Page 4 : GENE THERAPY HYBRIDS

The gene therapy hybridization effort became known as project Purity Control. The source for genetic material and tissue was of course the alien fetus provided during the 1973 agreement, which was stored in Fort Marlene, Maryland.

The abductees

Most of the test subjects for experimentation would come from the medical database established at the ex-mining facility in West Virginia. Medical files and tissue samples for genetic data were archived there and updated frequently, for every person that was born in or transited in the USA. Data was gathered through official channels -- Social Security Administration files, compulsory smallpox vaccinations, and probably through every aspect of a citizen's life: blood tests, hospital and clinic files, drug store accounting. This extensive database allowed the Syndicate's doctors and the alien Colonists to establish a medical and genetic profile of virtually any American citizen and to better choose test subjects for each hybridization experiment's specific needs.

The work conducted on these test subjects, the abductees, consisted in the bulk of the research done on hybridization. Experiments consisted in various injections of alien biological material; different material and different techniques were tested. A techique generally used in gene therapy consist of inserting the material in virus DNA or in bacteria, which will serve as carriers; by being infected, the test subject will receive the material when the specially designed virus or bacteria deliver the material to the subject's cells. These experiments were accompanied by aggressive radiation treatments which facilitated the insertion of alien DNA in the subject's DNA. Radiation also caused massive ovulation in women; the ova was gathered for other experiments (notably creating clone hybrids). The experiments were carried out in train box cars which were fretted around the country, or in governmental facilities such as DARPA and the Pentagon in Washington.


Abductees were chosen and located, taken, drugged, and after they were subjected to tests they were returned unhurt, bruised and scarred or even in a coma. They were subjected to a memory wipe treatment, which was not always perfectly effective as some memories eventually resurfaced or could be accessible through hypnosis. They were given implants, computer chips that stored data on their condition and their bodies' later reaction to their experience, implants that could also be used to track them or influence their cognitive functions so that they could be manipulated into being summoned in a place of the Syndicate's or the aliens' choosing. Abductees were often given multiple implants: some were Earth-made and easily detectible, others were alien and more hard to find. Radation exposure was also a cause for cancer, which the implants contained, at least until which time they were removed. Abductees would gather in UFO awareness organizations such as MUFON, a group of which Agent Scully encountered after her abduction in 1995.

Most abductees carried trace amounts of the alien material they had been exposed to but were not hybrids per se, unless the tests proved conclusive. In the Colonists' timetable, when the gene theray hybrid would be successfully created and the time of colonization would approach, the abductees would be gathered in so-called Lighthouses, places from where they would be taken, turned into hybrids and later be used as a slave force under the alien rule.


The Delta Glen experiment

As Deep Throat said in 1X23: The Erlenmeyer Flask: "In 1987, a group of children from a southern state were given what their parents thought was a routine inoculation. What they were injected with was a clone DNA from the contents of that package you're holding as a test." In Delta Glen, Wisconsin, a county famous for its production of bovine meat, Dr. Larson was recruited by the Syndicate to conduct certain experiments. As a family doctor, he would inject the children of Delta Glen with material the Syndicate provided as part of the children's normal treatment. A second intake of alien material was also established: Larson hired two men to administer injections of alien material to the local cattle as part of legitimate growth hormone injections, and the people of Delta Glen would receive that material when they ate the cattle meat.

In 1991 the installation of the Church of the Red Museum, a vegetarian sect, at Delta Glen was encouraged; the members of that Chirch would serve as a reference population to whom the effects of the experiment could be compared to, as they were not treated by Dr. Larson nor did they eat the meat. As a result of the prolonged injestion of alien material, the children of Delta Glen hardly ever grew sick; they also grew more aggressive and several rapes were reported. One of the men doing the injections attempted to draw public attention by abducting and drugging some of the children and following the arrival of the X-Files team to investigate the experiment was terminated in early 1995.


The Bellefleur class of '89

The high school graduates of 1989 at Bellefleur, Oregon, were chosen as a group on whom both the Syndicate and the Colonists conducted experiments. The young adults were abducted and injected with alien material on their lower backs, which left twin marks. The experiment was not considered a success and, manipulating one of the abductees, Billy Miles, through his implants, the test subjects started being killed off. The experiment showed no particular effects on them, however one notable result was the post-mortem morphing of the body into something that resembled both human and alien physiology. This was the first case the newly formed X-Files team of Agents Mulder and Scully investigated, in March 1993.

It would appear the experiments were not entirely stopped, as some select subjects continued to be abducted. As a result of the experiments, they developed some anomalous brain activity that often resulted in electro-encephalitic trauma (brain damage); these were actually signs that the experiments were leading towards the creation of a successful hybrid. All subjects were abducted in spring 2000, the aliens obviously being in control of the hybridization experiments following the destruction of the Syndicate.


Zeus Storage: Dr. Berube's efforts

In 1994 or earlier, the renowned scientist Dr. T. A. Berube, who also worked on the Human Genome Project, was hired by the government to conduct research in a project that would be run out of Los Alamos, New Mexico. The project was in fact part of the Purity Control project. Dr. Berube was allowed to work on six terminally ill volunteer patients, who likely were people Berube knew beforehand (one of them, Dr. Secare, was an old friend of Berube's). Dr. Berube worked directly on tissue provided by the alien fetus and grew cultures of alien bacteria which contained the Purity DNA. Through several gene therapy treatments and baths in specially prepared solutions in large tanks, a method inspired by the clone hybrids creation procedure, the patients were hybridized and acquired many of the characteristics of the clone hybrids, such as carrying the green toxin in their bloodstream and breathing underwater. The hybridization tanks were to be found in Zeus Storage, at 1616 Pandora Street in Maryland.

