Adventures In Passage
Sep. 27th, 2024 07:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
heya_baruLost Media Wiki
Adventures In Passage
STATUS: Partly Found
Adventures In Passage was a children’s radio drama produced
and broadcast by the Reconnaissance Church of Fairfax, California. The
series originally aired from 1988-1992, and was later distributed on
cassette tape.
Plot Summary
Adventures In Passage focused on residents of the series’
titular city, the fictional coastal town of Passage, California. Most
episodes feature a smart-but-clumsy HAM radio enthusiast named Milo, and
a wizened old astronomer named Maxwell. HAM radio, survivalism,
technology, 19th Century Philosophy, and nuclear science feature heavily
in the recovered episodes.
Availability
7 episodes are recovered, and are available online.
The first 5 recovered episodes, first aired in late 1990, all
originate from a cassette box set discovered at a Goodwill in Novato,
California in 2009, and later uploaded to the Internet Archive. The box
set itself states that Adventures In Passage aired weekly from
1988 to 1992, allowing for a maximum of 288 episodes.
A partial box set, containing 2 out of the 5 cassettes, was also
found at a Salinas, California Goodwill in 2010, dating from early
1992.
Most episodes are 25 minutes long, and—befitting their background as
church productions—often end in a moral lesson.
Notably, a number of the cassettes in the Novato set appear to be
censored, and contain re-recorded static at specific intervals.
Episodes
110
While out hiking, Milo meets a geologist, Jeanine. While climbing
down into a cave, the rocks collapse and Jeanine falls and breaks her
leg; Milo uses his radio to call for help. While trapped, Jeanine
discovers a number of cave paintings that appear to depict a meteor
shower. After the residents of Passage turn up to rescue Jeanine and
Milo, the two have a conversation about the importance of amateur radio
skills, and how ancient societies paid close attention to astronomical
phenomena. In the show’s closing scene, Milo speaks directly to the
audience, warning children to tell their parents if they hear a
particular sound on their radio. The remaining moments of the episode
are destroyed by a re-recording of static.
111
Milo hears a strange noise while experimenting with his father’s HAM
radio equipment. His father tells him that the sounds, a series of rapid
pulses repeating at a frequency of 10Hz1,
are from a military radar. Milo and his father then go on a nighttime
expedition to the top of a hill, where he shows Milo the antennae from a
distant military installation. Milo’s father then tells his son that not
all radio broadcasts are voice, but are instead data. The episode ends
with Milo hearing another anomalous broadcast on his radio. The ending
is again recorded-over with static.
112
Milo and Maxwell go for a hike in the California desert. Milo,
determined to bring home some kind of souvenir, goes off-trail and
discovers a cave lined with dazzling yellow rocks. However, he quickly
becomes lost in the cave. Unable to find the entrance, he soon discovers
that his radio is no longer functional. After a number of fearful hours,
Maxwell finds him in the cave and leads him to safety. Maxwell then
tells Milo that the yellow rocks are Carnotite, a radioactive mineral.
Maxwell’s mood turns sour on the hike back to camp, and he tells Milo
that knowledge of nuclear science is a gift from “the travelers” that
humanity has squandered.2 3
113
A lightning storm, and subsequent power outage, strikes the town of
Passage.4 An overeager Milo takes his
battery-powered radio up to the roof and attempts to make contact with
other HAM radio enthusiasts. Instead, a number of the frequencies are
occupied by an identical transmission of harsh, warbling beeps.5 Milo recognizes it as a digital
signal, but is unsure of what it means, or why it appears to be
overtaking such a wide signal range. After a nearby lightning strike,
Milo is thrown from the roof, breaking his arm. He is rescued by
Maxwell, who tells him that the mysterious signals are not from earth at
all, but from “the travelers.” After the clouds clear, Maxwell shows
Milo a pair of floating lights in the sky.
114
With the help of his father and another mathematician named
Danzig6, Milo deciphers the signals he
recorded during the lightning storm in episode 113. They discover that
the transmission is a set of GPS coordinates, and Milo decides to call
Jeanine and hike out to the location.7 After a long road trip,
the characters discover an abandoned Uranium mine closed by the US
government. Milo’s handheld radio cuts in, it’s another signal similar
to one heard in 113. The rest of the episode has been replaced with
static.
117
Continuing from a previous, lost episode, Milo and Maxwell make a
long, tumultuous road trip through the woods with the corpse of a deer
in the bed of their truck. The deer, apparently radioactive8, must be brought to the town of
Passage before a radio broadcast that is set to take place the following
day. Maxwell darts around roadblocks while Milo listens in on a police
scanner. After nightfall, they park the truck offroad and prepare to
spend the night in the woods. Milo notices that another signal is
jamming the police radio; Maxwell suspect the “travelers” are helping
them on their journey to Passage.9
118
The next morning, Milo and Maxwell return to Passage with the deer.
The streets of the town are empty, and the deer is becoming increasingly
radioactive. The deer is quickly placed into the Reconnaissance church
hall by church members wearing leaded clothing. Jeanine refers to the
animal as “incubating” as her and Milo rush inside to avoid helicopters
overhead. Inside the church hall, radio transmissions become erratic as
night falls, with the same digital signal occupying an ever larger
portion of the radio spectrum.10 The episode ends with
a cliffhanger, as a commotion from the church hall breaks through the
radio noise. Maxwell rushes in, Geiger counter blaring; the “incubation”
is apparently complete.
