Spots on my TMZ - what happened?

[MMfoto]

I just developed a roll of TMZ P3200 in XTOL. This was an experiment I've been wanting to do for a while. I exposed the roll in the EI3200 range and developed in XTOL 1:2 for one hour with 10 seconds agitation every third minute after 60 seconds of initial agitation. My first reaction was "wow", followed by "what are those spots!" The, still wet, negatives REFLECT light-tannish spots when looking at the base side. I can't see these spots through the negatives, nor when looking at the emulsion side, but the negs are still in the wash so i haven't had them on a light table yet.

The spots vary from about 1 to 4 mm's in width. They have diffuse edges, and some are donut shaped like an airbell, however they are even visible in the base, between frames, etc.

TMZ has this weird opalescent emulsion, and my only guess is that the prolonged chemical exposure could have done some damage, though I would expect it to be much more resiliant than that. This roll of film is about six months old and has travelled quite a bit. I believe it was hand-bag x-rayed once (non CTX), and exposed to moderate heat (80-90F) for several weeks, though I've done much worse things to TMZ in the past.

There's obviously a lot of variables here, so I appologize, but I'm really baffled by this.

 

[MMfoto]

Some more information: after development, 5 complete changes of water with agitation, 5 min in TF-4 fixer. Also, I developed other films today (different film, different dev) with no problems.

The film leader is especially fogged over on the backing side with this tan colored "fog" and spots, though the emulsion side looks perfectly solid black.

Also, on further inspection, the spots do show as slightly higher density where they fall on images.

I tried refixing for three minutes to no avail. Let's just say I'm not happy.

 

[MMfoto]

The fogging at the leader end of the film is interupted where the film touched the cross bars on the inside of the SS Hewes reels. There are also these two really weird overlapping black circles, both the same size of around a half inch, within the fogged area of the leader.

 

[MMfoto]

After refixing and drying the film I also tried cleaning it with pec-12, with zero success. The spots are not as noticable on the dry film but are very much still there.

Again, these are not on the emulsion, they appear on the back. The film shows typical heat fogging tapering off towards the end of the roll, but the spots are consistant throughout.

I can only assume that there is some coating on the back of the emulsion that was somehow damaged, as the back of the film leader is the worst and has a heavy tan colored fog on the back that is interupted where it touched the reel. The spots really look like something that was caused by droplets, but the only time water could have stood on the surface was after development for a minute at the absolute most before the water bath and TF-4. Some sort of aerial fog perhaps? I'm reaching at straws here.

Anyone?