Frequency File is a radio show hosted by Chiaki Saruhashi, which focused on uncovering the secrets of LIM technology and the Olympic Exclusion Zone.
These in-game tapes can be found in Zone Receivers scattered throughout the Zone, and then stored inside of the Fax Machine at the Auto Shop.
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Frequency File Ep. 1: Martyr, Myth, or Monster?
The introductory episode to Frequency File, which serves to introduce the audience to LIM technology and Dr. Ophelia Turner.
Frequency File #1, Part 1
President Koch:
"I have the distinct honor to introduce to you, the American people a new scientific frontier. With a raw power like LIM technology in the good hands of true patriots like Doctor Ophelia Turner, the potential is limitless. On this day, we welcome our Faraday Future."
Chiaki:
The year is 1955. Doctor Ophelia Turner is standing next to President Koch, the top of her head barely clearing his shoulder. She stands stiff-backed, her hazel eyes affixed on the glass and steel chamber in front of her. She does not appear to breathe until a ball of light appears out of thin air. The sight is tremendous, a lightning bolt frozen mid-strike, and the reaction immediate. the gathering audience roars with excitement and spontaneous applause. On Dr. Turner, only a tightening of her lips indicates that she hears the audience at all.
Dr. Turner and President Koch pose for a picture, and she does not smile even then. That picture is the image splashed across newspapers and science journals for the next decade. The mother of LIM technology, they called her. The Angel of a New Age. The newspapers at that time laid the titles on thick while peddling the impending utopia.
Then she recedes into the bowels of a government research facility. She's never seen again in public - there are scant appearances here and there, in blink-and-you-miss-it promotional videos and blatant propaganda fodder, and then ...
She - and the promise of LIM technology - disappear.
Frequency File #1, Part 2
Chiaki:
The press coverage of LIM technology is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at first. In the decade between 1955-1965, LIM is called many things - the promise of the future, the herald of a new age - then never spoken of again.
You don't have to dig very deep for the gaps in the story to emerge. the Presidential demonstration is the only physical proof we ever see of it. Compared to the Manhattan Project, developed under an air-tight shroud of secrecy, why was LIM paraded around in the papers? And if it really was the technological quantum leap to answer all out wildest dreams, why did it blink out of existence?
The story of LIM technology is one hell of a maze. And the key to it is a woman named Ophelia Turner.
Did Ophelia Turner, by all measure a failed physicist as far as her public record goes, truly invent LIM technology? Or was she help up as a Rose the Riveter for the Cold War? An Atomic Annie to excite the masses during the no-holds-barred race against the Soviet Union?
Was she a myth, martyr, or monster? A figment of the imagination, true savior, or convenient scapegoat?
I'm Chiaki Saruhashi, and in this nine-part series, I aim to find out.
Frequency File Ep. 2: The Cold, Hard Facts
The second episode of Frequency File, focusing primarily on the known history of LIM technology, Dr. Ophelia Turner, and the Olympic Exclusion Zone.
Frequency File #2, Part 1
Chiaki:
Welcome back. this is Frequency File, episode two. In the last episode, I told you about the curious case of Doctor Ophelia Turner. When it comes to this enigmatic individual, one of three versions is true: myth, martyr, or monster. To be able to weigh her, in turns, as heretic, genius, or scapegoat - we must first set the stage. When I started down this path to discover who she was, what she did, and ultimately what happened to her, I didn't expect it to lead me to one of the strangest mysteries of the Pacific Northwest: the Olympic Exclusion Zone.
But let me rewind a bit.
In Northwest Washington State, there are 3,600 miles of vibrant wilderness called the Olympic Peninsula. Bounded by water on three sides, it was a wonderland for outdoorsy types, with snow-capped mountains and salmon-bearing rivers and pristine rain forests. Up until 1955, it was the residence of 100,000 people, including Ophelia Turner. It was her birthplace, her hometown, and - it turns out - ground zero and sacrificial lamb, for the promise of LIM technology.
In true fashion, the government never comes out and says that's what led to the creation of the Olympic Exclusion Zone. But the chain of events were in plaint sight - strange accidents, leading to the government's claim of eminent domain, and subsequent seizure of the peninsula. The evacuation of 100,000 people, and the attempt- and abject failure - at containing the rumors that spread like wildfire.
Because, it turns out, even with the government's resources at your disposal, keeping secrets is a tricky business. You can bet there was plenty of talk as a result.
Lucky me, because I had plenty of questions.
Frequency File #2, Part 2
Chiaki:
Here's what we know.
Over 50 years ago, in November of 1946, Doctor Ophelia Turner was 27. She had recently returned home to the Olympic Peninsula to lick her wounds after a failed stint in academia. In a fit of obsession or redemption or, quite frankly, both, she cobbled together a laboratory in her basement, and produced the first LIM wave on nothing but a killer hunch and plain ingenuity.
Or so the story goes.
It's never clearly stated anywhere that LIM waves - and LIM technology - really were. It's all vague claims and wild theories, dreams that border more on the mystical than the scientific. What we do know is that "LIM" stood for "unlimited frequency". Radio waves, once souped-up and modulated just right, supposedly enabled the control of matter in a way that modern science both back then and now could only dream of.
