The Chocolate Dog

UFOs, Space, The final frontier.

Right?

Well, maybe, but not in the way you might think.

My long time friend Mike and I share interest in amateur astronomy. That’s Astronomy folks not Astrology. Astronomy is a solid science and astrology is solidly looney-tunes. Please note the difference. I digress.

Mike and I consider ourselves to be decent amateur astronomers. We share a mutual interest in cosmology and science in general so I'm sure it comes as no shock that we have many discussions and debates on scientific subjects. However we do not always agree on all fields of speculation. One of our favorite ongoing debates revolves around extraterrestrial life.

Simply put, Mike holds it is likely and I do not. Neither Mike nor I believe in the UFO’s, Gazoo, Alf or the "Grays" the X-Files/Art bell lunatics carry on about. Rather our debate centers on the rarity or commonality of life in the universe in general. Everything from living things eeking out a living on thermal vents deep in some Europian ice capped sea to rouge RNA strands drifting though out the cosmic void on a comet. You know "guy stuff"…okay, I admit it we are geeks at heart.

We spend hours of friendly argument on the subject normally after many beers and post our Baseball vs. Hockey discussion. The debate continues to this day though he lives on the East Coast and I on the West Coast. Although not as often as it once did.

Some quotes from one of these debates are as follows (In spirit if not exactly):

"Mike your opinion only proves that you have the mind of a trilobite. You obviously spend too little time thinking and too much time watching Homosexual Trucker Porn." might be one of my closing statements in our ongoing debate.

"What, Chris? It’s hard to understand you with that penis in your mouth" could well be Mikes reply.

The attitude of our dialogues is academic even if the language is not.

Fascination with possible alien life is not limited to any one social circle; you will find it almost every culture on the planet. Scientist and common citizen alike are interested. It is however in American culture that you will find its heart. Here in America is where you will find its origin and drive.America where you will also find the some of the greatest fear directed toward alien cultures in the western world.

I find that to be a bit of a dichotomy. The same people who would welcome small green, gray or greenish-gray men’s arrival in dinner-ware shaped craft and embrace their wisdom are all to often the same people who cast the most venomous eye to the Mexican family that moved in across the street or the brown people of indeterminate origin who own the local white trash casino otherwise known as the convenience store. Yes, that was a run on sentence but that is irrelevant.

I had never really experienced this sort of racism in my travels until I settled back in my home state of Georgia. I was more familiar with common redneck anti-black sentiments common in the south (Though not an exclusively Southern bias by any measure) and the colloquial bigotry one finds in history books until that time in my life. The flavor of bigotry I was most familiar with was a social/economic/racial lines IE: They might be niggers but they are our niggers.

You see, I moved from San Francisco to the suburban Hell of the greater Atlanta metro area just prior the millennia scare a few years back before realizing what a remarkably stupid thing I had done and saw it full force in my face for the first time. I don't recall the kind of immigrant hate I saw in Georgia anywhere else I have lived and I have lived all over this country.

In Douglasville Georgia the wave of Latin immigration finally arrived. People used to hating blacks and fags now had a whole new people to irrationally despise. Even in my own family "Mexicans" (although they were actually Colombians more often than not) were not spoken of kindly. At least in regards to their value as neighbors (As cheap labor they were generally welcome so long as they had an acceptable attitude). I have since discovered that those attitudes are not unique to the Deep South just new. They are prevalent everywhere in America. I suppose I was simply blind or ignorant of them earlier.

Why do Americans have such a negative attitude towards foreigners and foreign culture? Why are we here in the United States so reluctant to welcome anybody from the third world, or for that matter, anywhere outside of our national borders? Not even Canadians are safe these days so I don’t think visitors from Neferon 6 are going to fare so well either.I would ascribe it away to war time paranoia if it were not for the fact that it has been a prevalent attitude for almost as far back in our history as you care to look.

This is puzzling considering we are a nation of immigrants, outcast, and dissident rebels. Yet we tolerate no new members into our club. Indians, savages, faggots, dikes, gooks, kikes, trash, white niggers (Wiggers), sand-niggers, and now the ethnic classification dejour, spics ( all Hispanic and Latin people seem to be thrown into the kinder though equally ignorant category of "Mexicans") just to mention a few.

