Relocation and the Big Lie

During rousing John Philip Sousa music, the TV screen interrupted the Independence Day Fireworks Celebration with “Special Report” in the largest blue font possible on a red background. Soon the screen switched to the news anchorman in a dark blue suit with a red, white, and blue striped tie. At the news desk, he stared straight at the camera while speaking.

           “I am Jaden Kelley, your news anchorman here at KXXY station. We interrupt the Independence Day Fireworks Celebration to report on a significant number of people that are missing. Everyone is asking, ‘Where are they?’ and ‘Why did they disappear?’ These disappearances happened worldwide. These unexplained occurrences are as hard to believe as a kangaroo giving birth to a rhino. Even here in the US are reports of people gone. Stuart Demarco, are you ready to interview affected people?”

“Yes.” The reporter posed for the camera. “Stuart Demarco here on location in New York City. Mr. Abraham Thurston is here to give his account of what happened.” The reporter turned and pointed the microphone at the Mr. Thurston. “Why do you consider your wife’s disappearance especially strange?”

“We were in bed asleep last night,” said Mr. Thurston. “We planned to attend the Independence Day celebrations. At six, I thought I felt her move, so I reached for her hand and felt nothing.” His voice trembled. “I came awake when I could not see her.” Slower and louder, he said, “I could not find her. Inside or outside the house. The car was still in the garage. I could not find her, so I reported her to the police.”

“What did the police say?”

“They said reports of missing persons are still coming in and couldn’t get to it immediately. They recommended contacting her friends and wait for her to come home.”

Switching to a new individual, Mr. Demarco said, “Mr. Tig Master is also here to add his comments.”

“I haven’t noticed anyone missing. I don’t understand the big fuss,” said Mr. Master.

“Back to you Jaden.” 

“Now we switch to Joseph Hanner in Germany.” Jaden Kelley faced another camera. “What are people saying in Germany?”

“They are saying the same things here,” said Herr Hanner. People don’t understand the disappearances. I have here Herr Klaus Becker.” Holding the microphone toward Herr Becker, the reporter asked, “Why is your friend’s disappearance strange?”

           “When I handed a 3/8” wrench to Klemens, the wrench clanged on the floor because he wasn’t there.”

           “Who is Klemens?”

           “My friend Klemens Baier. He is – or was – a mechanic.” Leaning forward to make his point, Mr. Becker said, “Vanished without even a puff of smoke.”  He leaned back to normal. With a touch of annoyance he added, “Klemens always talked to me about the rapture. I’m glad he can’t say any more about it.” Then he added slowly, “Except he was such a good mechanic.”

“What is rapture? Some kind of pure pleasure?” asked Herr Hanner.

“No,” Herr Becker said. “It’s some Christian belief. Klemens called himself a born-again Christian. He nagged me about how I needed to be ready for the rapture—when Christians would be taken out of this world. It is—was?—to happen just before the ‘tribulation’.“

“Do you believe it was the rapture?”

“Nah. It’s easier to believe that aliens abducted him.”

“I turn it back to you Jaden.”

“Thank you, Joseph. Thanks to the miracle of live TV, we will continue with Kheri Sekibo in Africa.”

“Thank you,” said Kheri Sekibo. “We are here is Africa talking to Zakia Aguda. Mr. Aguda, who do you know that is missing?”

The man wet his lips and glanced around nervously.” Akida Okorie. We walked around my field, trying to decide what to do about a bug problem. I looked at him while he was speaking.” Mr. Aguda sucked in his breath. “And then Akida wasn’t there. He didn’t even finish his sentence.”  

“Why are you so nervous?”

“Wouldn’t you if you saw it happen?” Mr. Aguda’s eyes widened. “What if it happens to me?”

“That’s the story here. I’ll turn it over to you.”

“Thank You Kheri Sekibo,” said the Jaden Kelley. “You’ve heard it directly from eyewitnesses. Many disappearances can be explained by teenagers running away, people not reporting where they were going, and the rest, well, we will have more information on that now.

“General Jacob T. Wiseman is in the studio with me.” The camera panned to include a man in uniform with two rows of medals on his chest. “General Wiseman, what can you tell us about the events in the last twenty-four hours?”

“Some of the disappearances,” said the General, “can be explained, as you indicated. As for myself, the number of people removed does not seem all that many. They were found missing worldwide at the exact same time, so it is important.

“The rest can be explained by some information the military withheld until this time. It is now time to share we found advanced intelligent life on asteroid X91 around Planet X2.0 in solar system X499. We have been in touch with that intelligent life, what some would call space aliens. From the time of the Roswell incident, we have been learning their scientific methods.

“They are ready to address the public. We will hear if they have anything to say about the disappearances.”

Mr. Kelley listened intently. “Intelligent life. Wow! Why are they interested in us?”

“I do not want to speak for them. But I learned their language and will interpret for them.”

“We will see you in an hour then.” The camera again focused on the anchorman. “Now we will interview the head of Astronomy Department at Pearce University. –.”

On a couch, two teenage girls casually shared a bag of potato chips while watching the TV.

“Just a bunch of crazy people,” said Andrea, who turned the TV to a movie channel.

“What about the General?” asked Beth. She picked out a thick, curved chip.

Andrea paused to consider the question. “Maybe there is something in it.” She picked an average chip out of the bag. “But it must be only for the military. What does the military care about teenagers?”