After Dr. Turner's discovery, she and a few friends - scientists and Ph.D.s, all toyed with LIM in their garage labs for about four years. The local police and fire departments start making regular house calls, spurred on by increasingly disgruntled neighbors calling in about incidents, that seem to grow larger and more disturbing as the years go on. After one too many reports, the federal government takes notice, and thus begins their severe interest in LIM technology.
The next part happens quickly. In 1955, the United States government seizes not only the physical area where Dr. Turner and her scientists live, but the entire concept of LIM technology. The area is at first evacuated under the pretense of safety, but quickly commandeered by the government. They establish a brand new department called ARDA - Advanced Resonance Development Authority - which was to be headed by Dr. Turner herself.
Over the next 15 years, the government expands the Zone's borders. They clear out civilians as they go, and erect massive 500-meter walls to keep out an increasingly curious public. The Zone started in the northern-most tip of the Peninsula, then expanded outward twice: once in 1961, again in 1967, to the outer perimeter we see now.
Frequency File #2, Part 3
Chiaki:
After the multi-staged evacuation of the Olympic Peninsula's 100,000-strong population, the records get sketchy. Once the region is swept clean of civilian eyes, the flow of information trickles to an eventual stop.
ARDA has always maintained that the evacuation was done in the name of national security. That there was simply nothing more patriotic than sacrificing your homes, with the Communists plotting our demise across the Atlantic. Certainly not because there was any danger from the strange experiments happening inside, or situations most unnatural to witness. ARDA kept a wide berth, displacing citizens far ahead of the front line, so first-hand accounts of things going awry were rare. But rumors spread fast, and everyone had some story about a distant relative whose pet changed in inexplicable ways, or a friend of a friend who followed strange lights into the woods and never returned.
Once the civilians were cleared out, the ARDA employees moved in. Scientists, officials, support staff, and their families made the Olympic Exclusion Zone home, reaching anywhere from 300 to 1,000 in total at its peak. What any of them were doing in the Zone was kept hush-hush, but the population just outside of the walls found the secrecy irresistible. Every shipment of raw material, out-of-season weather pattern, and inexplicable light or sound became the talk of the town, for the first decade of the Zone's existence.
Frequency File #2, Part 4
Chiaki:
Sadly, that's about where the cold, hard facts end.
Listeners, I tried. I really did. I started my investigation in the usual fashion - digging up every piece of public record I could get. The paperwork is maddeningly typical up until 1955 - census records, soil samples, weather reports, hand-drawn survey maps, the beginnings of satellite photos - all readily available for anyone with the patience to walk themselves into a county office. But those materials don't tell me much, and I quickly am forced to turn to more dubious sources.
Before the downing of multiple passenger planes, and the subsequent establishment of the No Fly zone in 1962, crude aerial photos are taken and circulated. This is where things get interesting. I find fuzzy shots of what appears to be entire mountains relocating overnight, buildings disappearing and reappearing at random, and lakes filled with water or light, depending on the time of day. The resolution is dubious, making them ink-blot tests in their own right. They are the stuff of dreams among amateur investigators and conspiracy theorists alike.
The most outlandish, improbable, and extremely unverifiable stories came from Breachers - people rumored to have jumped, tunneled, hot air ballooned their way through the walls. If they're to be believed, there is much to be uncovered. But more on that later.
LIM technology is not paraded around in the press for long. As the government withdraws acknowledgment that it ever existed, the public's interest similarly begins to wane. The last verifiable activity is an exodus of ARDA employees from the Zone, beginning in 1981, and followed swiftly by a full decommissioning of the Zone in 1987. After which, those 3,600 square miles are sealed away and left behind with no explanation. A tomb, minutes away from the populous, perfectly normal city of Seattle, with decades of history and secrets locked inside.
And that is where I'm left to fill in the enormous, ill-defined gaps.
Frequency File #2, Part 5
Chiaki:
So that's the history of the Olympic Exclusion Zone. We know it absolutely existed, and that something blighted the area. Doctor Ophelia Turner was a real person who grew up there, and LIM technology - claimed to be her invention - was the reason the Zone was created. The facts point to either the pursuit of LIM or the technology itself - doing something terrible to the area, and maybe even to the people who stayed behind.
For such a vast, valuable area as the Olympic Peninsula to be lost to the world for the indefinite future, someone needed to take the fall. The evidence in this corner paints the target square on the martyr part of this equation.
Or, did Doctor Ophelia Turner know what she was unleashing upon her homeland? If she did it willingly, then she would've been a monster. But if the government strong-armed her into it, then she would've had no choice but to become a martyr.
To answer that question, we need more information still.
Frequency File Ep. 3: The Human Cost
The third episode of Frequency File, in which our host interviews an ex-resident of the Olympic Peninsula who witnessed the disaster which befell the town of Sierram.
Frequency File #3, Part 1
Chiaki:
How do you force 100,000 people out of their homes without facing major resistance? Even if you're the United States government, facing down what's being peddled as the greatest threat our nation has ever faced, the answer is: you don't. This is Frequency File, episode three: The Human Cost.
