Project SHELLSHOCK

August 1, 1977 through July 31, 2002


US Navy Commander James H. Shelton

Career prior to ALMIGHTY-6Commander Jim Shelton
Commander James 'Jim' Herschel Shelton was born in Biloxi, Mississippi to John Clay Shelton, a gas driller, and Lucille Margaret Shelton. Both his parents and a single sister, Jeanine Theresa, are deceased. He was divorced in 1975 by his wife of 22 years, Jane and has two children, an older daughter Holly and a younger son James Jr. He has not remarried and has limited interaction with his family since his wife remarried in January, 1979. Medical studies show Commander Shelton's physique to be that of man in his mid 30's despite an actual age of 76.

Despite a nondescript academic career Commander Shelton is one of the most talented aviators and decorated officers the Naval Academy has ever produced. Both in combat and in space flight he has distinguished himself with 245 kills in aerial combat and 26 flights above the boundary of space; three of those flights were orbital missions. In the Korean conflict Commander Shelton distinguished himself with an exceptional rescue of a 5-man gunship crew in his charge, for which President Eisenhower presented him with the Medal of Honor recognizing his exceptional valor. A citation for this decoration is attached as an addendum from the Military History Center; he has also received the Legion of Merit, Flying Cross, Navy Cross, and the Yeager Trophy among many other decorations.

Later, Shelton was transfered to the Naval Flight Test Center in Muroc California and flew several record-setting experimental rocket planes including the X-20A DynaSoar, the X-1B and the X-2 as well as several supersonic fighter prototypes. His second application to the Naval Astronautics Program was accepted. Shortly after graduating from advanced training he became the first Naval officer to earn astronaut wings, flying above the boundary between air and space that bears his name (Shelton's Line.) In recognition of his superior technical and leadership skills, Commander Shelton was offered a promotion to the Office of the Navy in Washington, DC but deferred the position until the ALMIGHTY-6 flight was completed.

ALMIGHTY-6 Orbital Flight and De-brief
On his third and final orbital flight, Commander Shelton performed a skillful intercept and rendezvous of the impact point where it was believed Sputnik-1 had impacted the Net material. The classified objectives of the rendezvous phase where:
During a period of radio blackout over the former Soviet Union, Commander Shelton encountered a malfunction in his reaction control thruster system during close-approach rendez-vous. Following re-acquisition of signal at Canberra, Shelton had regained control of the craft at the cost of his guidance computer that had shorted during an anomalous power surge. Telemetry showed that the nose of Shelton's X-20A spacecraft may have been lodged in contact with material around the Net aperture. Several minutes later, detailed Doppler ranging showed that the fragment of the Net, in addition to the others Commander Shelton was able to track with the SAINT-III instrument package were tumbling chaotically. This complicated the extraction of ALMIGHTY-6 from the hole in the shell of material he had studied and lead to the now-declassified fact that the Net is completely shattered with a Poisson size-frequency distribution. Shelton had only encountered a large fragment that, due to low albedo, appeared to be the surface of a globe-circling structure.

Extraction from the aperture in the large shell of Net material was completed successfully during most of Orbit 32. Telemetry could not confirm a series of electrical flashes from outside the spacecraft reported in Commander Shelton's debriefing, nor the ionization glow he did record with his Hasselblad hand camera from the cockpit. Several anomalous circuit breaker events were recorded during these times via telemetry.

Without navigational fixes from the rigid Net that was now known to not exist, and in the absence of a guidance computer Commander Shelton began the difficult re-entry procedure manually. Contact after ionization black-out was not regained, and based on airframe debris recovered in the North Sea ALMIGHTY-6 and Commander Shelton were assumed lost. Six years later, a political prisoner swap would prove this to be a misunderstanding.

During a CIA prisoner swap operation, the USSR returned certain undocumented prisoners from the infamous Kalasvanian Democratic People's Prison (Kalasvanian. Jim Shelton was among those prisoners recovered in this exchange and reported for duty thereafter. During a routine medical examination his newly mutagenic status was discovered and aggressive treatment began. Commander Shelton's flight status and security clearances were revoked in compliance with Executive Order #21566 after treatment for his condition was unsuccessful.

