Tag Archives: science fiction

3601. A horrid experience

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Most people think it would be wonderful to meet face to face with aliens. Oh what an experience it would be! Believe me, it’s nothing like you imagine. I wasn’t abducted; I went with them of my own free will. Never again. To start with, the food was putrid. I asked what it was but they refused to say. I feel sick just thinking about it.

Then they sleep upright. Yes, they sleep, but it’s quite different from the way we sleep.  Their sleep is their most active stage of the day. I suppose we would call it sleep-walking.  Being awake is their chill out period. They sit around in armchairs. I couldn’t believe how hard they worked in their sleep. I kept nodding off. They seemed to be keen horticulturalists – judging from the number of potted plants they tendered. They made me (in my pretended sleep-walk) prune the largest of the potted plants. I felt like some sort of slave.

Of course I didn’t know where I was. Was I still on Planet Earth or had I been taken to their planet or somewhere else? I seem to be in quite a large room with off-coloured white walls and no windows or doors. Just potted plants galore. I said I was homesick – which seemed to have been the only emotion they understood or felt empathy for. And so I was taken back to Planet Earth (if indeed I had ever left it).

They seemed to regret my going and left me with a parting gift: a laser gun that I could use for pruning in my own garden. It annihilated things. I still have it.

You know what I did with it? I killed them all. Every one of the creepy creatures. They didn’t simply vamoose – they vaporised. With the current fad of being transparent, you’re the first person I’ve ever told.

3591. The take-over

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There could be no doubt that what Jeremy Cottle had to say was a complete revelation. Perhaps that should be rephrased… There could be no doubt that what Jeremy Cottle had said in the past had been a complete revelation. Today he stood at the rostrum vindicated. People had pooh-poohed him over the years. Now, as he stood and spoke to the huge crowd at the “Are We Alone Conference” everyone to a T had to admit he had been right. He was just an “ordinary bloke” – and yet he had been prophetic in his statements.

 “And so, ladies and gentlemen, for too long we have presumed that extra-terrestrial civilizations are like ourselves – violent, warlike, jealous, vengeful. They visit Earth to take it over; to destroy; to demolish. How wrong can we be? How very, very wrong.”

“These extra-terrestrial beings have evolved differently from us. They do not hunt to survive on meat and prey. They do not kill plants by pulling them from the ground and destroying them in order to nourish themselves. They survive by a process very similar to photosynthesis. They get all the energy they need from their sun. There is no need for violence. They come in peace. And now, at last, the whole world agrees with me.”

“Well ha ha ha! How wrong can you be?” laughed Jeremy Cottle, shedding his human camouflage and revealing the most hideous, evil, extra-terrestrial visage the world has ever seen.

3488. Intergalactic populating

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It certainly was a privilege to be asked by the leader of my planet to go to Planet Zuatov and annihilate the entire population of Zuatovians. I had always had a longing to go to Planet Earth and annihilate the population there, but Zuatov was a second best option.

I don’t know why they need to send a living being to do the annihilation dirty work. Just sending a couple of capsules to do the trick would be equally (if not more) efficient. They didn’t need me to travel all that way just to pull the pin off the capsules when I got there.

Anyway, it’s all over now. I did what I was asked, and now Planet Zuatov is utterly devoid of Zuatovians. We have to wait a hundred years for the Zuatovian atmosphere to clear before we can populate it. One hundred and two years to be more precise. Zuatov will be the third planet we will have successfully populated.

I got given one of the highest awards of my planet for the sterling accomplishment I achieved in Zuatov. The leader of my planet said he wanted to see me next week. He said that now might be the time to turn our attention to Planet Earth. The stench of decaying bodies, he said, is going to be astronomical. We might have to wait longer than a hundred years before repopulating the planet.

3469. A stupid party

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Adrian Bellis was a scientist and if there was one thing he couldn’t stand it was Science Fiction. “Science Fiction is an oxymoron,” he would say. “You can’t be scientific and deal with lies.”

This became excessively infuriating when the boss of the Science Laboratories where Adrian worked issued a personal invitation to all the workers:

You are invited to a function this Saturday to celebrate
SCIENCE FICTION
Come dressed as a Science Fiction character.
Fasten your seatbelts – we’re heading for space.

