#department c19

Sunday November 24th, 1963 and the London borough of Hackney is released from military cordon after clean-up crews worked the night hiding the evidence of what happened the previous day. By the time the news media gets access, the president of the United States of America has been assassinated, providing the perfect front-cover news story to bury what happened in London on that Saturday morning. Now, we have acquired top secret documents pertaining to the events of "the Shoreditch Incident."

On November 23rd, explosions rang out across Totter's Lane and Coal Hill Road in Shoreditch, London. Six soldiers were killed. The soldiers were granted military funerals, though one was given a more hushed-up burial a few days later. The newspapers would have you believe that these six military professionals were the victims of an unexploded bomb, however there do not appear to be any reports of a UXB made on that day. Coal Hill School, at the center of the activity, issued a letter to concerned parents regarding a gas leak that ignited. Was it a bomb, or a gas leak? Why were the military called to Shoreditch?

A terrorist attack by Russia?

Declassified documents now available thanks to the Freedom of Information Act show that the government were on high alert in 1963 due to multiple intelligence leaks to an alleged Russian spy ring operating out of London, with one particular police station a frequent target. Local cabbie William Pike was discovered to be transporting Russian documents on the morning of the 23rd of November and was arrested accordingly. Police also apprehended and questioned a potential ally of Pike's who was carrying an unusual communications device. The two, however, escaped custody and the unnamed girl who assisted him seemingly disappeared into thin air.

So were the explosions caused by a Russian bomb, deployed by communist spies operating out of London under the government's very noses? Did the government cover up the incident with tales of a gas leak to hide their own incompetence, or supress public fears of further attacks? Well... Pike went on to prove his innocence, and while the documents he was accused of transporting in his taxi self-destructed, the explosion was not big enough to take out six members of the British military. Indeed, the explosive barely scorched the table in the police cell where it was detonated.

A gas leak?

The letter issued by the school board brings to light further details. Not only were six soldiers killed during the incident, but so were a headteacher at the school, and a caretaker (Coal Hill is no stranger to such tragedies, as in that same year two teachers went missing, a female student vanished, and another female student was killed having been shot with silver bullets).

The media and the school board seem to be implying that the damage to the school on Coal Hill Road and the military maneuvers in Totters Lane were separate incidents. How likely is it that explosions in both locations happened at the same time due to different causes? An unexploded bomb, and a gas leak?

The key to all of this comes in identifying the military arm dispatched to Totters Lane. One would expect the Search Regiment Royal Logistic Corps for such a task. However, it was ICMG that were operating in Shoreditch on the 23rd of November, 1963.

At the time, ICMG operated in secret. However thanks to the accounts and memoirs of Group Captain Gilmore, the Freedom of Information Act, and 'the Zen Military' by Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart, we now know just what the ICMG was all about. And unsurprisingly for this blog, it's aliens.

Operating under Department C19, the Intrusion Counter-Measures Group (ICMG) was established in the early 60's in response to alien incursions, as a pre-cursor to UNIT. There had been multiple reports - covered up, of course - of alien incursions on Earth and the Shoreditch Incident would go on to cement in the minds of the British government that it was imperative to protect the UK not just from alien attack but from the fear of knowing the truth: that there are alien beings out there far more capable than our planet's military forces, that can easily come and go as they wish. This is the military branch that was called to Shoreditch.

So was it an alien bomb?

Readers, it was not even a bomb. Every facet of the reports - save the deaths - was fabricated. In truth, the explosions at both Coal Hill school and Totter's Lane were caused by alien invaders engaged in civil war, using Earth as their battleground.

On the 3rd of December, Military scientific advisor Rachel Jensen filed official reports regarding the xenomorphs seen in Shoreditch the previous November. She describes amoeboid creatures of around twelve inches in diameter possessed of vestigial limbs, operating inside of metallic casings. While the sample obtained from Totter's Lane appeared to have "substantial brain activity," she posited that the example extracted from Coal Hill was of superior breed. The second sample possessed genetically engineered enhancements, including a chitinous claw and operational appendages. The document includes a witness sketch of one of the creatures as seen with its casing, which is fitted with a large weapon.

The real story...

In autumn of 1963, the ICMG were on high alert due to an unusual spike in mysterious incidents in London. Many witnessed lights in the sky, unusual weather activity, reports of werewolves culminating in the paranoid murder of a Coal Hill student, a Satanic cult in Wycombe, witnesses claiming to see a man mutate into a horrible monster in a pub, and a series of mysterious disappearances in Shoreditch. It was as if a storm were brewing, and it came to a head on the 23rd of November.

Group Captain Gilmore was assigned a team to monitor Shoreditch, particularly the areas surrounding Coal Hill. He was assisted by Cambridge-educated chief scientific advisor Rachel Jensen, physicist Allison Williams of the British Rocket Group, Sergeant Mike Smith, and a team of hand-picked soldiers including Gary Jonathan Finch. Gary's son Clive Finch would go on to found the "Who Is Doctor Who?" website which drew attention to the mysterious traveller who appears frequently at incidents such as these.

Rachel Jensen and Allison Williams detected unusual magnetic activity - a pulse, artificial in origin - coming from Coal Hill Secondary School and I. M. Foreman's scrap yard on Totter's Lane. This lead the ICMG to an encounter with one of the metal-encased aliens. A firefight broke out at the scrap yard, resulting in the deaths of two of Gilmore's men. Once it became apparent the creatures were susceptible to ATRs, the tables were turned and the creature was killed. This would become Jensen's first sample of the alien lifeforms, extracted from the remains of the tank-like shell.

Two mysterious entities joined the ICMG around this time. One, a girl we can now identify as Dorothy 'Ace' McShane, founder of A Charitable Earth. The other, a man who answered only to the title "the Doctor."

The area was evacuated to protect civilians, with the cover of an unexploded bomb. A media blackout was called and cover stories disseminated.

As events unfolded over the course of three days, a second faction of the shelled aliens arrived both via the school's basement and through the landing of a shuttlecraft in the schoolyard. The two factions went to war, tearing up a small corner of Shoreditch while the ICMG intervened. Coal Hill would provide Jensen with her second sample of alien life, the augmented amoeboid. The ICMG and Coal Hill staff suffered fatalities as a result of the conflict, though thankfully the alien invaders were wiped out before the conflict could escalate any further.

Why these creatures chose Shoreditch for their battle is rumoured to be down to an artifact hidden in the area. Some say it was the mysterious Doctor who hid it there, bringing alien war to Earth and putting us on the interplanetary map as a target for alien invaders. However, these rumours come from Sergeant Mike Smith, who it came to light was a Nazi sympathiser liaising with local fascist organiser George Ratcliffe, who in turn was in service to one faction of the alien invaders. Both were killed during the incident, with Smith being denied a military funeral due to his fascist beliefs.