Last episode, I reported all the cold hard facts I could get my hands on. If you missed that episode, here's the summary: there wasn't much. Now we jump tracks to the stories of the people, to knit together old records and eyewitness accounts to form some fabric of the true story.
Whoever's job it was at ARDA to suppress stories did a really good job. What they did to keep that sheer number of people from talking, and then to smear the stories that did come out, was a masterstroke of obfuscation.
Unfortunately for ARDA, the cases that made it all the way to court became public record. and the facts were these: ARDA played nice at first with generous relocation package. they offered cold, hard cash, and built sprawling housing complexes in nearly every state to resettle the former residents. These new communities were built as idyllic, white picket fenced neighborhoods where you were sure to be surrounded by all-American families who shared your same values, while enjoying the benefits of government subsidized grocery stores, school districts, and manicured public parks. Not a bad deal from the looks of things.
When it came to the holdouts, the people who wouldn't leave for any amount, things got ugly. But in the end, the government won out, as it always does. And while the government has the sovereign right to seize private property, the Fifth Amendment mandates just compensation be paid for it. But it doesn't specify when or how this compensation be made, and many dissenters ended up with nothing through good old loopholes and bureaucracy. Some of whom are still pursuing their claims to this day.
But the chilling thing is: those left with empty pockets consider themselves lucky. There is a saying they mutter among themselves, under their breath: that at least they had the luck to not live in Sierram.
Frequency File #3, Part 2
Chiaki:
Of the witnesses to the Sierram disaster that are still alive, most aren't willing to speak to me. But one eyewitness account remains the most damning report of what happened.
Meet Lou Argonza. She was nine when she last saw her parents alive.
You were born in the Zone?
Lou:
Yes. Born and raised in Sierram town until - well, until it wasn't a town anymore.
Chiaki:
Lou was evacuated from the Zone on February 13th, 1973.
Can you share what you remember from that day?
Lou:
Sure. I was at a week-long wilderness camp, this yearly thing my elementary school would put on. They'd throw the kids into the woods, show us how to pick apart animal droppings and sketch birds. You know, things like that.
It was my favorite thing as a kid. But that year, I really didn't want to go. Something called the LIM Fair was coming to Sierram, and I begged my dad to let me stay. He told me that I could see it the following year. That obviously didn't happen.
Frequency File #3, Part 3
Chiaki:
The LIM Fair. ARDA advertised it as a good old fashioned small town get-together, a miniature world's fair of sorts for the hardworking government employees and their families that lived in Sierram town. The flyers and brochures I've gotten my hands on promised all manner of things mundane and fantastical - kiss your low tech washing machine goodbye, taking home this LIM Nebulizer and zap those clothes and diapers clean! Why break your back trimming your lawn when LIM tech can transform your grass into something more?
This push to get LIM tech into the homes of Zone residents - housewives in particular - was a deliberate and strategic move. The cynical reason, and most popular interpretation, is that it was a PR push to rehabilitate LIM tech's image. By 1973, there'd been enough reports of radioactive fallout and inexplicable disappearances that suspicion of what ARDA was doing was high.
Where were you when the Sierram incident happened?
Lou:
At base camp, about 20 miles out of town. The sirens went off during dinner. We barely had time to wonder whether it was a drill or real, before the shockwaves rolled through.
Luckily, we'd been through the disaster procedure days before. We dove under our tables to take cover. We were just kids, and at first, thrilled for the drama unfolding in real-time.
It was hours before ARDA came to extract us. By that time, we'd scrambled up onto a hill to signal for help, and saw the -
Chiaki:
Take your time.
Lou:
It's been 20 years and I still can't go anywhere near a county fair of any sort.
Chiaki:
What did they tell you had happened?
Lou:
Nothing. They were all business, hurrying us onto the trucks with boarded-up windows. We weren't even allowed back in our cabins to pack our belongings.
They breezed us out of the Zone. It wasn't until days later, when most of us were deposited in an orphanage, that we learned that our parents died.
Frequency File #3, Part 4
Chiaki:
Lou's account is one of the most damning, and holds up to the best of my verification efforts. She's told that story many times, and hadn't changed this story in the ensuing years. Chalk it up to good memory or deeply seated trauma, but it is, as far as I can tell, real.
The stories from others, however, inspire a healthy dose of skepticism. Those who weren't too scared of government retaliation were few, and the ones who shared their stories loved their 15 minutes of fame a little too much. Any talk show or gossip rag or cheap date willing to listen heard from these types, and made piecing together the Zone's true history for someone like me, decades later, a migraine-inducing experience.
Because these stories, as every good gossip knows, morphed over time. What started as the most powerful lightning storms recorded on Earth turned into UFOs touching down. An innocent spider web became something to be avoided on pain of death. A grassy lawn, left untended, became a feeding ground for something called Burp Bunnies. The tales became taller as the years went by, and the more I heard, the more my suspension of disbelief left me.
And while the Sierram disaster was only one of the many incidents that occurred over the Zone's 32-year history, it is the one I return to as a prime example. Whatever happened there in Sierram is the type of disaster that caused the creation of the Exclusion Zone in the first place. We can extrapolate from what little we know of what happened here. If this is the one story to get out, how many more horrors did LIM technology cause?