With Dr. Berube, the Syndicate achieved its most successful result to date. However, the goal of the Syndicate was to postpone colonization for a reason that had to remain a closely guarded secret -- the development of an anti-Purity vaccine. The hybridization technique had to be developed but it would be used only as a last minute resort -- in a very vicious turn of events, the Syndicate sometimes had to destroy its own efforts. Dr. Berube's success was too fast and came too soon; in a case that also involved the murder of the so-called Deep Throat, who was leaking information to Agent Mulder, Dr. Berube and his patients were murdered.


Perkey center: Dr. Ishimaru's efforts

Dr. Takeo Ishimaru, or Dr. Shiro Zama as he was known since he entered the American soil in 1965, was a Japanese scientist who was given immunity for his crimes during the Second World War in exchange of his expertise, in a similar deal as Dr. Viktor Klemper and project Paperclip. Ishimaru continued the experiments he had conducted in unit 731 in Japan, this time in the purpose of finding a way to create a better soldier that would be immune to biological attacks. After 1973, the Syndicate approached him and had him work on the effort to create hybrids.

Ishimaru was given directorship of the Hansen's Disease Research Facility in Perkey, West Virginia, where he treated leper patients (Hansen's disease). The deformed appearance of the leper patients allowed Ishimaru to have his test hybrids mingle with them without attracting unnecessary attention. This strain of hybrids, more alien-like in appearance, appear to be the continuation of the type of experiments Klemper conducted on "the Merchandise". In parralel, Ishimaru conducted experiments on abductees and also served as a tie to the Japanese government and industry, which provided the microchips for the abductees' implants.


Ishimaru's efforts culminated in 1995, when one of his hybrids was deemed a frank success; though alien-like in appearance, his resistance to biological agents and the Black Oil virus was exemplary. Ishimaru took advantage of the situation to attempt to fret the hybrid back to Japan, for his home country's exclusive benefit, however he was discovered by the Syndicate and executed. The hybrid, carried in one of the train cars which were also used to test on abductees, was also destroyed in an explosion; the facility at Perkey was closed and its patients and hybrids were also destroyed and disposed of in mass graves not unlike those seen in Nazi death camps during the Second World War. Ishimaru's notes on his research was recovered by the Syndicate, which probably, like in the case of Dr. Berube, preferred to safeguard the information rather than put it to use and accelerate research.


The anemic children

In one specific research project, the Syndicate tried to make use of the experience gathered in the creation of clone hybrids to try to attain a successful gene therapy hybrid. The children created by this project were in effect second generation hybrids, crafted from merging DNA from a human ova and from an already hybridized cell. The ova was provided by the abductee women, the hybrid cells by the clone hybrid program. Throughout their lives, the children suffered from diseases such as autoimmune anemia and side effects of their double nature as their two immune systems, one alien and one human, fought each other for the control of their bodies. A treatment not correctly balanced could result in their alien side aggressively destroying human tisse, and eventually in death.

The research first targeted the fine-tuning of drug and alien material intake that would make a hybrid biology stable and non-lethal for the patient. The second target was the creation of babies for whom progressively less alien material was used in their original stem cells, up until after many iterations no alien material was necessary at all and the hybrid nature could be achieved by the subsequent live treatment entirely.

The children were first carried by drugged surrogate elderly mothers. They were inserted in human society through orphanages and adoption centers, and given to normal families for their upbrining. They were treated by Syndicate doctors, who could also be clone hybrids -- indeed who else would understand hybrid biology than the hybrids themselves? One of those babies was Emily Sim, created from the ova of Agent Scully that was collected during her abduction in 1994.


The success

In early 1999, after a quarter of a century of research, the first successful hybrid through gene therapy was created by one of the oldest members of the Syndicate's science team, Dr. Openshaw. The hybrid was none other than one of the original Syndicate family members that had been experimented on since 1973, Cassandra Spender, (ex-)wife of C.G.B. Spender. She presented all the characteristics one would expect from a hybrid: carrying the green toxin in the bloodstream, ability to heal and shapeshift, ability to perceive the thoughts of others -- even though she was mastering these newly acquired abilities only progressively .

The success was unexpected and if things had gone as planned, the hybrid would have been destroyed for the same reasons the Zeus Storage and #82517 hybrids were destroyed: to postpone the inevitable timetable imposed on the Syndicate by the Colonists. If the Colonists discovered the successful hybrid had been created, the Syndicate would have to acquiesce, undergo the treatment to become hybrids themselves and surrender to them -- and abandoning all hopes of creating an all-purpose vaccine against the Black Oil virus. However, the shapeshifter Rebels attracted attention to the case of Cassandra and forced the hand of the Syndicate in choosing between forming an alliance with the Rebels or affirming their subservience to the Colonists. The Syndicate chose the latter and were destroyed by the Rebels, Cassandra among them.


That key event maked the end of the Syndicate and its efforts at alien/human hybridization. Fifty years of human suffering from experiments and research unsanctioned by official organizations were ended, but so were the hopes of survival following the alien colonization of 2012.

Key episodes: 1X79: Pilot, 1X23: The Erlenmeyer Flask, 2X10: Red Museum, 3X09: Nisei, 3X10: 731, 4X15: Memento Mori, 5X05: Christmas Carol, 5X07: Emily, 5X14: The Red and the Black, 6X12: One Son, 7X22: Requiem
See also: Primer 3, Primer 4