All this xenophobia yet we are enamored of the idea of encountering people from another planet?This fascination with life elsewhere applies right across the board regardless of intellect or social standing. You find it in the enthusiastic eyes of astrophysicist, the amateur intellectual, the mystical-minded new age crowd, and the Billy Bobs of the world. I don’t think most of us understand what that might imply. We are nowhere near as open-minded as we like to think we are.Most Americans can’t handle variety within our own culture, Gay marriage being a fine example. Our historical dealings with Native Americans and civil rights are two others. I still know people in this enlighten part of the country, the Pacific North West, who still refer to the Asian-Americans at the local market as "gooks". In fact since moving here in 2004 I have found out that some of the greatest concentrations of Ayran Nation idiots reside up here.

Variety in our own neighborhoods is a source of conflict and fear. How are we going to deal with a culture that developed independent of anything we would recognize from our "Earthly" cultures?What if they think eating their young is acceptable (For example) if said young died of natural causes? Or communicate with each other by smelling each others farts?
Planetary xenophobia aside, everyone in his or her own way seems to be looking forward to "First Contact". It seems like nowadays you can't throw a rock without hitting somebody who has some sort of UFO experience of one kind or another (Sorry Zach). Almost everyone seems to have an opinion about it. As life on this planet swirls in an ever-increasing speed down the toilet, I guess it is no wonder that we've become more and more fixated with this notion of life elsewhere.

To me it all sounds more like we are looking for an outlet of escape not an opportunity to broaden the culture horizons. In justification of my opinion about that speculation, take note that the UFO culture basically began in the 50s when we saw an astronomical increase in the number of UFO sightings. The 50’s were a time of fear and paranoia in our society. It has thrived ever since. Before 1947 there were next to no reports of UFOs unless you count the mysterious Unidentified Flying Airships of the late 19th century. Isn't it odd how the manifestations of UFOs follow cultural technological taste?

In 1947 a former military pilot reported an encounter with what he described as a craft of unknown appearance and properties. It was a mysterious almost supernatural experience as he described it. It also gave us one of the most powerful icons of the phenomena, the term "Flying Saucer" comes from his description of the mysterious vehicle's appearance.

Is it just a coincidence that everyone began to see flying saucers about the same time everyone began seeing Communists? I think not. World War II was over and we needed something new to fear. New enemies were needed to fuel our war economy and give us focus now that the old bad guys had been absolutely thrashed (The Nazis and Nips). It was time to confront the new "Enemy" (The Communist and more specifically, the Soviet Union). To do so openly and aggressively would mean absolute unilateral obliteration in a fission/fusion fiesta so we had to find some other way to vent our fears. As a society, we had switched from pre-WWII isolationist to a fearful and paranoid cold-war people.

Then in 1947, something crashed near Roswell, New Mexico. There was some confusion and incompetence involved and folks began to talk. Some believe that the "something" that crashed in that rural local was a weather balloon. Fools! This was the obvious theory of those willing to believe silly unlikely things. I’ll bet they are skeptical of Bigfoot and Santa Claus too! Others more logically claim it was an alien craft that crashed in Roswell. These people also claim four aliens were discovered among the debris at the sight. They further claim that the remains of said creatures and the flying saucer bits are being held in an Air Force installation 100 miles north of Las Vegas. This installation is of course the notorious Area 51.Some UFO-ologists insist that the four aliens accidentally crashed their own flying saucer. Other insists it was shot down by the U.S. air force.

Yeah, these scenarios seem likely.

These beings could build a craft that can travel millions of light years, dodging black holes, gamma ray burst, dark matter and stray TIE fighters. They could navigate this craft to the remote American dessert through the vast depths of the Cosmos, laughing at Einstein the whole trip. However, those New Mexico telephone poles can be pretty tricky to navigate after a few bottles of Venusian Vodka but at least they are slightly more benign than a prop driven air force p-51 Mustang fighter plane!

Then again it’s always the little things that bring about the fall of the mighty, ask Clinton about Monica if you doubt this theory. Guess that particular strained analogy would be better said" It’s always the Chubby, big breasted intern that bring about the fall of the mighty however .I don't mean anything negative about that. I personally think Monica was Hottie and was very disappointed that Playboy didn't give her a spread. After all they let that social barnacle Carney between their pages (Of course that was after she had 200 pounds cut out of her and had an additional 55 pounds of ego implanted).

I personally think two of the four aliens might have survived the wreck, escaped from Area 51 and made it to Vegas where they have been doing nine shows a week under the name Siegfried and Roy ever since. It seems more likely to me than Siegfried and Roy being of mere Earthly origins.

True believers say that Area 51 is definitely hiding something because if you go there, they won't let you in and they won't tell you what they have there.

I have some enlightening thoughts to share about that observation.

