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window, Jose heard a very quiet hissing from the CAP radio. He opened the door and examined the radio. He saw that all the indicator lights and the display were off. Pushing the off/on switch made no change. Jose inserted the ignition key and moved the ignition to the battery position: no change. The idiot lights on the dashboard remained off and the door open chime was silent. Glancing upward, he noticed that the overhead light was off.
    “Odd; if the battery were dead, then the radio wouldn't hiss,” Jose said half to himself and half to the others gathering around the truck. “Jess, go see if the headlights come on.” Jose moved the switch to the on position.
    “On,” Jess called back.
    The SUV sat quietly as Jose tried to start it.
    “It looks like an electronics or computer problem. I don't know what is happening and I don't know what else to do,” Jose said. “I think we better call the SAREX evaluation team and let them know we are stuck here.”
    “I'll call,” Dennis said. Finding his hands full with the ELT, he glanced at it then looked for a place to set it down. Something was not right with the ELT. Looking at it again, he saw that the transmit light was off. Flipping the on/off switch back and forth changed nothing. “The ELT is broken too,” he said.
    Jose moved to Dennis's side and watched Dennis flip the switch on and off. “It was on just before the CAP radio squawked, said Dennis. He handed the ELT to Jose and retrieved his phone from his pocket. He swiped his finger across the display. It remained dark. He tried to get the phone to come on. “No phone either.”
    Simultaneously, everyone else reached into their pockets and retrieved their phones. This is just too weird, Jess thought. “What's going on?”
    “Looks like something has knocked out our micro circuitry,” Dennis said. “The headlights work, but anything with a computer chip between it and its power source seems to be dead.”
    “Any idea what is going on?” Dennis asked Jose. “Could it be some kind of transient discharge from the truck?”
    “I don't think so,” Jose said. “All of our cell phones and the ELT were affected too. I didn't feel any current through the ground. There was no sparking.”
    “There aren't any power lines in the area,” Dennis said. “There is a mercury mine over that ridge as well as other large mineral deposits scattered around here, but I doubt it was a static discharge or a release of ionizing radiation from the ground.”
    “Not the truck, not the ground... that leaves the sky”...Jose's voice trailed off. “Could it be a solar event? You know, a solar flare or a coronal mass ejection?”
    “That's possible,” Dennis said. “There have been several big radio disturbances from solar storms that lasted for hours, and some for a few days. That could definitely affect all of our electronics.”
    “Yes it could, if it were big enough,” Jose said. “There was a major solar event in the mid 1800s. It went on for days and affected the telegraph lines, which were really the only electronics they had at that time.”
    “We're due for our Ops Normal report in about ten minutes,” Lynn said. “Mission Base will try to reach us on the radio, then cell phone. After they decide that we're not just temporarily in a bad radio area, they will start looking for us.”
    “Let's assume for right now,” Dennis said, “that just our equipment has been affected. We should get our signal mirrors out of the twenty-four-hour daypacks in case a plane overflies us. Use the cord to keep them around your neck so you don't have to fumble with them at the last minute. Jess, Lynn—after you have your mirrors, get some of the road flares out of the back. Make three piles of them about six feet apart in a triangle on the road. Keep a flare nearby to ignite the piles, but be careful the fires won't ignite nearby brush.”
    The team moved to the rear of the truck and quickly obtained their mirrors. Without