Alpha Leonis

A mysterious cult leader about whom not much is known, though much is said. He is presumed to be Mitch’s "doppelgänger." He is also presumed to possess powers and abilities comparable to Mitch’s own, though this is unconfirmed. The Comte de St. Germain, acting on behalf of the Red Kings, wants him dead by Mitch’s hand.

Physically, he is a sizeable man in his apparent 70s, with a white beard and a strange sense of style. Marshall believes him to be Charley’s biological father. He was last seen riding a motorcycle:

[on] Laurel Canyon Boulevard from his mansion [turning] north towards the Valley and Studio City.

Alpha first enters the record in the mid-1960s as the leader of a UFO cult called the Solarans. According to Charley’s personnel file:

[The Solarans] had begun attracting adherents in the proto-New Age communities of early '60s desert California, Arizona, and New Mexico. They espoused the view that an ancient civilization from outer space had settled and elevated certain Southwestern Indian tribes right around the 6th century (of course this is the time of the Ontoclysm), teaching them "the art of four-dimensional petroglyphs." SANDMAN memeticists and esmologists deemed the cult's leader, a man only known to the public as "Alpha Leonis," a possible Anunnaki dupe through analysis of his writings, speeches, and the beliefs evident in the Solarans' many publications. A mobile commune of sorts began migrating through these states in the early '60s, consisting of 40 or 50 members communing with their alien overlords at ruins throughout the Southwest, picking up a few lost souls in every community that they passed through.

Alpha spent some time in White Sands, New Mexico, during this period. There, he solicited a motel keeper for information about how to obtain an illegal abortion. He and his group vanished around March 1965, along with Charley’s mother, codename RAVEN, who had infiltrated Alpha’s circle under cover:

RAVEN stopped sending postcards to agreed-upon dead drops in March of '65. Whether this was due to the cult tightening its control over its members or RAVEN starting to adhere to their beliefs truly, it was never determined. SANDMAN teams scoured the Southwest for any sign of the Solarans; their regular campsites were abandoned, any trace of their usual meanderings through the desert vanished. The last location they were seen was right outside White Sands, New Mexico — well outside the range of the Anasazi but very close to the birth of the atom bomb — which definitely sent some shivers up some spines at Granite Peak.

Alpha reemerged in Los Angeles in the summer of 1973. While there he apparently established another cult, this one comprised largely of women. He and his "harem" would frequent the Troubadour, where he would entice and recruit new followers. According to Eddie the bartender:

Oh yeah, the cult. Fucking shame, really. Some of those girls were really hot pieces of ass. We got that leader guy in here every now and again. Acted like he owned the place. Bad vibes. He'd come in with five teenage girls and still be trawling for trim. The guy was insatiable. Let me tell you, I've seen it all on this job, and that guy took the cake. I guess the cops are looking for him now. Whole house burned down, a dozen or more kids dead. Biggest news around here since Manson, really. Not much about it in the papers or on TV, though. I guess there's enough weird bad shit out there to go around.

He looked like … Santa Claus. Big white beard, big belly, ivory robes with gold trim, even in here. The girls were crawling all over him. How did he do it? Big chain around his neck, a sun symbol. Said they knew the flying saucers were gonna come out of the sky. To save us all. To change us all. Or, I guess, to save and change them.

He'd sing that Neil Young jam to the girls.

Atop Mount Shasta, Mitch was able to remotely view Alpha’s cult commit ritual suicide and self-immolation at a mansion in Laurel Canyon. Shortly thereafter, as Alpha rode off into the sunset, Mitch sensed the reverberations of a subduction event.