Frequency File #3, Part 5
Chiaki:
Finally, back to the question of Ophelia Turner. The fact is, most of the people I spoke to didn't know her. How is it that the supposed inventor of LIM technology herself, who ostensibly led the ARDA R&D project, wasn't known across the board? It's almost as if the American public knew her more than the people who worked and lived in the Zone, thanks to the PR machine.
But how does that all balance out?
The best I could get were vague acknowledgements, mainly from scientists. Mind you, this lot was also the most tight-lipped, but those who showed a hint of recollection spoke of her as if she were an urban legend herself.
Scientist 1:
I mean, I heard her name from time to time. Never saw her once though.
Scientist 2:
I don't remember an Ophelia, but there was an Allen Turner who was heavily involved in LIM R&D. Not a lot of women in the labs, I would've noticed one for sure.
Chiaki:
Curiouser and curiouser.
Frequency File Ep. 4: The Problem with LIM
The fourth episode of Frequency File, in which our host discusses ARDA, as well as the scarce details available regarding LIM technology and Anomalies.
Frequency File #4, Part 1
Chiaki:
Researching Ophelia Turner's story feels like poking around the edges of a void. When I look directly at my subject, nothing appears to be there. But as I tease around the edges, a shape begins to emerge in the null space. It is with great journalistic integrity that I began to define those edges, but even then, it's tempting to fill in the spaces with good old fashioned imagination. But hey, I knew what I was signing up for when I decided to unearth a decades-old mystery. Welcome back. This is episode four of Frequency File.
In lieu of no one having a personal account of Ophelia Turner, we turn to more facts in the periphery. In this episode, I dig into ARDA, the government agency behind the research and development of LIM technology, as well as the scant facts of LIM technology itself.
Bear with me, as we depart the shores of known, connected facts and slingshot from one theory to another.
By now, you're probably starting to gather what the problem was with the very concept of LIM technology.
The rumors about LIM were healthy and far-reaching. That it could solve world hunger and overpopulation, that it had alchemical powers to convert matter from one form to another, or would finally plug the technological gap needed to realize the long-dreamed-of perpetual energy machines.
Even for the scientifically disinclined like myself, it's easy to conclude that no one technology could fulfill all of mankind's wildest fantasies. And yet here was LIM technology, promising all those things in one swoop.
And remember: any and all actual scientific detail about LIM technology was kept absolutely air-tight. Every schematic, lab note, and mathematical proof that was allegedly smuggled out of the Zone or recreated from memory was dissected by experts around the world. All were found to be well outside of the realm of reality. And those scattered claims of rogue LIM technology out in the world? They were all red herrings, nothing proven.
Frequency File #4, Part 2
Chiaki:
So what do all those rumors about LIM technology leave us with?
The most popular theory, by far, was that LIM technology never existed. An elaborate yarn spun by opportunists to siphon government funds into their pockets. The demonstration from Dr. Ophelia Turner and President Koch was well within the ability of an amateur magician. And once again, Dr. Turner's lack of accomplishments in her academic career, paint an easy portrait of a scientist eager for a win.
That would slot Dr. Turner firmly in the "myth" camp.
We may never be able to agree on what LIM was or if it even existed. But we can certainly understand why its existence was necessary. The state of the world that existed needed to believe in something so fantastical.
Here's my submission to the ever-growing theory pile:
It is no coincidence that the year the Zone was established was 1955. That year also marked the start of the Space Race. For that next decade, there is no hotter topic, no singular focus of effort and funding, than beating the Soviets. With Sputnik's launch in 1957, followed by Gagarin's first brush with space in 1961, America fell behind with every passing year. Its desperation only increased with the very public explosion of Project Vanguard, America's first satellite launch attempt.
The timing of LIM technology couldn't have been more perfect. The government springs into action, promoting LIM while being simultaneously effusive and evasive - an American political specialty. The live demonstrations are few, the vagaries plenty, but there is a notable wave of professors vacating their spots at major universities to take on positions at ARDA. Some interesting fields of study from the bunch: experts in crop domestication, enclosed biological ecosystems, and radiobiology. What sounds like a child's tale begins to take on a shape that fits cleanly with the race to the stars.
I will reiterate here: this is only my theory, but I dare say it's a good one.
Frequency File #4, Part 3
Chiaki:
The problem, we have come to understand, is that something went horribly wrong inside the Zone's borders, and caused all of it - LIM, disasters, and the rest - to be hermetically sealed off forever.
As dubious as the fuzzy photos and inconsistent stories were, they add up to one thing: what was going on in the Zone wasn't normal. For as tall as ARDA built those walls, they couldn't hide oddly colored auroras in the sky, or ice storms in the summer, or localized hurricane-force winds compacted into tight columns.
There were two words that popped up time and time again within these eyewitness stories - instability and Anomalies.
I've been able to distill a few things about them - that they were two of the many, many unfortunate byproducts of the R&D going on in the Zone. The government was forced to admit to elevated levels of radiation - pretty hard to cover that one up, as it became a tourist attraction to hike along the walls with a Geiger counter. But this instability seemed to be some combination of ecological and physical fallout. Some described it as a state of constant landslides. Others recounted storms unlike anything seen on planet Earth.
