COLUMN: Will be abducted for intergalactic ride
After years of pondering, I’ve come to the sad conclusion that I need to become a redneck.
No, I’m not trying to get into NASCAR or marry my third cousin – though I hear she is an Arkansan beauty queen and faring quite nicely with Uncle Chester.
I’m trying to get abducted by aliens.
And my attempts aren’t going very well, I might add.
As Jeff Foxworthy adroitly observed, rednecks like shiny stuff like UFOs, fishing lures and beer cans, which explains why so many rednecks see UFOs while holding fishing lures and beer cans.
Why do aliens bother abducting the people they do? I’ve been watching a lot of History Channel specials on UFOs, and by a lot I mean staying up late every Friday night for the past two months to see what new evidence UFOlogists have uncovered. Don’t laugh, they’re real.
In all these specials, there’s a trend for UFOs to appear to the same type of people: farmers, the elderly and your common crop of redneck.
When abductees return and explain their experience, they talk about the experiments the aliens performed on them, like extracting their sexual organs to make a new alien-human hybrid, which as near as I can tell exists in the form of Dennis Rodman.
What I can’t figure out is why the aliens don’t want to abduct me. If ever an alien species were to abduct someone useful, they’d find me to be about the most knowledgeable hitchhiker in the galaxy.
I’ve watched every Star Trek movie and nearly all the episodes. At one time I had such a comprehensive database on my computer of all the starships in the Star Trek universe that Rick Berman would have been jealous.
I once spent months learning Klingon, though all I really remember is a bunch of swear words. I’ve seen all the Star Wars movies and am pretty proficient with a light saber. And hey, I have even charted the different quadrants of space and know which bad aliens to watch out for.
If I’ve never branded myself as a complete nerd, I think I just exposed it.
But, for whatever reason, the aliens seem to have stopped visiting Earth as much recently. At least, there haven’t been as many calls to the UFO hotline from the South and Midwest.
This has got me wondering why the aliens have stopped coming. Are we not an amusing species? Clearly we are, why else do we keep MTV around? Are we not violent enough? Three seconds of watching hockey will dispel that. Is it because we aren’t an advanced enough civilization? Chances are this is a good reason, but if aliens have come in the past, why would they suddenly stop?
I think I have the answer: environmentalists.
That’s right, not only has Al Gore and his fleet of tree-hugging buddies polluted Hollywood (OK, I know that’s an oxymoron) but they have turned away aliens that might be interested in our planet.
In recent years, television stations have been inundated with shows and commercials about how we’re running out of natural resources and how quickly we’re destroying the planet.
These signals carry deep into space and if an alien species were to watch these shows, they would learn a few things about us:
1. There are no natural resources left on Earth.
2. After watching “An Inconvenient Truth,” they would realize we have no intelligence to even bother visiting.
3. Nancy Pelosi is the lost Sith Lord – Darth Feminazi.
It’s no wonder they don’t visit any more. Not only are the environmentalists ruining life for us on Earth, they are spoiling our chances of meeting an alien species. After all, it’s against the Prime Directive to contact a species that isn’t advanced enough.
Even though the aliens might not be ready for us, I’m ready for them. I recently learned in my intro to astronomy course that there are plans in the works to send another mission to the moon, establish a moon base and then land a man on Mars. That’s exciting news. Finally we’ll be able to make peace with our Martian neighbors and tell them to stop blowing up all our probes. Oh, that was NASA’s bad? Oops.
But I can’t wait the years it’s going to take to get to Mars, and honestly, why stop at Mars? There’s a whole universe out there. I saw “Star Trek: First Contact” and I’m sure if the government will just give me a nuclear missile I can make the Phoenix and invent a warp drive. But I hear they don’t hand those out like candy any more. Ah, those were the days.
If I ever get the chance to explore space, I have a pretty good idea of who I’d like on my crew. I would, of course, be the captain – brave and charmingly handsome Seth Tiberius Hawkins.
My first officer would be Will Smith. There’s not a person on Earth who’s had more experience fighting aliens. Plus, when we bring the aliens we find back to Earth, I want him to punch them and say, “Welcome to Earth,” as a housewarming joke.
My tactical officer would be William Shatner. I know that’s a demotion for him, but if he fails to accurately fire photon torpedoes, I can always have him perform his Priceline commercials, which are just as deadly.
Other officers would include Carrie Fisher (the token sci-fi female officer), Chewbacca, Richard Dreyfuss and Harry Reid – in case we need to provide a sacrificial offering to the aliens.
I’d also invite Michael Jordan on board in case I get into a giant intergalactic basketball battle.
Yes, this would be a great crew. We could go out in the spirit of Terran brotherhood and share what we know with our alien friends – mostly that we don’t know much of anything except rednecks were not the best representatives of Earth and the answer to life, the universe and everything is 42.
Seth Hawkins is a senior majoring in public relations who sits at home on the weekends trying to get E.T. to phone home. Questions and comments can be sent to him at seth.h@aggiemail.usu.edu