‘Aliens are Dicks’ and Other Short Stories by NASA

Well, it’s official; since the cancelation of the NASA astronaut program a month or so back, NASA scientists have now run out of things to do. They went and scienced up all their science.

Honestly, though, what’s a professional space geek supposed to do if we’re not sending anyone to space anymore? We’re talking about the sort of person whose alternative route of study was a doctorate in Firefly fan-fiction. Luckily, however, as history has and will continue to prove time and time again, there is nothing that six straight weeks of SG:1 re-runs can’t cure.

Cancer. Gone.

It seems that the only thing that has changed for the lab-coat donned eggheads at NASA is the complete and utter obliteration of any form of logic and boundaries.

Not unlike charades night at Gary Busey’s house

Led by His Grand Imba-ness, King Nerd Shawn Domagal-Goldman, a group of incredibly intelligent scientist from NASA's Planetary Science Division, with way too much time on their hands and a disproportionate supply of Red Bull, compiled an enlightening report entitled, ‘Would Contact with Extraterrestrials Benefit or Harm Humanity? A Scenario Analysis’, presumably by copy-pasting old X-Files script snippets.

The point? To present humanity with myriad speculative scenarios that might help us prepare for extraterrestrial contact/invasion.

Firstly, we’ll try to ignore the fact that, within the first three pages of the report, they have already quoted Star Trek and coined the term ‘Galaxy Club’, presumably with the dead-pan sternness of people who have spent too many years using their glasses to balance cardboard LARPing headgear rather than doing something fulfilling, like watching Oprah. Beyond that, the document is really quite entertaining and suitably well written.

Also, it reads like the platonic love-child of Steven Spielberg and J. J. Abrams’ libido, which is to say that it is wildly imaginative, loves toys, and has never met a woman.

This is purely co-incidental

I’m certainly not going to begin listing all the various scenarios considered, but let it be known; they don’t disappoint. In a section hypothesizing how aliens may have remained purposefully hidden form us all these years, the suggestions range form ‘hiding in the asteroid belt, watching from a distance’ to ‘have trapped us inside a galaxy-wide, virtual planetarium, projecting a dead and empty universe while a bustling hub of interstellar travel happen just beyond our sight’.

Also know as the ‘Dick’ Scenario

A general skim quickly reveals War of the Worlds and Independence Day (Their italics, not mine). I haven’t managed to peruse the full document yet, but I’m low on Mountain Dew and Cheetos and I‘d hate to start something this grand unprepared. I’m anticipating a great read. After all, the only things that ever prevented me from falling head-over-heels in love with science were all those pesky facts.