As far as what the anomalies were? I couldn't tell you. I ran face-first into two distinct responses to that question. Either people refused to say a single word about them, or people had too many conflicting explanations to find a single thread of commonality. Perhaps that's a topic for a series all on its own.
Roadblocks at every turn, with this story.
Frequency File Ep. 5: Listener Calls
The fifth episode of Frequency File where our host informs us about several theories relating to LIM technology and the Olympic Exclusion Zone. These are told primarily through first-person accounts from callers.
Frequency File #5, Part 1
Chiaki:
This is Frequency File. Episode five. By this point in my investigation, the unanswered questions kept piling up. The depths I was having to go to, the mysteries upon mysteries, was making me dizzy. Many times, my hope dwindled. Was I getting anywhere with this? Or were the rumors sweeping me completely off-track?
One night, in a fit of desperation, I opened my reader mail, and found the motivation to continue. And I thought, you're walking this same journey with me, and maybe you share some of my frustrations about all the non-answers. So indulge me this one episode, as I lighten the mood, and talk about the response to my work.
A quick behind-the-scenes on the making of Frequency File - it was quite the uphill battle to make it to air. Only by virtue of my good work investigating the case of the disappearing banana slugs, was this entire series allowed to happen. And I was made aware in no uncertain terms that I used up the entirety of my good karma on making this.
But the letters and calls from you, the listeners, have managed to overwhelm the network, and thus have justified my obsession-turned-legit investigation.
So, as thanks, this episode is all about you. Your theories, your hopes and dreams, your love and hate, your opinions. I've sifted through the hundreds of letters and calls, and here's a selection of the sentiment you've shared:
Frequency File #5, Part 2
Caller 1:
I've listened to every one of your episodes and I did my own research. And I have to say: there is no chance in hell that Ophelia Turner invented LIM technology. She was 100% a convenient excuse. I mean, for starters, she's a woman. As an American, who'd you rather rally around? Some dweeb scientist squinting at a test tube? Or a woman in a lab coat posing for pretty pictures? Admit it: we were duped by the government. Again. When will we learn?
Caller 2:
You're wrong about one thing: some LIM technology did make it out into the larger world. You remember the personal cassette players that were all the rage in 1979? Yeah, that thing we all begged our parents for Christmas? LIM tech, baby! Go on, open it up, tell me if you don't see some LIM doohickeys in there. I dare ya.
Caller 3:
What I don't understand is how they could let all those Zone people back out into the world. Like, they lived there, were experimented on, and got exposed to Lord-Knows-What, and they just rolled out the red carpet for them and let them loose? That's just completely irresponsible. My neighbor? They were one of them. And let me tell you, nothing good came from it. The minute they moved in, things got screwy. You ever hear of a ice storm in Tampa? Heck, in Florida anywhere? No. But they move in and suddenly we get freak ice storms and armies of six-legged possums overrunning the neighborhood. I can't sleep a single night without hearing their grubby little hands - so many little hands - going through my trash bins. My husband tried to fight them off and got bitten, and he ain't been right since. I tell you, they're out there, and it's already too late.
Frequency File #5, Part 3
Caller 4:
Hello? I haven't been able to sleep since I first started listening to Frequency File. I've been putting the clues together, and I honestly think my grandparents are Allen and Ophelia Turner. They never like talking about their past, but sometimes, I'll sneak up to the attic and find photos of them in these weird lab outfits. And what's more, sometimes, when they talk in their sleep, they speak another language. I bet it's Russian! You have to check it out!
Chiaki:
And the most surprising of the messages:
Ed:
Don't keep poking your nose around where it doesn't belong. You're not going to like where you end up. Trust me. I should know.
Chiaki:
He identifies himself as Ed Baker. An astronaut on the American spaceflight missions.
Ed:
Now, this isn't a threat. It's just a warning. I went up with the third landing mission. All was well, readings were nominal. We achieved stable orbit around the moon, and began executing the LIM-assisted landing procedure. Once it activated, that's when everything went wrong. I wish I could tell you what I saw. I wish I could put it into words. But most of all, I wish I could forget. I don't even look up at the sky anymore. Every night is a terror. LIM technology was a mistake. It wasn't worth it. Yes, we won the race, but the cost was too great. It will always be there, waiting, for our next mistake.
Chiaki:
Okay, well, maybe that didn't do quite the job of lightening the mood. But knowing that there's so many of you along for the ride with me, gives me the determination to continue on. No matter how deep this rabbit hole goes.
So thank you, and I'll see you next episode.
Frequency File Ep. 6: The Lead
The sixth episode of Frequency File, where our host receives new information - from a sketchy source - regarding Dr. Ophelia Turner and her research.
Frequency File #6, Part 1
Richard:
Hello, this is a message for Chiaki Saruhashi. We have some documents that may be of interest to you. They’ll be dropped at the Seattle Public Library Central District Branch at 11:59PM.
Chiaki:
Sorry, who is this?
Richard:
Consider it a present from the Breachers.
Chiaki:
This is Frequency File, episode six.
