It is not a widely known fact, but extraterrestrials tend to enjoy visiting new planets. The inhabitants of planet Blerg Four, known as blergers, have always been particularly proud of their mission to explore the universe and learn as much as possible about other species. Their exploration is not limited to the search of intelligent life. These beings are smarter than that and are taking a more pragmatic approach. They explore with the intention of looking at what’s out there.
Regret is usually not a part of their space exploration goals. Sure, they’ve been disappointed a couple of times, but their visits tend to be fun and educational. When the blergers visited planet Earth, they had such a bad time that they didn’t even bother documenting the visit in their version of Wikipedia, called Blergepedia. There was no official report, no mileage recorded for tax purposes, and a ship-wide pinky promise to not tell.
This trip had been planned the same way as other trips: down to the last detail based on the information they had available. The blergers had been intercepting signals from Earth. Spending years watching our TV and listening to our radio as if they were unemployed. They saw how well adjusted we were as a species and decided to embark on a journey towards Earth. Given everything they had listened to and seen from Earth, the space visitors calculated that by the time they made it to Earth, humans would have fixed all of their problems and would be ready to be gifted the ability of space travel. They were very wrong. Avocado on pizza wrong.
The visitors from planet Blerger Four were very surprised when they exited the artificial wormhole that brought them into our solar system. I’m talking “the baby is yours” surprised. Shock combined with a sense of indignity describes the feeling a little better. These are beings with more advanced feelings than us. They’ve evolved to the point where they don’t go around creepily liking each other’s pictures in the middle of the night. But they were creeped out and hesitated when they saw 2026 Earth. Their sense of duty got the best of them and continued with their mission. In horror movies, this is usually the part where the teenagers decide to stay overnight in the scary house.
The blergers decided to first land in the south part of the United States of America. That mission went immediately sideways when a bunch of country folk started shooting their AR-15s at the bright lights. The aliens thought that landing in the middle of a forest at night would give them a little bit of time and space to explore. Once again, wrong. The southerners had spent all night watching Unsolved Mysteries and were on high alert. Giving the visitors little chance to land and communicate that they were coming in peace. Not the aliens’ fault, though, because they were not aware of all the extraterrestrial probing allegations coming from the southern part of the United States. The locals would rather die than have their abduction story be turned into a ten episode drama.
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The blerger captain decided to leave as quickly as they arrived to avoid writing any long reports. The blerger typewriter had a nasty habit of getting caught between the letters of their 256 letter alphabet. They were proud of their language, but a little annoyed at all the extra course work it required at school. The captain hated having to explain itself to the high council when engaging less developed species who behaved in such ridiculous ways. On the way back up to low orbit, the aliens noticed how every vehicle in this area of the planet was improperly sized. They were amused to see these bald apes drive around in what they called “light duty dumpsters on wheels”. Even more amusing was how these behemoths used wheels made out of rubber in order to move around. It was a little baffling to our visitors, but they didn’t get a chance to spend more time exploring that part of the planet because some of the southerners were a little too eager to start using their higher caliber stuff.
The blerger leadership had a quick meeting in their equivalent of the break room and decided to try again somewhere else. Being that most of the TV they watched on their way here came from the U.S.A., they decided to stay within these united states. This time landing in the southern part of Texas near the Méjico border. There wasn’t a lot to look at there or any apparent danger so a small group of aliens left the ship and started exploring the surrounding area. They ran into some people with skin that had been bronzed by the Sun and were told, in Spanish, to watch out because “La Migra” was out looking for aliens. The blergers were excited until the border patrol showed up and tried to arrest them. While the border patrol was reading them their Miranda rights over a speakerphone, the DEA showed up wanting to take over the bust. The two agencies started arguing with each other and gave the blergers enough time to fire up the ship remotely and pick them up. Once again, the aliens had to hurry and get back into their ship and into low orbit. They were frustrated but were not giving up. You don’t travel through an artificial wormhole for light years and don’t learn a thing or two on how to handle lesser species. Especially those who still participate in the dark arts of the timeshare condo.
Another quick chat in the break room took place. They once again decided to land in the U.S.A because the captain lost their version of rock, paper, scissors called “wabut, lortpet, closdut”. One of the interns who had become addicted to old time Hollywood movies suggested they try landing on the west coast. It made sense because they had traced back the TV signals back to that area of the planet. A sense of excitement ran through the ship and their spirits picked up. Getting shot at and almost arrested by the psychotic apes had startled them a little, but they were ready to meet the people who produced those wonderful shows. The now tired explorers landed right in the middle of Hollywood. No one really paid much attention as they thought Adam Sandler was producing the sequel to Spaceman. Not his best movie, but he doesn’t have bad movies, you’re just not into them. The alien visitors left the comfort and safety of their spaceship and went on to explore.
