Betty Firth

One night in my backyard, I saw some unusual lights that seemed to be intensifying. I had not heard any forecast of Northern Lights, so I was puzzled. The lights were heading straight at me, morphing into a blinding purple sphere, a color so achingly beautiful it seemed to envelop my whole body and mind with wonder. It hovered silently about 20 feet above the ground, and I had no idea whether I should be running away, calling the NSA, or breaking out a welcoming bottle of wine. As it happened, the decision wasn’t up to me because I was in the thrall of the purple atmosphere and couldn’t move if I’d tried.
After many minutes of it hovering while I was just motionless and stupefied, some ethereal music floated around me. It sounded vaguely classical but indefinable, as if every sound I’d ever loved was woven together to please me. As I luxuriated in the delicious cocoon of color and sound, thinking, “This must be like a really good drug trip,” some musical phrases separated from the milieu into distinctly different “voices,” which I could understand, even though they were musical notes, not words, and there were no bodies. Voice #1, sounding like a Mozart sonata, said, “Don’t be afraid. We’re not here to hurt you. We are friendly thought-forms and very curious about life on this blue planet, so we’d like to ask you some questions. Are you representative of lifeforms here?” Not sure that I felt representative of even humans, much less crocodiles or Venus fly traps, I said, “Sort of.”
Thought-form #2, vaguely reminiscent of Beethoven’s music, said, “We’ve been monitoring your activities for a few million years and are very puzzled by a very recent phenomenon.” “What’s that?” I asked. #2 answered, “It seems to have a lot of names, but some call the whole kit and caboodle ‘social media.’” Surprised, I asked,”You use the phrase ‘kit and caboodle?’ It responded, “It’s quite complicated to explain, but we can absorb everything about you humans: your thoughts, perceptions, experiences, and words as well as your color and music preferences, in order to communicate with you in a way that you can understand.”
“Ah, that explains the purple and the classical music, my favorites. Do you mind if I just call you Mozart and Beethoven, just to ground you thought-forms a bit? Wow, I have longed my whole life to have someone who really gets me, and what are the odds you would land in my backyard?”
Mozart, sounding a little discordant, said, “Excuse me, ‘gets you?’ As brilliant as we are, some of your utterances just don’t make sense.” I responded, “You know, when someone who really understands everything about you without a lot of explanation or misinterpretation.”
“Got it,” it said, “so please return the favor and enlighten us about some of these strange behaviors we’ve been observing.” I answered, “OK, shoot…no no NO! I mean, go ahead, ask away. I love curiosity and really good questions.”
Beethoven queried, “So, on this social media thing, why are all these people putting photos of themselves out into the biosphere? In our cosmic experiences, beings are often safer if they are camouflaged and stay out of sight. Are they selling themselves, to be hired as models or travel agents or food tasters? Or are they just letting an extraordinary number of people know where they are at all times, in case they get lost or kidnapped?”
Laughing, a scenario popped into my mind with a police officer asking about my neighbors: “Well, I haven’t seen them personally for about three years, but I know they were overlooking the Grand Canyon at 9:38 a.m. on Tuesday and then having breakfast at the Deep Ditch Diner at 10:24 a.m., where she had waffles with strawberries and whipped cream, and he had pigs in a blanket and a large orange juice. It really did look delicious. Oh, and they both had coffee.”
Beethoven continued, “And why are there so many pictures of food? Do humans – or at least the humans who use this social media thing – have such short attention spans that they forget what food looks like? Do they need to be reminded and have their taste buds titillated in case they forget to eat and wander around in a low blood sugar daze? Or are they just bragging like we’ve seen your miniature beings do, ‘Na-na-na-na-na-na, My food’s better than your food?’”
Mozart chimed in, “It’s very confusing. This ‘social media’ talks about faces, which we understood to be the textured details on the top of your bodies that you use to tell each other apart. Others are tweeting like birds, but they can’t fly, or ticking like insects or what you call ‘clocks.’ Sometimes they ‘follow’ a bunch of people without really going anywhere. Is this a tele-transport or time travel thing you’ve figured out how to do? We have no evidence of any of you time-traveling to previous centuries or exploring farther away than your little moon.
“We’re also wondering if these people doing all this ‘posting’ have figured out how to use your Einstein’s ideas about relativity to manipulate time to their advantage. They seem to spend an extraordinary amount of time on liking and sharing and boosting and following and chirping and re-chirping. They must have some trick up their arms, or how would they get anything else done in their lives? How do they have time to see real embodied people and share actual food with them…or don’t people do that anymore? Are all the photos just movie sets?”
Shaking my head, I apologized, “I’m sorry, I’ve been wondering the same thing for years and really don’t have any answers for you. And, by the way, it’s ‘up their sleeves’ not ‘arms,’ but generally you’re doing a bang-up job with the communication thing.”
“Bang-up?” Beethoven thought at me. “Oh, never mind,” I sighed. So much for being completely understood.
“We’re having a hard time figuring out if you humans are incredibly advanced or seriously delayed in your development.” I responded, “Yeah, I get that, too. It’s really too close to call.”
“OK, well, we are also completely confused about what you call politics and elections.”
“Oh, boy,” I moaned, “Here we go.” Why was I the one chosen to explain our political craziness to aliens? Mozart crooned, “We have noticed your species have had some brilliant leaders and others who could only be what we call ‘empty.’ The word “empty” came across feeling like a a dark vacuum of nothingness. I agreed, “Yes, that’s true.”
“And in your country, people get to choose those leaders.”
“Well, yes,” I waffled, “sort of, aside from the electoral college, corruption, and restrictive voting laws.”
Beethoven persisted: “Isn’t it true that people have easier access to factual information about these people and everything else in the known universe than ever before in the history of your planet?”
“Mmm, yes.”
“So, why would anyone choose to vote for a person who appears to be empty of intelligence, compassion, common sense, and sanity, who seems to hate everyone, who is a convicted criminal in your justice system, and who surrounds himself with many other empty people who were also convicted of multiple crimes?”
“Well, beautiful purple thought form, you have asked the million dollar…make that trillion dollar (what with inflation) question. Why indeed? Could we talk about something easier to understand, like how the universe operates?”