Chapter 152: Alien Warship Spotted

Reed took the film reel off the machine and asked, "Do you have a darkroom for developing photos here?"

"Yes." Hank pointed to a corner of the lab, where a room hung with heavy black curtains stood.

Reed held the film up to the light, confirmed his target image, and marked it with a sticky note. He asked, "What developing process do you use here? C-41 or RA-4?"

"C-41," Hank replied.

"Is the developer solution self-mixed?"

"Also Kodak's."

"Do you have ammonium thiosulfate, sodium acetate, sodium bisulfite, ammonium sulfate, aluminum sulfate, and boric acid?"

"You're mixing your own developer?" Hank asked.

"To highlight distinct color blocks, you have to adjust the developer formula. Besides, factory-standard developer is only suitable for ordinary landscape photos—it won't work well for space images; you'll lose too many key details."

As he spoke, Hank gathered the materials and entered the darkroom with Reed.

Although they were developing film reels, not regular camera negatives, both were scientific giants with hands-on skills—not the kind who couldn't function without standardized tools.

So if they needed a tool or stand and none was available, they improvised—using clips, rubber bands, anything they could find. After a lot of fiddling, they finally developed the problematic photos.

When the photos fully emerged, were washed, and drained of water, Hank stared in shock. "What is this?"

The photo showed a spindle-shaped artificial object, oddly shaped, obscuring a small patch of starlight. It blended almost perfectly with the background, and its reflections could easily be mistaken for starlight.

That's why it was nearly invisible during normal film playback—only special developing could bring it out. It was like using filters and contrast adjustments in future Photoshop techniques to highlight key elements in an image.

The two left the darkroom. Reed examined the unknown object in the photo with a magnifying glass and said, "I reasonably suspect that during your rescue mission for the Endeavour, besides the Endeavour space shuttle and the X-Men's jet, there was a third aircraft in outer space."

"Based on this photo, I estimate the aircraft was about two to three kilometers from you. Its total length was roughly six hundred to eight hundred meters, its width sixty to one hundred meters, and its height one hundred twenty to one hundred forty meters."

"Without clear reference coordinates, these are estimates. But its relative position to you never changed much. So I suspect it observed your mission from start to finish without intervening."

"You…" Hank swallowed and asked, "Do you think this aircraft belongs to the Red Empire?"

Reed replied bluntly, "If the Red Empire could build something like this, they wouldn't have collapsed. This can only be aliens."

"Aliens!" The term had shaken Hank McCoy's fragile psyche several times recently. His first thought was of the man who had saved Raven and once crushed the X-Men—though neither side had truly fought to the death.

Hank asked, "What do you think these aliens' purpose is?"

Reed, who lost interest once he had an answer, placed the photo on the platform and let Hank lean in to examine it from all angles. He replied:

"I can think of a few possibilities. First, that cosmic radiation—not a solar flare—is some kind of weapon or experimental weapon of these aliens. They hid nearby to observe the results."

"Second, these aliens came to observe Earth's spacecraft, to assess our technological level. What they'll do afterward, I can't guess—probably just a few likely scenarios."

"Third, they just happened to be passing by, saw a good show, and stopped to watch. They suffered no loss and didn't interfere with your mission. If I hadn't pointed it out, you'd never have noticed them."

Hank felt slightly wronged by Reed's criticism.

The X-Jet Blackbird, packed with all the black tech, had radar superior to contemporary aircraft—but it was designed to detect Earth-based aircraft, not alien vessels.

Besides, the Blackbird already had radar stealth; optical invisibility was still under research. Would alien craft lack such technology?

The fact that you couldn't spot the vessel in ordinary external footage also indirectly proves the aliens' stealth capabilities.

While Reed Richards focused again on the anomalous cosmic radiation, Hank paid more attention to the possible implications of this unknown spacecraft.

Alien invasion was a favorite theme in science fiction. But even in a world with mutants, superheroes, and mythical creatures, no one ever imagined aliens might one day show up.

So what was their purpose? Before confirmation, it was hard to rule out any connection to that cosmic radiation.

And what role would Jean, who absorbed the radiation, play in all this?

Suppressing the urge to immediately notify Charles and Raven, Hank stayed with Reed to study the cosmic radiation observation data.

Although the screen was filled with raw data—numbers, timestamps—neither man was an ordinary scientist; they needed to convert the data into intuitive visuals to understand it.

A normal person might try cross-referencing different data sets into multiple graphs, looking for one that told a story—the so-called "plausible interpretation."

But for Reed Richards and Hank McCoy, this work happened directly in their minds. Obvious meaningless groupings and interpretations were discarded immediately.

During their discussion, a sudden insight struck Reed. He asked, "What visualization tools do you have here?"

"Hmm, I designed it myself. What do you want to do?" Hank asked.

"Designed it yourself? Fine." Reed moved aside, letting Hank take his seat, then explained exactly what kind of graph he wanted to convert the data into, and to print it out.

After describing several conversion methods and image types, they used the noisy dot-matrix printer to produce four or five prints. Reed stacked them together and held them up to the light.

Even Hank, who had felt nothing before, now sensed something wrong—the overlapping images revealed a pattern.

Such a pattern couldn't possibly appear in a "solar flare." Or if it did, the cycle would be extremely long—days, weeks, months.

But the time period Reed selected was only ten minutes. Within those ten minutes, the overlaid images showed the pattern repeating dozens of times.

Hank said in horror, "Could this thing be alive?"

"I don't know," Reed asked. "Can I have a full copy of the data? I'll use my equipment to analyze it further."

After a moment's thought, Hank replied, "The data cannot be leaked to anyone else besides you. And we must be informed of your findings. Do you agree to these terms?"

"Agreed."

(End of Chapter)