Juliet's mentor, Colonel Dmitri Mironov, back in the US, Bach enlists astronomer Carl Sagan in an effort to find the Hive's home planet.

Bloodlines

Alerted to a planet size object transmitting a message to Earth, Bach orders Dr Carl Sagan to decode it while he keeps the news from Majestic's directors. And though he's kept in the dark, Albano agrees to ask the captured Gray to shed some light on its contents. Meanwhile, Loengard and Juliet use Dr Timothy Leary to find the San Francisco lab where the Hive has been producing a hallucinogen under the direction of Steele and Kim. And when Kim tosses the drug into John's face, it causes him to see their son aboard a Hive ship.