Listeners, I'm ashamed to admit the difficulty I had at this point in my investigation. I was out of leads, shamelessly mired in rumors and dead-ends, and pretty darn stressed about what to do next.
So this phone call offers me a lead on a cold, stormy night. And, in all my posturing about journalistic integrity and triple-checking the evidence, I am amused to say that this is the sketchiest source I've come across in my career.
And yet, it led me somewhere.
Frequency File #6, Part 2
Chiaki:
I get this call on a Friday night, and I only have enough time to hop in a cab to make the drop. Waiting for me next to the library's book return are three filing boxes stuffed with moldy documents. They are in poor shape. I tip the cab driver extra after the bottom of a box disintegrates all over his trunk. Clearly these records were not well taken care of I wonder it this is more of a decluttering of a long-lost basement rather than an illicit sharing of secrets.
And yet, in the soggy pages, I do find proof of Ophelia Turner's position: a series of organization charts of the LIM Research Project, spanning the first ten years of R&D. In the earliest version of the chart, she is positioned at the top level, with the title of Lab Director. The subsequent charts show a rapid expansion of the project, with hundreds of names being added, as well as a good deal of shuffling. Dr. Turner's job title changes every two years, and a quick visual comparison shows that she is quickly, and literally, being shoved off into her own corner. The years that this is seen happening correlate to the downturn in her PR appearances.
Another name appears briefly on the organization chart - you guessed it, Allen Turner. A quick search in the county office shows that he's Ophelia's husband. Married at 22, no children on record, died in 1961. The cause of death is unlisted, which means only one thing - the government scrubbed it from the record.
Okay, so not only did Ophelia Turner exist, she was one of the highest ranking members on the LIM Research Project. And she was intimately involved with these so-called anomalies - did she create them? Did she dissect them? Did she unleash them onto her homeland like some sort of mad scientist? Did I need to stop drinking coffee after 8pm in my desperate bid to meet my deadlines for this series?
Lots of questions I couldn't possibly know the answers to.
But one good lead follows another, and soon, I get another phone call.
More on the next episode of Frequency File.
Frequency File Ep. 7: Zone Life
In the seventh episode of Frequency File our host meets with the source from the previous episode, a man who claims to have lived inside the Zone.
Frequency File #7, Part 1
Richard:
You did good. We can meet.
Chiaki:
This is Frequency File: Episode seven.
Apparently I passed some sort of test with my impromptu retrieval of moldy documents. I was rewarded with a connection to Richard Phillips, a man who claimed to not only have worked in the Zone, but stayed there years after its closure.
We meet at a cafe in downtown Seattle.
Richard:
The Zone, in its active research and development phase, doesn't look too dissimilar to these photos you've got there.
By now, it's been 20 years abandoned, but being hermetically sealed in with 70 petabecquerels of radiation has got its benefits. When the withdrawal orders came through, everything was left as-is.
Except for the ones who didn't leave. Like me.
Chiaki:
Why did you stay?
Richard:
See, that was always the question, wasn't it? We all had our own reasons. Some of the scientists, in particular, liked to claim legitimate reasons for staying behind. But we were all misguided. We all had something we were running from.
Chiaki:
How long were you there?
Richard:
I want to say, about six years after the decommission was complete.
Chiaki:
But if ARDA withdrew all operations, how did you survive? Like, what did you eat, how did you get the supplies you needed?
Richard:
Some Zone secrets are best left secret. You don't want to know. It wasn't pretty, the things we had to do to survive. But it was quiet. Blissfully, peacefully, quiet.
Frequency File #7, Part 2
Chiaki:
No, I want all the dirty secrets. What you ate, how your plumbing worked, what social activities there were.
Richard:
Social activities? No one went in there to have a good time, I'll tell you that. There was plenty of chatter across the radio at first, but that died down pretty quickly. Not too much to gossip about after being shut-in for - I don't even know how many years at that point.
Chiaki:
Radio? Like a ham radio?
Richard:
Yeah, but worlds more sophisticated. Some property of radio waves made it the only consistent method of transmission. So it was our prime method of communication.
People started up their own radio stations, made their own programming. It didn't matter who was listening. It was the human need to talk that we were fulfilling.
Chiaki:
Okay, but give me a little hint. You weren't completely deprived of supplies, right?
Richard:
Oh, easy. That's where the Breachers came in.
Chiaki:
On the next episode of Frequency File, more about the Breachers, and what they thought of our topic at hand: Dr. Ophelia Turner.
Frequency File Ep. 8: The Breachers
In the eighth episode of Frequency File our host meets with two professional Breachers and learns why they their existence was necessary.
Frequency File #8, Part 1
Chiaki:
The Breachers. It was a network of people, including those who claimed to have infiltrated the Zone, and the people on the inside that enabled them.
Where there's an iron-fisted ruling authority, there's always a resistance. And as wonderfully weird as everything we've heard about the Zone has been so far, these Breachers honestly take the cake.
This is Frequency File: episode eight.