The problem for Adrian was that he was hoping (perhaps expecting) a promotion. He would have to go to the stupid party. When he got to the venue there was a ridiculous, large contrivance that was meant to resemble a space machine. He had to pretend to be over the moon with it. The climax came when the party goers all decided to sit inside the ridiculous space machine and pretend they were taking off. It must have been the high alcoholic content of the wine.

Adrian had had enough. Promotion or not he was going home. As he headed out the gate he heard a cry of “Wheee! We’re off!” He didn’t even turn around to look.

On the Monday of the following week, the party goers at work couldn’t stop blabbing on about the planet Xonerth.

3413. Intergalactic scam

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Don’t you just hate it when people nod in agreement with what you’re saying, but you can tell from their eyes that they don’t believe a word of it. That’s happened to me quite often and especially when I tell the story of what I’m about to say now. I can tell that people don’t believe me but I tell it nonetheless to try and save them from what happened to me.

I was out in my garden when a spaceship landed. It wasn’t very big; about the size of a school bus but of course it wasn’t shaped like a bus. It wasn’t like a flying saucer either. It was a cubic triangle shape. Not that it matters.

A space alien got out and told me that there was no need to lug a heavy vacuum cleaner around when cleaning the house. His lightweight vacuum cleaner made vacuuming a breeze. It was an intergalactic invention but he’d sell it to me at quite a discount.

I hate vacuuming so this was like a gift sent from heaven. I gave him the six hundred dollars in cash and he took off and I never saw him again.

Naturally I went straight into the house to try out my new purchase and when I plugged it in the voltage was quite different from the voltage on my grid. So once I switched it on it made a whirring sound and exploded. Mercifully I wasn’t hurt.

So all in all I’m telling you this so you won’t get scammed like I was. If another space craft lands again on my back lawn I’m not going to fall for the lies. I’ll tell them straight that their voltage is different than what is supplied on my grid and if he tries to sell me something else I fully intend to hit him over the head with the vacuum cleaner extension. My advice is, never trust an extraterrestrial alien.

3372. Excuse my English

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Final in a week of Science (non)-fiction.

You must excuse my English. I come from what you call outer space and I have been sent to boarding school here on Earth to learn their customs and ways. First of all I would like to say that we are completely different from Human Beings. We don’t communicate with sound at all. Your ears are much more developed than ours but our sight leaves yours for dead.

We communicate with colours which have a far greater range and subtly than what you have on Earth. For example, a novel is just coloured patterns on each page.

So you see, it had been a huge learning curve to use words expressed in sound and not in waves of light. I still haven’t mastered much when it comes to the spoken word. My mouth seems to be arranged all wrong for speaking.

There are two main things I find difficult; in fact I find almost impossible. The first is because I am just learning to communicate with sound the Human Beings seem to think they are therefore more intelligent than me. I showed them a coloured page of patterns and they said “It’s just a white page”. It was the opening of one of our more famous novels. These Human Beings are so arrogant.

Secondly if they are going to communicate via noise I wish they’d call things what they are. They use all these words and phrases that are totally meaningless. Like “Don’t rock the boat” when there’s no boat. Don’t get me started with people “speaking a load of bullshit.” I have a dictionary. I know that such words have nothing to do with the real stuff. Let alone the meaningless sounds they use when they are annoyed that aren’t even in my dictionary.

So all in all I’m doing okay. I tell everyone that my planet sent me here because they want me to be a cosmic diplomat. So I need to learn how these Human Beings think. I have no intention of becoming a diplomat. In fact the military sent me here to determine Earthlings’ weaknesses before we declare war on Planet Earth. As the lord of my planet conveyed in vibrant colour: “Find their Achilles’ heel.” I had to look that expression up in my dictionary.

3371. Shucking cobs

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Sixth in a week of Science (non)-fiction.

You could be forgiven for thinking the accompanying photograph is of corn cobs. How wrong you would be. They are the brains of three creatures from a planet outside our solar system that Earth’s scientists have collected.

One can see instantly that these creatures were highly intelligent. Each kernel (I call them kernels but there is a scientific name for them) holds more information and can deduce more than an intelligent Earthling’s brain. That’s why the scientists cherish these three brains. They were devilishly difficult to catch and kill.