It's a fucking military installation! Do you think that if you go to Areas 1 through 50 you're going to get a Chardonnay and some Gouda? No, you're not! You're going to get turned away faster than Michael Moore trying to get backstage at Bushes State of the Union address.
Also, some believe that there is an authentic film of an autopsy on one of the Roswell aliens. This documentary was brought to the public eye in a well-known television special. Likely, by the same journalistic team that brought us the Al Capone’s vault debacle.

I saw this documentary when it aired on Fox. I believe it was sandwiched between a very special "Martin" and "Party of Five." I thought the autopsy was as about as authentic as a piece of total shit can be.

Now, in addition to the Area 51 freaks, there are those who legitimize the existence of aliens vis-à-vis the appearance of crop patterns that resemble the symbol that Prince used as his name in the wild old 90’s, etched onto various crop fields about greater "Boon-dockia". Boon-dockia is my country of origin by the way,I come frome the wine region there...get it?...Boones Farm wine? Ba-Dum.

Anyway...

All right, occasionally bizarre patterns can be seen if you and Billy Bob, the crop duster, fly over these fields. Some say they’re messages to humanity or landing markers for aliens; I say it's Uncle Joe with a gut full of grain alcohol and a Weedwacker.

It could also be those guys who came forward a few years back and said they did it. You know the same guys who went on to show how and why they did it, as they barely contained their laughter during their explanation.

Another core-ingredient of UFO studies is the abduction by aliens. Under hypnosis the abductees recollections all share the same characteristics; long stretches of time unaccounted for, strange bruises on the body, a suspicion of sexual violation. Is it just me or do most alien abduction tales sound amazingly like spring break stories? My buddy Scott from New Jersey tells similar stories that are not only more interesting but occasionally have photographic documentation to back up spotty memory.

Listen, I don’t mean to sound so cynical. It's a natural tendency to look skyward for the salvation and answers to our prayers. This is why we invented religions and God so long ago. I think people ascribe to religion in blind emotional need. It is said by some the answers within ourselves are to fighting sometimes, better to put the responsibility on a faceless entity.

So too it is why people place faith in the flying saucer people. Just as good citizens go to their churches to worship invisible sky beings on Sundays so too do the lunatic fringe flock to the holy grounds of previous UFO activity and UFO conventions; in the hope that when the inevitable mass landing does happen the star gods who have replaced earthly imaginings, will first want to get in touch with the mentally unstable among us.

UFO conventions are the purist-defining events of the UFO culture. They are unique experiences. They are a real paradise of emotional need and general psychosis. Not since the Pope and Cardinal O'Connor spoke to a symposium of nuns catered by the Amish has so little sexual experience been assembled in one place as these events that is unless we want to discuss Mikes dating history for the previous decade.

Only Star Trek conventions can rival them. It should also be noted that many of the same people attend both. Mike doesn’t, if he is to be believed, maybe he should. I could see him scoring with some emotionally scared "Deep Space Nine" babe.

Hey, look just because I do not buy into a belief in alien intelligence as these clowns present it, don’t think I believe in Earthly intelligence either. There is precious little evidence of that around as well. Honestly, I would be delighted to be proven wrong about space men. I'd be the first one to welcome aliens, because frankly, I'm running out of people to criticize on this planet.
I have a confession to make. Despite the barnacles of cynicism, which resolutely encrust my hull, I do believe that there is life other than ours somewhere other than Earth.

Hear that Mike? You win!

I just don't think they have been here! I don't know who they are or what they drive, but I can’t image that interstellar travel is as easy as a day trip to Ocean Shores, Washington.
Difficulties aside the question remains why would they stop here? To an extraterrestrial from a civilization millions of years more advanced than us, Planet Earth at best would be like the Vince Dooley rest stop along HWY 316. Chances are they stop off here every now and then to try to stretch their tiny, gray limbs, pick up a some beef jerky and take a leak out of one of their 29 penises.

Chances are we are not a target destination.

However on the off-chance that there are super-advanced alien beings out there and they are as the X-files boobs have described them to be, I have a message for you, listen up.
"Gazoo of Epsilon-Six! When you do come here and abduct one of us, stay out of our asses! There's nothing in our asses that will help you and your dying planet! Life is tough enough without you ‘Proctonauts’ downing a couple cases of cheap beer and getting your moon rocks off checking on Jethro's exhaust pipe."

Oh yeah, one more thing. "We want Elvis Back, Take Paris Hilton instead." I think she may be one of yours anyway.

This is Christopher Stone, signing off; Star-Date: July 1, 2005.