First, the good news. Population at Falcon Rock hit 200 last Monday, and that was without opening the blast doors. Maria Guerrero had a baby girl! Vital stats: 7 pounds, 3 ounces, 19 inches – textbook normal in the Army Med Manual. And take it from me, no one here’s doubting her lungs are OK. You never saw so many people laughing and smiling, just listening to a baby cry. Maria’s calling her Esperanza – Hope.

For the other piece of amazing news from these last two weeks, you’ll have to wait till Captain Gil’s got our video system back online. You will not believe how Dr. Cole and Private Oxford managed to capture not one… not two… but THREE of them, all at once. And that was without leaving the support area.

Turns out they’d been locked in the auxiliary generator shed, maybe for months, without any type of food or water. Dr. Cole thinks that maybe when we’ve seen groups of them just standing together, that maybe they’re “recharging” or something. So far, she doesn’t have a working theory to explain how they’re getting their energy, but we’ve learned from our experience and your reports that they do have periods of rest – not sleep, a sort of hibernation maybe? Whatever they’re doing, all it takes is a noise or a sudden movement to snap them out of it and they’ll go running toward whoever was unlucky enough to disturb them. So remember that – anytime you see them just standing, stay as quiet as you can and move away slowly. And whatever you do, don’t try to take one out unless you can definitely take out the entire group at once.

The reason that’s so important is that Dr. Cole ran an experiment to test this idea the colonel had, and it turns out the colonel was right.

Which brings us to the bad news.

Dr. Cole had her three test subjects secured to the wall in the APC garage. They were about five feet apart, hands up and chained to big D-rings. Then she had their heads wrapped in yards of medical bandages, to cut off key senses – sight, sound, scent. Anyone of us wrapped up like that would have suffocated in a minute, but not them. We don’t even know if they need to breathe at all.

After a day, all three went into that strange motionless condition. They were standing absolutely still, not even shifting their weight from one foot to another. Dr. Cole had me walk past them, left to right. I’d have been within arm’s reach if they hadn’t been chained up. She called me a “tempting target.“ I won’t tell you what I called her.

Anyway, after three or four passes, it was pretty clear they couldn’t see, hear, or smell me – not one of them moved.

Then Dr. Cole ripped off a section of the bandages on the one on the left, so that his eyes were uncovered. Those eyes were alert in about two seconds.

Next pass I took by, I was about five feet away, and that thing turned and stared right at me. No matter what anybody says about how their brains have stopped functioning and there’s no intelligence in there, whatever was looking back at me was thinking – I could feel it.

Then, another two seconds and the other two moved their heads the exact same way. No question in my mind that they could see me, too – and their eyes were STILL bandaged.

Dr. Cole said something like, “The colonel was right,“ and then I heard this metallic crack and the next thing I know, one of them lunges at me. Pulled those D-rings right off the wall.

I’ve seen the video of what happened next, but I’ve got no memory of it. I was on the ground, this thing was clawing at me, and kept bashing its fully-wrapped head against mine, like it was trying to bite me and didn’t realize the bandages were there. I was doing a whole lot of screaming.

Dr. Cole had a gun, of course. The colonel’s trained us all. But get this – she didn’t go for the one that broke its chains to get at me, she shot the one whose eyes were free of bandages. Right between the eyes – what the colonel calls the “kill box.”

At once, that one slumped against its chains – and the one on me stopped moving the same time, as if the moment the other one “died,” it went back to being sense-deprived.

Dr. Cole said the experiment proved her hypothesis and the colonel’s hunch – what one of them can see and hear, they ALL can see and hear.

Explains a lot, doesn’t it? That’s why if one of them starts coming for you, pretty soon there’re a lot more showing up.

Dr. Cole says the only problem with what she’s discovered is that there’s never been any scientific evidence that something like telepathy exists. At least, till now.

I’ve got about five more minutes before the batteries go – Captain Gil’s got all non-essential circuits operating off the solar collectors and it’s been cloudy here in Oregon the past week, so electricity use is restricted. Just time enough to get a few more personal messages out there.

Remember, if you’re reading this and have access to the G.R.I.D. – use all the same Internet protocols and programs you used before it happened and you can get email to me. As always, we want to know where you are, how many other survivors are with you, and what you’ve seen about their behavior.

And all of you who HAVE contacted us – keep ‘em coming! There more and more of us everyday, and the more we work together to coordinate our efforts, the faster we’re going to beat them.

Here’re today’s messages:

Arthur in Las Vegas – Are you sure they were jets? Could you hear them, or were they just shapes moving through the sky? Send more details – no one else has reported air traffic for months.

James in Toronto – All we can say is stay away from snowdrifts when Spring comes. They might be frozen in the snow now, but Dr. Cole says their biology is so different from ours, that there’s no guarantee that they won’t become active after they thaw. Let us know what happens as it gets warmer where you are.

Stuart in Chalmers – Is that Chalmers, Indiana or Chalmers, Texas? Let us know so we can put you on our map.

Joe in Milan – Great to hear there are survivors in Italy! And don’t worry – you write much better English than anyone here can write Italian. How many others are with you?

Joe and Becky in Montpelier – Going north into Canada might be an answer, but we can’t be sure. So far, no word from anyone in Atlantic Canada or Quebec. But we have heard that one of the last acts of the Canadian government was to blast the Confederation Bridge linking Prince Edward Island to the mainland. Since we’ve heard nothing from PEI since then, it might have been too late.

Eric in Los Angeles – We’ve never heard of them actually building fires. Do you think they were really trying to smoke you out, or had they just gathered by a fire that started by itself?

Batteries are almost gone so time to upload this and shut down.

Remember, there’s a new Hope in Falcon Rock – I can hear her crying!

Keep fighting.

We’ll talk again.

CJ