Police Report: Case No. 2024-3517
Subject: Missing Persons – Detective Michael Sandoval and Dr. Alfred Vanston
Filed by: Sheriff Andrew Collins
Summary of Incident
On August 20, 2024, Detective Michael Sandoval was assigned to investigate the case of Dr. Alfred Vanston, a local scientist who had been reported missing since June 2023. Dr. Vanston, a former university researcher, had exhibited increasingly erratic behavior in the months leading up to his disappearance, which coincided with his unexplained absence. During the investigation, Detective Sandoval entered Dr. Vanston' residence to search for any leads on Vanston' whereabouts. Following the discovery of an underground laboratory concealed beneath the garage, Detective Sandoval also went missing.
The last known footage of Detective Sandoval was recovered from his body-worn camera, which had been left behind in Dr. Vanston' garage. The footage, which appears to show a strange encounter between the missing detective and Dr. Vanston, ends abruptly, after which both individuals were not seen again. The underground laboratory itself was discovered empty, showing signs of recent fire damage. Both cases are now being treated as connected, and both individuals are classified as missing persons.
Detailed Timeline
Dr. Alfred Vanston was first reported missing on June 18, 2023. His disappearance was unusual, as he had shown no signs of financial distress or personal trouble prior to going off the grid. Colleagues and friends described his behavior in the months leading up to his disappearance as increasingly secretive. He had become consumed with an obscure scientific project, the details of which he refused to share. Vanston, who had been a respected physicist specializing in experimental hypergeometry, reportedly withdrew from university work and spent large sums on advanced scientific equipment, some of which he stored in an undisclosed location.
University records indicate that Vanston had access to advanced piezoelectric materials, which he had previously used for legitimate research purposes. Shortly before his disappearance, Vanston had broken into an industrial chemical storage room, stealing several rare and hazardous chemicals. Traces of these chemicals were later found in small quantities in the remains of his underground lab.
Despite an exhaustive search and the examination of his bank accounts, emails, and phone records, no leads were discovered until August 2024, when Detective Sandoval took over the investigation.
Footage Review
Sheriff Andrew Collins sighed, leaning forward as the footage played for the second time that morning. The grainy bodycam recording showed Detective Michael Sandoval standing in Alfred Vanston's cluttered garage, eyes narrowed with concentration. He was crouched down, peeling back a large, dusty carpet from the concrete floor. A metallic trapdoor glinted beneath it, previously hidden from view.
Michael's voice echoed through the footage: “Gotcha.”
The trapdoor swung open with a creak, revealing a narrow ladder leading into darkness. The detective shone his flashlight down, revealing the cold, sterile environment of an underground laboratory. As Michael descended, the bodycam jostled slightly, capturing the strange, low hum of unseen machinery.
At the bottom, Michael panned the flashlight across the vast room. Shelves lined the walls, filled with scientific instruments whose purpose no one but a physicist could truly understand. A crystalline apparatus stood at the center, its faint glow reflecting off the walls. Scattered across a large desk were notebooks, hastily scrawled diagrams, and a single journal that caught Michael's eye.
Michael picked up the journal and started flipping through the pages. His breathing grew faster as he skimmed over Alfred's notes.
March 12, 2023
I wasn't supposed to be in the lab today. Rob had asked me to help with his experiments, but I was just passing the time. He left me alone with the equipment for a while, and I couldn't resist. The piezoelectric resonator--top of the line, a lot fancier than anything I've used before. I started playing around with it. I spun the dial and watched as the crystal buzzed. The dial happened to stop at 8.7539319 hertz, and something strange happened. The output was slightly lower than the estimate. It was subtle, barely noticeable, but my curiosity kicked in. To check if it was consistent in all frequencies, I tuned it slightly higher, to 8.7539320 hertz. The output was exactly as the instrument estimated. Then I tried 8.7539318--same thing, perfect. But when I went back to 8.7539319, the output dropped again.
I don't know what to make of it. No logical explanation comes to mind. Maybe an anomaly in the equipment? Or maybe... something else.
March 14, 2023
I spent the last two days trying to find an explanation. I scoured every academic paper I could find on piezoelectric resonance. Nothing. Nobody has encountered this phenomenon before. So today I went back to the lab under the pretense of helping Rob again, but my real interest was that resonator. The same thing happened. Exact same frequency--8.7539319--and the output dipped. I'm not imagining it. Something's happening, and I'm going to figure out what.
I used the oscilloscope and a few other instruments to measure the resonance more carefully. I can't let this go.
March 20, 2023
I'm in too deep now. I've spent almost every spare moment analyzing the phenomenon, and I still haven't told anyone. My home office is filling up with instruments I've bought online--expensive stuff, piezoelectric resonators, oscilloscopes, and frequency analyzers. But none of it feels like enough. I need better tools, more precision.
