Mestral

Mestral on Earth in 1957

Mestral was a Vulcan explorer in the 20th century.

Mestral was a crewmember of a small Vulcan survey starship that crash-landed in Carbon Creek, Pennsylvania, a mining town, in 1957. Through a game of pool and his confidence in his knowledge of simple geometry, he was pivotal in obtaining currency and, consequently, "cryogenic" (frozen) food for the crew. One job he held while on Earth was that of a coal miner.

Of the three Vulcans, Mestral developed a much stronger fascination for Human culture than T'Mir or Stron. He became romantically involved with Maggie, the owner of a local tavern. On the pretext of leaving the Vulcans' apartment in order to retrieve a phase discriminator, he went to a baseball game with Maggie to watch her son play. It was demonstrated here that he began to pick up Human traits, such as lying, whereas ordinary Vulcans do not lie. He did not have a pessimistic view of Humans like his crewmates did. He saw them as empathetic and compassionate, and having great potential. When miners were trapped during a mining accident, he persuaded T'Mir to let him use a phaser-like particle weapon to free the trapped miners. He became a local hero after this incident. He was so fascinated with Earth that he chose to remain there rather than return to Vulcan with his crewmates when a rescue ship came. Officially, T'Mir and Stron reported that Mestral had perished in the crash of their ship. (ENT: "Carbon Creek")

T'Pol suggested Mestral may have lived more than a hundred and fifty years on Earth, which would have allowed him to live to see Zefram Cochrane's First Contact with Vulcans in 2063. Mestral was played by J. Paul Boehmer; his name is a reference to George de Mestral, the inventor of Velcro, a product which T'Mir sold at the end of the episode. A distressed costume worn by J. Paul Boehmer as Mestral was auctioned off in the It's A Wrap! sale and auction. [1]