Infiltrating the Olympic Exclusion Zone is a whole lot of work. To start, you'd have to get through, past, or over a 300-meter outer wall. There were layers upon layers of security checkpoints, and the Zone was carved out into sectors, each with very specific clearance requirements. If you were somehow able to make it through all of that, then you'd start dealing with the rampant radiation and a whole host of other dangers.
So imagine my surprise to hear that there were people who made a whole career out of wallbreaching.
Carolyn:
Yeah, I lived in the Zone for ten years. My partner worked for ARDA, I came along for the ride. After a while, I got bored, and thought: hey, why not put my years of experience smuggling contraband to good use?
Chiaki:
This is Carolyn Murrell. Not her real name, of course, as she was the ringleader of an illicit smuggling ring. If you needed a pack of your favorite brand of smokes from the outside, or a souvenir from the inside, Carolyn was your gal.
Carolyn:
By all measures, it was an easy life on the inside. ARDA took care of most everything - groceries to your door, free housing. Salary was good. You didn’t have much to use it on, but at least you know you’d be set with savings and pension when you eventually went back into the real world.
Frequency File #8, Part 2
Chiaki:
So you didn't run the smuggling ring for money.
Carolyn:
No. Because honestly? Once you get used to the anomalies and instability that come sweeping through, the hardest thing to fight was boredom. That was constant and neverending. Everyday was very much the same - wake up, check the weather and stability reports, boil water and wish you had coffee, wait for your partner to come home, then sit around and repeat the same conversations night after night.
Chiaki:
So the smuggling kept things interesting. What were the most common things requested?
Carolyn:
All people inside wanted was coffee, cigarettes, and vodka. All the good vices. What outside people wanted was the interesting stuff - anything anti-gravity was popular, and the occasional ask for a live anomaly.
We didn't take those requests seriously. Those usually came from tourists who were rich and desperate to prove that they'd actually been inside the Zone to their rich friends.
Chiaki:
I'm sorry, back up, you're saying there was Zone tourism?
Carolyn:
Oh, yeah, and not the solo Breacher variety either. Like sanctioned, scheduled itinerary type tours.
Chiaki:
How was that possible? All I've heard is how strict ARDA's security was.
Carolyn:
It's true, ARDA had eyes everywhere. But even they couldn't secure the entire border, not with the instability wreaking havoc on everything. Especially when ARDA's funding began to wind down, they eased up on security, so it got easier in the later years.
Frequency File #8, Part 3
Chiaki:
Carolyn was generous enough to connect me to Ellison Nagata, who claims to have operated the tours in question.
How much did it cost to tour the Zone?
Ellison:
Wouldn't you like to know? Let's just say - I was able to retire in my early 40's.
Chiaki:
Okay, then, how did you manage to sneak tour groups in without ARDA noticing?
Ellison:
Logistics, logistics. Let me tell you what your listeners will really want to hear - the tour packages.
By far the most popular: the Anomaly Safari. We'd load tourists up in a transport vehicle and follow any route available to us and see what'd come out of the woodwork. And let me tell you, it never disappointed. You ever see a 100-foot-tall tree walk? One crossed the road right in front of us.
I had a few repeat customers. One couple commissioned a private tour to see the Old Wall. Dangled a real big tip for me if I got them all the way through into the Deep Zone, but it turns out I value my life way more than finding a way through that insanity.
Frequency File #8, Part 4
Chiaki:
And, when it came to the topic of Dr. Ophelia Turner, amazingly, the Breachers all knew of her, and had the most consistently positive opinions of her.
Carolyn:
Never met the woman. But she was a regular, and one of my best customers. She paid in advance, ordered consistently, and never made a fuss. She's the sharpest broad I've ever come in contact with. I have no doubts that she did exactly what all the legends claimed.
Ellison:
Oppy? Oh, she was not a fan of my work. Gave my tour quite a thrill when she stopped our van and nearly threw us all out into the radiation to die. You should've seen her face though when the tourists realized that she was the Dr. Ophelia Turner of legend. She was the biggest celebrity when it came to the Zone, and everyone wanted a picture with her.
Richard:
I sat in on some of her seminars. There wasn't a thing about LIM that she didn't know. She was one of a kind.
Chiaki:
So, what do you think? Was she a martyr, myth, or a monster?
Richard:
Not a myth, she was the real deal.
Carolyn:
Martyr. Whatever that woman did, she did for the greater good.
Ellison:
The way she tried to sabotage my business? You'd think I'd call her a monster. But she was a lioness, defending her territory. I didn't bring people into the Zone because it was the right thing to do, and I knew it. So yeah, I guess of the three: martyr? She knew how bad things were getting, but she stuck it out anyway. She went down with that ship. I can only respect her for that.
Frequency File #9
Chiaki:
We've reached Frequency File: episode nine. The final episode.
Okay, I’ll be the first to admit: what started as a magnifying glass on this whole Dr. Ophelia Turner and the LIM project, went off the deep end here. I left the shores of the topic long ago.
I assure you that under normal standards, my reporting is laser-focused on my target. But I’ve never run into topics foggier than the Olympic Exclusion Zone, LIM technology, and Dr. Ophelia Turner.
