July 14th, 2005
I listened to this song repeatedly as I wrote today's rant.
When I was a child I had a fascination with the possibility of the existence of space ships from outer space. You can credit (or blame) movies such as Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind 1 for that, as well as the myriad science fiction books 2 and television shows, not to mention coverage of our own, Earth-based spaceships landing on the moon, orbiting the Earth, taking one-way missions to the gas giants, etc.
Mine is the first generation to grow up after Neil Armstrong and crew hopped around on the moon, played a round of golf, bagged a few kilograms of rocks, and came home in desperate need of baths. I for one am not exactly blasé about it, but I have come to expect that since such a thing was done 1/2 a dozen times already that it is a little less amazing to me than to those people who watched it happen with understanding eyes.
So, before I understood that the universe was an unimaginable number of orders of magnitude larger than I could possibly comprehend in terms of age and space between the interesting bits (planets, stars, etc.), the idea that space ships from other planets could come to Earth, buzz a few farmers in the American mid-West, burn a few crop circles, confound a few fighter jets, and return home in time for bubble-tea (or whatever it is the extra-terrestrials would drink) didn't seem so far-fetched.
And then I turned twelve and I had a epiphany about the so-called UFOs that made me dramatically change my mind:
I went out onto the front lawn of my parents' house with a collection of my mother's pot lids. I tossed them, one by one, into the air and snapped pictures of them with a little Instamatic camera that belonged to one of my sisters. Most pictures were obviously pot lids; some betrayed their size by appearing in front of objects such as trees or power lines, some were unmistakable from their shape (i.e., not blurred enough to confuse the eye) ... but some were absolutely perfect, from a dishonest point of view. With just enough hysteria you could believe they were flying saucers (well, they actually were flying saucers, weren't they? And they were UFOs, provided I didn't identify them for people too.)
After I got them developed (you should have seen the face of the camera store employee when he returned the developed pictures to me) I showed the pictures to family and friends and friends' parents, etc. They all knew the pictures were fake by my admission, so they couldn't get the point that all those fake "UFO" pictures in books could be faked up much better by adults than just some kid with a free afternoon and a camera.
They just laughed uncomprehendingly and made some suitably condescending comment about my childhood "eccentricities". (No wonder I'm an otherwise grumpy adult who has the patience of Allah when it comes to children's eccentries.) 3
And as I started to learn about the sheer mind-numbing numbers that represent the universe, I pretty soon lost interest in the idea we were being visited by extra-terrestrials who wanted to remain hidden (but were surprisingly incompetent at hiding themselves). And then I thought about that other famous argument: The US government is hiding everything from the rest of the world. Because, I guess, the US must be the only country among the couple of hundred or so that aliens would visit. (Unless there are two hundred successful conspiracies of silence by two hundred governments ... but that's even less likely.) I've already mentioned something about this once.
So, if you ask me, those UFO things in the sky are not extraterrestrial intelligence, and I might request (politely or otherwise) that you stop insulting my terrestrial variety (assuming I have any left).
I don't know why, but this all reminds me of that bumper sticker people used to proudly display parodying (and inviting) controversy: Nuke a gay baby whale for Jesus.
Or, at least harpoon it from your passing flying saucer.
1) Can you imagine trying to release a movie with a title of that length these days? Nobody would want to see it because everyone would think it was some self-indulgent wanker angst-ridden independent art film.
2) I've never told my mother this, although I don't think she reads these rants (apparently, the foul language puts her off—I don't know why, I haven't said "shit" in weeks and "fuck" in months) so I think my secret will remain safe: Knowing my penchant for science fiction, she once bought me (at about age 11 or 12) a science fiction book that turned out to be about some cosmic Don Juan whose sole purpose in life was to have sex with as many differently-sized and -shaped alien creatures as possible. His mission got delayed when he was captured by sadistic robots who delighted in torturing and killing carbon-based bipedal humanoids, but he managed to have sex with enough creatures and robots to save not only himself, but the all the people of the world, who were just so grateful that they would do anything to show their appreciation ...
This novel might have assisted me in my appreciation of science fiction as well.
3) Uh-oh ... I've mentioned "Allah" in my blog. In fact, twice, now. Do you think that it is being pored over by poor hapless intelligence agents assigned to read 50,000 words a day looking for threats to Freedom, Apple Pie, and the Right to Park Your American-Made SUV in the Workout Club's Parking lot?
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