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At the same time that Jane and Barrow were drafting their version of the events on board the Investigator, Welles had the idea that even though Franklin was not going to teep he could still tell the story she wanted. After rehearsing him thoroughly, she stood him in front of her and asked him to tell his story. Her plan was to teepcast her perception of Franklin telling his story. It almost goes without saying that nobody paid any attention.

When you review the teepcast, it becomes painfully clear.

Franklin is clearly uncomfortable. His head is tilted slightly up so that he had the appearance of struggling to keep it above water. He speaks with almost no inflection, each word following the next without respect for their import. He is clearly reading a script. Welles colors the whole teepcast with as much outrage as she can, but even that, genuine as the emotion may have been for her, was not very convincing.

Franklin says, ‘I’d like to tell you the true story of what happened to the Investigator.’

In a very detailed story, Franklin explains how the Aliens were responsible for every woe the expedition encountered, and ultimately for the death of almost all the crew. He said that it was an Alien weapon that had ripped a hole through the Investigator and killed Flinders; that they corrupted the ship’s guidance system so that the maneuvers above Ceres failed, that they had used highly advanced psychological weapons on the crew in their duress; and most shocking of all, that the wicked cat Trim was an Alien plant from the very beginning.

Welles and Ross had made every effort to craft an incriminating story and there is no doubt it would have been believed if Franklin had teeped it himself. But teeped second-hand as it was, and using language—hardly anyone even bothered with it.