Through this journey, I’ve tried to chart something of a path through this maze. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether I’ve succeeded or not. But in my defense, and in tribute to the many, many theories surrounding our topics at hand, here is one last hypothesis:
It’s the Olympic Exclusion Zone itself that invites this line of thinking. The delight in rumor, the eager detour onto unmarked side roads, the plunge into fiction over fact.
Think about it. First off, this wasn’t a personal endeavor—I don’t know anyone who lived in or worked in the Zone, or was relocated from it. I live in Seattle, which admittedly is close enough to see the mountains on the Peninsula, but there’s never anything out of place when I look out my window.
But once I heard the stories about the Zone, I couldn’t get them out of my mind. Every night, I couldn’t help but imagine what it was like, to stand on your front porch and watch something called an “instability front” sweep through and replace your front lawn with a rushing river. To be commuting to work, only to have your way blocked by a rampaging Sasquatch. To hear your neighbors gossip through whatever errant radio broadcasts your antenna happens to pick up for the day.
Maybe that’s nowhere close to what life was like in there. But those are the images they conjure for me, and they are impossible to shake.
I am not alone. They have a term for this obsession— the Affected. I have unknowingly fallen into the trap, seduced by the rumors and legends of the Zone. I sleep on a bed littered with grainy Zone photos. I take my daily runs with the ARDA broadcasts on repeat in my ear. I squint at incoming rainstorms and wonder if they’ll bring a little instability with them.
I know I have traded fact for fiction. And on pain of my credibility as a journalist, I am happier for it.
A wise man once said, “I want to believe.” When we face such a vacuum of information, where the scant details we can glean are more fantastical than the last, our imagination expands to fill the gaps. But that’s the romance of it, isn’t it?
Our generation likes to say, that we were born too late to explore the Earth, and too early to explore the galaxy. So we reach toward local mysteries—the ones nearby enough to be accessible, yet the more otherworldly the better, to satisfy our latent explorers lust. The Olympic Peninsula, within a couple hours drive, is too enticing not to dream about.
So when it comes to the issue of the Olympic Exclusion Zone, the mystique of LIM technology, and the conundrum of Doctor Ophelia Turner, here is what I know.
The Olympic Exclusion Zone was—is—a real thing. We can still see it, those monolithic walls, sealing its secrets inside like a tomb. Real people lived there, worked there, and we suspect are in there still. Even if we will never know everything that happened on the inside, we know much happened, and it was dangerous. It is a place that no one in their right mind should—and ever will—tread again.
LIM technology, on the other hand, is still an open question, leaning more fiction than fact. It was, for sure, a bonafide new type of technology. It had its basis in reality, but they followed the recipe of the best science fiction and futurism: take a familiar, grounded, easily understandable concept like radio waves, mix in a heaping scoop of technological mumbo-jumbo, and top it off with a generous heaping leap in logic. It is that last critical step that lends the most disbelief to the entire story. But that same step is the one all scientists hang their hats on, the desired outcome of their hopes and dreams, the destination of their fevered derivations.
It is tempting to believe that those technological quantum leaps are well within our grasp, but for every one that comes true, hundreds more remain fairy tales. And so, while I can’t verify one way or another, my belief is that LIM technology never did many of the things it was purported to do. If it had, we should’ve seen some fruit of those labors.
Lastly, Doctor Ophelia Turner—martyr, myth, or monster? In the end, it’s not for me to judge. We each get to make that call for ourselves. And if this seems like an unsatisfying conclusion to you, think of it this way: she was no more than a blip in history, a footnote in an annotation somewhere. She was a woman who lived an entire life, bearing not just the burden of public opinion on her shoulders, but if you believe the full story, the destruction of her homeland and the failure of a nation’s best efforts on her soul.
Stamping her with a label is the easy way out. It’s an oversimplification of a complex life, a disservice to a woman who suffered the judgment of an entire country that needed her at a very specific moment in history. Whoever Doctor Ophelia Turner was, whatever she did, and wherever she is now, I say: I hope you have no regrets. I hope you’re at peace with everything that you sacrificed, and I hope you had someone who understood you, and loved every version of yourself.
Frequency File #10
Chiaki:
You’re listening to Frequency File. I’m Chiaki Saruhashi, and I signed off last episode. The story was done.
Or so I thought.
Just as I wrapped up the season, I was surprised by a call. Think of this as an after-credits scene, an unbearable cliffhanger of events that I’m still reeling from.
Operator:
Chiaki, you have a call on line eight.
Chiaki:
I’m heading out for the night, can you take a message?
Operator:
You’re going to want to take this one. In fact, I’m routing it to Studio A. Why don’t you take it there?
Chiaki:
Okay.
Hello, this is Chiaki.
Oppy:
I’ve heard you’ve been on my trail. Sniffing around where you don’t belong.
Chiaki:
Oppy? I mean, Doctor Turner?
Oppy:
The one and only.
Chiaki:
Wow, wow. This is such an honor. I’m so glad you called, I have so many questions—
Oppy:
You’ve talked enough. It’s my turn.
Now. There’s a few things you got wrong.
Chiaki:
Doctor Turner proceeded to ignore my questions completely. She spoke at length, revealing much and little at the same time.
But I am out of time, so all I can say is: look forward to Frequency File: Season Two.