These extra-terrestrials live in huge cities and a method to catch a couple of them was devised by an up-and-coming product of our State School system. He worked out that if we bombed a city of say twenty-five thousand there surely would be one or two victims of the explosion dead but with their brains still intact. In fact there were five heads intact but a silly and ignorant scientist thought the best way to carry the brains back home was to shuck the kernels off the cob like we do with corn. So now there are only three brains intact for study.

Some people have questioned the tactic of exploding a bomb in their city, but you have to remember that they are common as dirt – they breed like flies – and after all they are not human beings like us. It’s like exterminating a wasp nest. They’re animals. So no worries there.

One thing about these brains that we have to take care with… each kernel eventually falls off and grows into another extra-terrestrial. That’s how they breed. The stupid scientist who shucked the two brains threw the kernels into a dumpster on Earth. No one has been able to find them. Let’s hope they don’t escape from where ever it is and grow into irrational terrorists bombing our cities.

3370. You’re a dead duck

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Fifth in a week of Science (non)-fiction.

Bernard never travelled anywhere without his camera. It was an expensive camera. That was in the days before every phone could take a picture. One never knows when someone might see something interesting.

On this particular day he was walking across a field towards his house when a huge spacecraft (one could really only call it a flying saucer) hovered in front of him. It seemed to wobble a little from side to side as if saying hello. Naturally Bernard took as many photographs as possible, and then as quickly as it came the craft disappeared. VROOM! Gone!

Bernard was flabbergasted . The second he arrived home he uploaded the photos from the camera onto his personal computer. Of the twelve photos he had taken not a single one included a flying saucer. There were photos simply of white clouds in a blue sky. The aliens’ advanced technology could alter pictures in his camera.

And then Bernard noticed something in tiny letters on the first photo. It read: TELL NO ONE WHAT YOU SAW. DON’T TRY PHOTOGRAPHING US AGAIN OR YOU’RE A DEAD DUCK.

Bernard was terrified. And that explains why until now you’ve never heard of this close encounter.

3369. Sceptics against extra-terrestrials

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Fourth in a week of Science (non)-fiction.

The thing that drove Vincent Ross to found the “Sceptics Against Extra-terrestrials Society” was because of all the hocus-pocus that appeared on the television news as if it was a true report. It was nonsense.

At first the growth of the Society was very slow. People joined in dribs and drabs and none seemed overly convinced of the cause. Suddenly Mrs. Harriet Froggatt appeared on the evening news. She used to believe in aliens but not anymore. She had proof aliens were a hoax.

For some reason interest exploded. Nearly every town formed a society. One little village had sixty-five sign up. As Mrs. Harriet Froggatt said to Mrs. Natalie Smeaton at a Sceptics Against Extra-terrestrials meeting, “Such scepticism is exactly what we aliens want.”

3368. Planet of Toxicity

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Third in a week of Science (non)-fiction.

Don’t get me wrong. I have no idea how my wife and I got here, but here we are. I don’t believe in any of this science fiction stuff. Light travels at roughly 186,000 miles per second and at that speed it would take us over eight thousand years to get here. Yet here we are.

The locals are a bit strange to say the least. They range between green and blue with every shade in between. To look at them you’d think they were slimy, but if you press noses (they have that greeting custom) their skin is as dry as a bone.

They keep asking me the same questions: what’s it like to live on a planet with dinosaurs? And what’s it like to live on a planet that’s so toxic? I’ve told them a thousand times that the dinosaurs died out millions of years ago. They think I’m stupid; they know that the Planet of Dinosaurs is inhabited by dinosaurs, so why am I trying to cover it up? As for toxicity, I have no clue what they’re talking about.

I’ve tried to adapt to the climate conditions and the cultural mores of these aliens. It hasn’t been easy, especially trying to put up with these slimy-looking extra-terrestrials. But I’ve made one discovery. It answers my initial overriding question. I have moved in time and now live on a planet that is behind Earth time-wise by millions of years. That’s why they think Earth is infested by dinosaurs.

My wife and I are having a stroke of good luck. When we arrived we both came down with the ‘flu. It has spread like wildfire. These green and blue things are dropping dead like flies. They have no resistance. Soon the only intelligent life this planet will harbour will be my wife and I. It’s just a pity that the radiation from space travel has made us both impotent.