Something's happening at that frequency. I've tried shining different wavelengths of light through the crystal, and the energy is disappearing. It just doesn't come out the other side in a way that it doesn't with other crystal resonances. Perhaps there's some sort of reaction occurring where the light is being absorbed at that specific frequency. It's the only explanation.
April 2, 2023
I've kept this to myself for almost a month now. I can't stop. The crystal--it's not absorbing the light. It's transporting it somewhere. I'm convinced. The amount of energy I'm shooting into the crystal should be enough to vaporize it. It must be passing through the crystal somehow.
If it isn't being absorbed and it isn't coming out the other side, where is it going? The answer scares me as much as it excites me.
I'm onto something big. Bigger than I could have imagined.
April 17, 2023
Today was the breakthrough. I synthesized a special piezoelectric crystal, barium titanite trioxide, that is completely transparent to visible light. I wanted to see what's happening inside when I hit the right frequency. When I shone a light through it while tuned to 8.7539319, I saw it--something unbelievable.
There was a window. Not just a distortion, not a trick of the light. I saw another world. It looked like ours--sky, trees, land--but different. I can't describe how, but I know it's not here. It's somewhere else. Another dimension, maybe?
I'm still shaking. If this is real, it changes everything.
May 3, 2023
I've crossed a line. Last night, I broke into the university's chemical storage and stole everything I needed to synthesize lead zirconate titanate, one of the few piezoelectric materials that retains its properties in a fluid state. It was the only way. The crystal alone wasn't enough--it's solid, and I couldn't pass anything through it. But the fluid? It worked.
I tuned the resonator, dipped a screwdriver into the liquid, and… it passed through. And then I pulled it back out. It was untouched, unburnt, unscratched, and perfectly normal, but for a second, it had been somewhere else.
I'm preparing for something bigger.
June 15, 2023
The portal works. It's not just a theory anymore. I built it in my underground lab, keeping it stable with a static field generator. It's large enough for a person to pass through now.
Tomorrow, I'll make the journey. I've spent months preparing: collecting machines, materials, plants, and tools. I'll bring them through the portal to keep my alive in that alien world. No one will know, and no one can stop me.
The world beyond the crystal... it's mine now.
June 16, 2023
This is it. The final entry before I step through. The portal is humming, stable. I've already brought my supplies through. I'll leave my laboratory intact so I can make a return journey if I need to. I don't think I will, though.
There's more out there than anyone could imagine.
The camera captured the tremor in Michael's hand as he set the journal down. He pulled out his walkie-talkie, but couldn't get a signal. He began to turn to climb back up the ladder, but he stopped mid-turn, for there, before him, was Alfred Vanston.
Alfred was standing in the center of the small room, staring directly at Michael. Alfred should have looked like he had been lost in the woods for months. He didn't. He didn't look malnourished or feral; he looked placid, calm, and very slightly bemused. Behind Alfred, a strange, shifting light flickered, illuminating the edges of the space in an eerie glow. The source of the light wasn't immediately apparent, but it seemed to pulse and shimmer like a living thing.
“Trapdoor alarm went off,” Alfred explained calmly, stepping forward. His voice was oddly steady, his expression unreadable. As he moved aside, Michael could see what had caused the strange light. A portal, a shimmering window into something--otherworldly, stood open behind him. The bodycam's feed flickered as the light interacted with its lens, warping the image.
“What did you do?” Michael breathed, eyes wide, his hand instinctively moving to his holster. "Where did you go?"
Alfred stepped closer, his silhouette backlit by the portal, which showed flashes of a landscape unlike anything Michael had ever seen--an alternate world, patches of untouched forest pervaded a vast expanse of factories and machinery.
Alfred continued moving steadily nearer. “Stay there! Don't move!” Michael yelled. He drew his firearm. Alfred paused, his smirk vanishing. Then, in a quick movement, he hurled a flask at Michael. The glass struck the bodycam, and the footage cut to static.
Sheriff Collins paused the video and turned to the person seated across from him, the figure barely visible in the dimly lit room. “That's where it ends,” he said, shaking his head. “The neighbors didn't hear any gunshots. By the time we sent another detective to check on Michael, both Alfred and Michael were nowhere in sight. The bodycam was found on the garage floor, partially crushed. It took us a few weeks to recover the data. We checked the lab, but it was empty. Everything was cleared out--the journals and notebooks were burned. Forensic analysis confirmed traces of various chemicals that match what was described in the journal entries visible from the bodycam footage.”
The sheriff sighed, rubbing a hand across his tired face. “No sign of Michael. No sign of Alfred. It's like they vanished into thin air.”
The figure leaned forward, staring at the blank screen, trying to process what he'd just seen. “Vanished?” he echoed, voice heavy with disbelief.
Collins nodded. “Both of them. And if that footage is to be believed, they didn't just disappear. They went somewhere else.”
Incident Status
Ongoing investigation. Both individuals remain missing. Further investigation required to determine the nature of the 'portal' shown in the footage and the potential whereabouts of Sandoval and Vanston.