Notes From the Office 17: Warning -- Aliens Are On Their Way!

Those of us who might be considered the "senior" staff here at Piker Press are old enough to remember the invention and subsequent proliferation of the transistor, an event that proceeded from the extinction of dinosaurs and immediately preceded Al Gore's invention of the Internet.

What do these events have in common? All three events occurred on the planet Earth, the only world in the universe known to contain no native species of aliens. That's right, there are no indigenous aliens on the planet Earth. The exact origin of aliens on Earth remained a mystery until Thor Heyerdahl flew a primitive balsa wood "saucer" from the top of the Eiffel Tower and survived a crash landing on the Champs-Elysees, proving that aliens could have come from the sky. It is now widely believed that all aliens come from outer space and not, as some would maintain, West Virginia, even though it is coincidentally true that there are no indigenous West Virginians either.

Personally, I don't think there are any aliens. I know the argument that says with bazillions of planets in the universe, the odds are that there are hundreds like ours that can support life. However, since every extraterrestrial body that we know of would either fry you to a crisp in nanoseconds or is a pock marked, dusty, rock, I would suggest that the odds actually suggest the opposite, and the odds against life elsewhere get worse each time we discover a new pock marked, dusty rock.

But then again, I can not explain life in West Virginia.

So what do you think? Do you have a vision of life out there? Have you had a "close encounter?" Indeed, have you borne any alien offspring (and can verify that you've never been to West Virginia)? The August 24th issue of The Press is going to be an Alien Issue, and we invite you submit your article or story about alien mores and manners. And if you are from West Virginia and wish to complain (I know I would), chisel a few symbols on a rock and send it along to the Editor for our upcoming "Kronk mad, Kronk not take no more" issue coming soon.