A Selection of Ranger Incident Reports from Atlantis Reef Aquatic Preserve
Looking for the audio version? Click here!
Selected from Annex E-8469T.
National Anomalous Preserves Weekly Incident Report
To: Bureau of Ranger Management
From: Head Ranger Janice Welver
Date: Week of June 12th-18th, 2000
INCIDENTS
00-171: Western Boardwalk Interpretive Trail
A teenage guest, D.E., from Newport Beach, California, approached docent rangers on the Western Boardwalk Interpretive Trail and asked for help with “something weird happening with his arm”. Upon investigation, the docent rangers found D.E.’s right arm to be completely covered in barnacles, a condition D.E. said had begun only 10 minutes earlier, immediately after he exited the water following a guided reef scuba tour. Upon treatment at the Preserve Medical Center, D.E. revealed that while on the scuba tour, a sprite “swam up to him and gave him a gift” - a small piece of intricately carved coral that was still in his right pocket. The “gift” was removed from his pocket and sealed in an airtight container. Once separated from the “gift”, the barnacles fell off D.E.’s arm on their own. Atlantis Reef’s Designated Anomalous Incident Agent has been notified, and the “gift” has been transferred into said agent’s possession.
00-172: Western Reef Outskirts
A freediver, W.R. from Elko, Nevada, was attacked by a bull shark while exploring the Western Reef. Thankfully, the bite was minor, and no major loss of limbs occurred. W.R. was able to flag down a passing scuba tour boat and was immediately taken to the Preserve Medical Center, where the bite was treated with antiseptic and sealed with 24 stitches.
00-173: Central Reef Miniopolis, Temple District
A diver on a guided tour, F.P. from Hamburg, Germany, separated from his tour group and dove into the off-limits Central Reef Miniopolis Temple District, so that he could, in his own words, “get a closer look at the religious rituals of the sprites”. As soon as he entered the temple district, he was subjected to an estimated half-dozen individual bends-hexes cast by the Temple’s sprite-priests. F.P. managed to surface, despite being in great pain, and was found by his tour boat’s captain and immediately transported to an emergency decompression chamber. Following his 12-hour recovery, F.P. was cited for breaking sprite-interaction regulations, entering a restricted zone, and departing his guided scuba tour without authorization.
00-174: Eastern Overwater Bungalows
A sudden, strong storm blew in at approximately 3 pm on June 15th, bringing torrential downpours and brief category 1 hurricane-force winds. Though the squall lasted only an hour, in that time several windows were broken in the Eastern Overwater Bungalows by loose umbrellas from the nearby lounge deck. Maintenance has been dispatched to fix the windows of the bungalows before the next set of guests arrives in two days.
00-175: Central Reef Miniopolis, Temple District
Remote underwater observation drones recorded a previously unseen ritual in the Temple District that involved an unprecedented 24 sprite-priests. The new ritual, which bore some similarity to ritual 1-5T, began at approximately 7 pm and ended at 9:17 pm. Exactly 30 seconds after the ritual concluded, three independent miniature desalination units across the park ceased functioning for no apparent mechanical reason. The preserve’s on-site sprite ritualists and mechanics are collaborating to better understand what the ritual may or may not have done to the desal units, and WHY the sprites may have done such a thing.
00-176: Main Visitors Center
A guest, G.O. from Akron, Ohio, was cited and removed from the park for littering after dumping an entire bag of trash into the Central Sprite Viewing Pool. When asked why she would litter so egregiously, she stated that she “couldn’t find a trash can and this seemed like as good a place as any.” Trash cans are located every 15 feet in the main visitors center area, and in the guest lodging area that G.O. was staying in. In addition to being cited and removed from the park, G.O. was served with a three-year entry ban from Atlantis Reef, and a one-year entry ban at every other Anomalous Preserve.
00-177: Northern Reef Scuba Circuit
Both guests and guides on a Scuba Tour of the Northern Reef reported a small group of sprites engaging in a never-before-seen behavior - riding stingrays. According to witnesses, a group of six adolescent sprites was seen slowly swimming down towards a group of stingrays on the seafloor, and mounting their backs like a horse, dodging the rays’ stingers and trying their best to stay on their backs as the rays attempted to get them off. In the words of one guest, J.W. from Waco, Texas, “It looked like an underwater version of the rodeos we go to back home!” The Preserve has dispatched several Sprite Behavioralists to stingray-heavy areas to see if such behavior is being replicated by any other sprites.
END REPORT