This week, I came across a story so bizarre that not even its shocking headline could quite do it justice: “How an Unqualified Sex Worker Allegedly Infiltrated a Top Air Force Lab” (spare me the jokes about the possible meaning behind “unqualified sex worker” — I’ve already heard them all).
You think the headline sums it up, but it does not, not really.
Imagine a gifted scientist who works in defense and looks like a pale, Victorian cousin to Samwise Gamgee. Imagine that he becomes depressed after losing his father to suicide, which is only understandable.
What is not so understandable is what happens next: Samwise starts spending government funds on ladies of the night, and eventually coaches one to pose as a scientist — except she can’t really write emails and apparently spends a considerable amount of time, uh, servicing other scientists who work at a super serious Air Force lab with her.
Imagine that Samwise’s business partner begins to grasp that some fairly illegal thottery is being paid for via defense contracts, and that Samwise then proceeds to a) threaten this business partner’s life and b) engage in what I can only describe as racist blackmail.
Imagine that Samwise then proceeds to DIE and that we are not clear on his cause of death. What we ARE clear on is that he had contacts with many other sex workers, and that some of them were from the sort of countries that would constitute a national security risk (so, Russia and China, potentially).
The government is still investigating just what the hell happened.
Please also consider the fact that the lab in question is located at Wright-Patterson Air Force base, where the government used to study UFOs — and perhaps does to this day.
Obviously, this story should get a lot more play. It will be upsetting if a book and a movie do not occur as the result of this debacle — although for the sake of Samwise’s actual family, I hope he had a solid life insurance policy. It’s distressing enough to lose a husband and a dad, now imagine losing him amid circumstances that would make Madison Cawthorn blush.
The company that Samwise ran for his poor, beleaguered partner is called Spectral Energies. In physics, the light spectrum refers to the intensity of light via different wavelengths or frequencies. Then, of course, you have the dictionary meaning of spectral, which is “ghostly.”
What’s most horrific about this is just how stupid men will act when they are feeling sad and horny.
I’m stuck on that word, because while from the outside, the story reads like a comedy, there is also an element of horror to the narrative. There is the fact that Samwise had the intention to harm his business partner. There was Samwise’s mysterious death. There was the parental suicide seemingly at the root of the story. There are, of course, the potential aliens (never discount the possibility of aliens at an Air Force base, or, at the very least, men who remind you of aliens).
What’s most horrific about this is just how stupid men will act when they are feeling sad and horny. Say what you want about women — few of us will establish a sex ring on government property, even when we’re powerful enough to do so (then again, maybe I run in the wrong circles — if you think I’m wrong, and have data to back this up, I’d love to write a column about it!).
Ultimately, the story of Spectral Energies makes me feel as though I haven’t acted out enough after losing my father last year. Have any (legal) suggestions as to what I should do? Find me on Twitter and let me know. Don’t forget to tag @GlobalComment in.
This past year has been depressing enough. Time to have some fun.
Image: krakenimages