Uncle Dan

Uncle Dan was always annoying but on the rare occasion he was right about something, he was completely unbearable. For years, actually decades, he invariably took over Thanksgiving dinner with tales of flying saucers and abductions and unnecessarily graphic descriptions of orifices being probed as our family passed the turkey and mashed potatoes around the table. He’d take out his phone and play old clips of him calling into Coast to Coast AM discussing his theories and experiences with George Noory. I swore if I had to hear about how he met Bob Lazar at a Waffle House in Tucson one more time, I was going to puke. 

I used to think it was an elaborate, Kaufman-esque piece of performance art strategically designed to make people lose their appetites so he could have an extra helping of Grandma Rose’s semi-famous stuffing. I wouldn’t blame him. The stuffing was really good. But now that the aliens were officially here, I realized how much I hated being wrong and I had learned that there nothing was worse than having to listen to someone insufferable tell you how right their absurd declarations were. 

The spacecraft had appeared three days before Thanksgiving. There was no warning. NASA hadn’t known about it. It hadn’t shown up on any military or civilian radar. It just appeared above Mount Whitney and hung in the sky. It wasn’t the typical flying saucer or black triangle or cigar-shaped craft that we were used to seeing in grainy cell phone videos uploaded to YouTube. It was just a massive black rectangle that hovered in silence above the highest peak in the continental United States. The eyewitnesses who had rushed to the local news stations to give their accounts of its appearance without exception said there was a crack and a whoosh and then they’d been pulled to the ground by an invisible force. The onlookers had reported that the snow and pines and even some small boulders had risen into the air, hovered for a moment, and then crashed back to earth when the giant obsidian craft had appeared. For three days there hadn’t been any contact. No one knew where the craft was from or what its occupants wanted. Every station had 24-hour coverage of the appearance. It was the greatest exercise in talking without saying anything that humankind has ever seen and, after the first day, Grandma Rose got sick of the empty banter and turned on MeTV to watch some old episodes of The Big Valley.

The appearance of the craft was a paradigm-altering event for sure but nothing was really happening and Grandma Rose had already bought everything for Thanksgiving so we decided to stick with tradition and get together for the usual awkward, wine-soaked start to the holiday season. 

So there we were - a family that only kinda liked each other gathered around an ancient oak dining table listening to Uncle Dan take a victory lap. He was two bottles of wine into the night and slouched at the corner of the table with his eyes drooping and his shoulders slouching. He sloppily pontificated about what the arrival of what he dubbed 'the Andromonoids' meant. Since he was the only self-proclaimed alien abductee at the table, he felt he was more than qualified to be the exclusive voice to speculate about their motives. 

“They’re scared of us. That’s why they’re here now. If I was president of Space Force, I’d be getting them before they get us. ” Uncle Dan slurred.

“Can you pass the sweet potatoes honey?” Grandma Rose asked Dad.

“Why would they be scared of us Dan?” Mom said.

“They think they’re top dogs now but they know. They know…” He topped off his wine glass with Cabernet. 

“They’re just sitting there.” I said. “They’re not hurting anyone.”

“Listen little niece, no one who takes a chunk outta someone’s butthole is full of peace and flowers.”

“Dan, that’s enough.” Mom said.

“Seriously. Why would they take a chunk out of my butthole if they weren’t afraid.” 

“No one took a chunk out of your butthole dear.” Grandma Rose said.

“Wanna bet.” 

Dan stood and loosened his belt. I looked into my green beans and prayed someone would intervene. Grandma Rose scooped another helping of sweet potatoes onto her plate and politely told Uncle Dan that his pants had to stay on during dinner. Uncle Dan huffed and sat back down. 

“If people want to see it after dinner you can show them sweetheart.” Grandma Rose said. 

Uncle Dan poked at his turkey and everyone ate in silence. 

In the corner of the living room, the TV was on but muted. It was turned to Fox News because, of course, Uncle Dan had insisted on it. The screen had a continuous side-by-side feed of the craft and whatever talking head they had dug up to fill the schedule. F-22s lazily circled in the pale blue sky around the craft. Fox cut to a shot of hippies, alien enthusiasts, and influencers who had gathered in Death Valley. It was a sea of tie-dye, faded camo, and women with hombre cuts wearing short shorts and floppy hats trying to capture the perfect UFO selfie. Uncle Dan said he wouldn’t be getting that close if he was there. 

Then, finally, something happened. The air around the craft started to glow. It was like an aurora borealis in broad daylight. Uncle Dan rushed to the TV and turned up the sound. An unnaturally blond reporter was mid-speculation as she informed the anchor about the newest development. 

“…to be emitting radiation and, as you can hear, there’s a hum coming from the craft now. The F-22s seem to have pulled back and...”

“Sorry to interrupt Madison,” the Anchor interrupted, “but it looks like the craft is opening up. Is that what you’re seeing on the ground?” 

The reporter turned around and the photojournalist zoomed in. Sure enough, there was now what looked like an entrance on the bottom of the ship directly above the summit of the mountain. You couldn’t really see anything though. It was just an opening that led to a dark void. The reporter informed the anchor that the humming was getting louder. On our screen, the focus of the zoomed-in camera oscillated between clear and fuzzy and we could hear the crowd cheering in the background of the broadcast.  

“This is it. They’re going to start the atmosphere on fire.” Uncle Dan proclaimed. “God, I fucking knew it. I hate being right.” 

A spire shot out from the bottom of the craft. It moved so fast that the air cracked like a tree that had been snapped in half and everyone on the television covered their ears and ducked. There was an explosion of rock and snow at the top of the mountain and, when the debris settled, we could see a silver tower sticking out of the summit. It looked small on TV but it must have been close to ten stories high. Then the spaceship started to spin. It rotated so fast that the remaining snow on the mountain was sucked into the air and filled the screen with vibrant, almost natural colors. It spun so fast that it seemed to lose its original rectangle shape and morphed into a disk. Then there was another crack and the ship was gone. The only evidence it had been there was the silver spire and the disappointed crowd. 

Uncle Dan stared at the TV. He swayed back and forth and I clenched my teeth as I watched the red wine in his glass come precariously close to the edge. After a moment, he turned and faced us. He was breathing through his mouth and his eyes were glassy and confused. 

“They left.” He mumbled. “Why would they come all this way and leave?”

“Sit down honey.” Grandma Rose said. “They were probably looking for intelligent life and realized there wasn’t any here.” 

I snorted and wine almost came out through my nose. I took another scoop of stuffing and said. “That makes total sense.”

Uncle Dan sat down and stared at his plate. Grandma Rose and I locked eyes. She smiled and winked and asked my cousin to pass the salt.