“You know Teresa? She disappeared yesterday,” said Beth. She dropped her hand rather than biting the next chip. “I want to know what’s going on. I want to listen to the General and the aliens.”

“Teresa was one of the missing? Why didn’t you tell me? Teresa gone. What a shock! Why didn’t you tell me?”

Beth resumed munching. “Maybe she just ran away. She may still come back.”

An hour later, Beth said, “The General should be back on. I want to see what an alien looks like and hear what it talks about.

Andrea said, “Yeah, why not? I want to see whether an alien looks like those pictures of them.” She changed back to the reporting station.

Anchor Newsman Kelley summarized the background story and switched to the stadium display where the fireworks were being viewed. The celebration took second place to the General Wiseman and the alien. The news makers appeared on the 25,000 square foot screen, normally used for live football games.

 The alien had arms pale as skin that never sees sunlight. The overall shape of the face was roughly like a rounded triangle, narrowing to the chin. Two eyes covered over half its face, appearing like eggplants set on end with the point downward. The nose slits were situated over a tiny mouth.

“This is S.A. WY3,” said the General. “Welcome S.A. WY3.” General Wiseman shook hands with the alien—Wiseman’s five fingers with the alien’s three. “His real name is unpronounceable, as is his species’ name. We call the aliens Life Form 1, because we may meet more life forms. I learned their language and will interpret.” To the alien he asked, “Why did you choose this time to make yourself known to the people of earth?”

The alien’s voice might be called musical, except the music expressed neither major nor minor keys. The sounds consisted totally of dissonant chords.

           “wknosn’as )(d.wQ?Q *Q)#3lnalic)* &@TXOA,” said S.A. WY3.

           “There is sufficient technology now to cooperate with your species to overcome the entity called ‘God’,” said the General. “He is your enemy as well as ours. The disappearances are from relocating the traitors, people who became aligned with God.”

General Wiseman listened, then spoke again. “God does not promote the world’s point of view on anything. We have come to re-instate freedoms because God’s teachings infiltrated your laws.”

The interpretation came again from the General. “We will expose God’s plan to take over the world by force and place someone called ‘Jesus’ as king. I will ask S.A. WY3 how they will be using technology. Oen,msociIOOS#dCSlkje.VNxop?”

“LP(/wqn,.cz07a ?+02la;ndfhbidy osIXis)&@ b9sx0,” said S.A. WY3. 

Resuming the interpretations, the General gave the answer. “We will show your scientists a form of cooling which will allow computers to be smaller, faster, and more powerful.”

The next garbled sounds apparently made sense to the General because he interpreted again. “Working with universities’ bio-engineering departments, we are developing ways to integrate animals’ abilities and our species’ abilities into earthly beings.

Then General Wiseman asked, “Will people be able to become like their superheroes?”

“Xodfi7as6f.”

General Wiseman faced the camera only long enough to say, “The answer is yes.” Then he returned his attention back to the newcomer. “When will this happen?”

After receiving an answer, he said, “As soon as all countries of the earth cooperate with us to develop a one world government and a one world leader. That is all S.A. WY3 wants to say right now.”

The General and alien dissolved from the screen.

Jaden Kelley again gazed into the main camera. “Here beside me is Reverend Blander of the Faith Standard Church to discuss this so-called rapture.” He turned to the Reverend. “What is the rapture?”

“It is the transporting of believers to heaven at the Second Coming of Christ. My church is sure the time for that is a long way off yet.”

“How many members does your church have and how many people are missing?”

“Faith Standard Church has 5,000 members. Only five or six people are gone.”

“How do you explain the disappearance of only a few members, since the missing people seem to be mostly Christian?”

“We can’t keep track of them all. If it really were the rapture, overwhelming numbers from our church would be gone. The disappearance of the few can probably be explained.”

“Is the rapture associated with something called, ‘the tribulation’?”

“The tribulation does not happen until the world comes to an end, supposedly after the rapture.”

“What was your opinion of the alien’s speech?”

“God is not an enemy. God is love. God loves everyone. I’m sure that includes the aliens. I expect God and the aliens will work together to bring worldwide peace.”

“So, the thoughts of superhero like abilities and faster computers does not bother you?”

“Aliens are bringing progress and progress is always good.”

“Thank you Reverend. We will return to the Independence Day Fireworks Celebration. In the meanwhile, we at KXXY will be gathering more information.”

“It’s about time they ended the report and got back to the show,” said Andrea before crunching a potato chip.”

“Don’t you even care that aliens are here?” asked Beth.

The teenager shrugged. “It’s probably all hype like the news media does all the time.”

“When will you believe? When you are abducted by some unknown force?”

Andrea laughed. “Do you believe it was – .” She curled her fingers to indicate a quote. “The rapture.”

Beth finished the last chip and shrugged her shoulders too. “I keep remembering what I heard in Sunday School. About God hating sin and that everyone sins.” She smashed the potato chip bag and used the trashcan as a goal. It missed.

“Now there’s a term you don’t hear much,” said Andrea. “‘Sin.’ I don’t worry about sin. Do you?”

In singsong, Beth said, “’God is love. God hates sin. God says to love your enemies. God says sin must be punished.’ I don’t know what they believe.”

“That’s childish. We know better now, don’t we?”

“Yeah . . . Hey, I have an idea. I still own a Bible. Shall we read what Jesus is all about and what God is supposed to do next?”

“Sure, why not?”