ADVISORY: All Navy personnel should be advised that posthumous promotions are revoked on return of a POW. Thus, Commander Shelton's promotion to Captain has been revoked. This is not reflected in some public materials outside of official Department of Defense records.

Shellshock

The SHELLSHOCK

Project SHELLSHOCK was formed in order to study the origin, utility, and abilities of the xenoform mutant  identified with Commander Shelton. Study has shown that a series of factors can influence the expression of Shelton's mutagenic identity:
Submitting to psychological study is a condition of the creature's post for duty at Project: Tenebrous. Logs of these sessions are available to cleared personnel though ForceNet. Commander Shelton's description of the creature, as an alien resident within his body that emerges periodically, is likely a delusion constructed from his years of torture and interrogation in the a Kalasvanian prison.

Persona
The psychological study of SHELLSHOCK has shown a roughly human development rate for emotional and social maturity starting near the first known emergence of the creature during November of 1977. Deep telepathy has shown that SHELLSHOCK has some sense of a self prior to 1977, but no specific memories. The SHELLSHOCK creature has developed a particular animosity toward study and particularly doctors.

Despite its appearance the creature has demonstrated an alien sense of kindness toward children and the helpless. It also has significant anger management issues, particularly if assaulted. This rage can be directed to targets of opportunity, particularly with telepathic suggestion.

When talking with the creature, it is important to address it as one might a willful child or unintelligent young adult. It is equally essential to not think of the creature as unintelligent; assays show it is no less capable than a typical college graduate, but is inhibited by its circuitous  thought process. Understanding the mind of the SHELLSHOCK is a key priority of Project PHAROS under the Directorate of Technology's Hypertechnological Project Office.

Abilities
The most famous quality of the creature is its strength and toughness, which are in fact without parallel in recent investigation of metahuman activity. By acting as a conduit to energy from some undetected source Shellshock can also increase its mass by almost two orders of magnitude. The heaviest object documented as moved in any way by Shellshock would be the March 4th, 1979 tow of the USBN Scorpion with a displacement of 900 tons. The heaviest dead-lift and toss of known weight is the December 2nd , 1987 removal of the molten Number 3 reactor during the incident at Clam Point, Maryland: 212 tons thrown approximately 100 feet into a cooling pond. It is unknown how the radioactivity improved or retarded its strength.

As part of Operation ARCLIGHT, on January 22nd, 1990 the SHELLSHOCK was exposed to continuous 8-inch shelling from the USS Ticonderoga off Vieques, Puerto Rico for 45 minutes. It appeared unharmed. Pacification with a fuel-air orichalcum ordinance was required to reclaim the creature for further study. After several exposures to ongoing chemical and incendiary ordinance it was confirmed that attacking SHELLSHOCK can cause it to increase in size and strength dramatically. Telepathic subdual is the recommended procedure for reclaiming the creature.

Study by Los Alamos Group 2's sonofusion team has confirmed that the hide of Shellshock appears to create vibrational fusion reactions that generate the streamers of plasma on its surface. The hide is particularly tough, having a Charpy impact strength surpassing titanium boride ceramics.

The most concerning determination about Shellshock's abilities are that his strength cannot be adequately suppressed, particularly if enraged or enlarged to his maximum size of 14 meters. Since voluntary tenure at the Belleweather facility began in 1981, hyperintelligences have been able to identify a procedure that can be used to secure the creature. It is important to note that Commander Shelton 's human form does not share the creature's extreme resistance to explosion, the elements, and poison.

Relationship between Shelton and SHELLSHOCK

Shellshock cannot be diagnosed a multiple personality as defined in the DSM-IV. Indeed, Shellshock and  Shelton share some memory but clearly it is easier for Shelton to access SHELLSHOCK's memory of an event than vice versa. They do not share skill or educational  progress with one another either. Deep scans by telepathy is often impossible due to the alien association of concepts within SHELLSHOCK's psyche, but control by particularly strong talents is possible; a minimum Patterson TPI skill of 6 appears required for success. Within Project: TENEBROUS a telepath ZOMBIE with adequate ability was attached as a failsafe mechanism.

A few elements of the relationship with Commander Shelton and the creature's origin have been documented:
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