The Hollywood street hustlers had other plans. They started taking pictures with the aliens and asking for twenty dollars in exchange. Aliens don’t really carry that kind of cash around, especially in backwater planets like Earth, which made the whole interaction weirder than it had to be. The poor visitors had to regroup away from the hustlers dressed like celebrities and superheroes and made their way further south. Blerger documentation lacked any info around how to tell you are in a bad neighborhood, because they had not yet watched movies from the 1990s. They didn’t quite grasp how a liquor store followed by the check cashing place followed by a pawn shop followed by the convenience store with steel bars on its windows was considered a place more dangerous than any place in the planet Murdertron.
Once again the aliens found themselves in trouble, this time getting mugged by a gang who thought they were rich Hollywood actors researching a role. The gang didn’t know what to do with the technology they robbed from the aliens and took it to a pawn shop and got fifty bucks for it. The pawn shop owner in turn not knowing what to do with the strange technology posted it on eBay where it was purchased by a little known South African entrepreneur. That turned out to be an awful decision for him and humanity. He made so much money from launching rocket and electric car companies based on the blerger technology, that the entrepreneur purchased a social network. To any blerger reading, a social network is a website where overly psychotic apes post rants and roast each other. No one really understands why they post, but are driven to. Maybe the aliens from MySpaceium Two will visit and explain it like they explained the pyramids to the Egyptians.
The now mentally and physically defeated blergers made it back to their ship. Their chief of security almost convinced the captain to blast the dirty little planet into pieces in the same way George Lucas depicted the destruction of Alderaan in one of his early space soap operas. Cooler minds prevailed and the captain decided to spare the pale blue dot. Firing their advanced weaponry required a detailed record from the captain to their leaders. It wasn’t worth it and they weren’t in the mood.
After a short rest, one of the younger ensigns somehow managed to convince the captain to land once again. This time in another place. It made sense because they still had a lot of more places to visit. They had managed to somehow get a smartphone during their time in Hollywood and opened up the Internet browser and started looking for ideas around which places to visit. Not coincidentally, my wife goes through the same exhausting (to me) exercise every other week. It always leads to her screaming at me about not taking her anywhere and to me hoping an alien spaceship appeared out of nowhere and taking me with them in spite of the probing risk. I’m not sure how well an alien abduction can go, but it should be a hell more peaceful than being at home after an argument. A little alien probing beats a lot of mental scarring.
Our alien visitors decided to visit Puerto Rico after reading that it was called the island of enchantment. After a quick trip down to the island the aliens landed in the town we know of as Arecibo. This time they came prepared but found that people mostly didn’t care about their presence. They were too busy living their lives and having a good time. Over the years, the islanders had gotten used to weird foreigners coming to their land. They paid little mind to the blergers which made them happy. The visitors explored the area until nightfall when a weird beeping sound made them nervous. A quick scan identified the source of the sound being the many coquí frogs surrounding them. Not wanting to spend the night screaming at the little frogs to shut up the aliens quickly went back to their ship. Not without noticing that one of the coquís had latched into one of their backpacks. When they got inside the ship the little frog wasted no time sticking to the spaceship’s windshield and driving them into a panic. Puerto Ricans know the horror that is a coquí suddenly jumping out of nowhere and into the windshield as you’re driving while trying to avoid the other Puerto Ricans driving around you. It’s one of the most dangerous things ever and it makes the coquí frog the only animal capable of killing without being venomous, poisonous, or even of considerable size.
Anyways, the alien visitors made it to high orbit, managed to capture the coquí frog with a plastic cup, and sent it back to Arecibo on their backup flying saucer. They were not aware that the saucer had a high potency radio telescope installed. A bunch of Cornell students were in the area that night and stumbled into the ship while trying to find a place to connect with nature at a higher level. One thing led to another and the Arecibo Observatory was born. It allowed humans to listen to signals from space using the same technology the aliens were using to listen to the signals from Earth. Years later it was used to develop the technology used to wirelessly transfer images of unclothed bald apes. Following the natural order of human technology. We always invent with the intention of getting lucky.
On the way back the aliens sat down and talked about their experience of visiting planet Earth and were unhappy. This led to the decision of making up a lie for their report. They told their higher ups that there was no intelligent life when they arrived to Earth and that the signals were coming from somewhere else and had been bouncing off the planet’s atmosphere. They also declared the whole sector a waste of time and made sure to erase any entries from their maps. I don’t blame them either. The existence and popularity of online prediction markets also makes me want to fly off into deep space and never come back.