Alien invasion imminent

With the coming of spring comes a season of change. Out with the old, in with the new, yada yada yada. But what if this spring or a spring in the future brings something REALLY new? What if, as you are enjoying the sunshine in your backyard, aliens arrive on earth, in your country, in your neighbourhood, in YOUR backyard? What are you going to do? Do you know how to enact a friendly first contact with extraterrestrials? Here are some things you need to know, even if you don’t believe in aliens (what if you are wrong?).

The first thing you need to remember is to stay still. If the aliens have ever been to a new world, or landed somewhere on Earth before deciding on your neighbourhood, they’ve probably come across some creature that flails, flops, or flees when approached. Hence, if you do anything of the sort, those nice intelligent aliens will probably assume you are a dumb beast (not the not-talking type of beast, an actual dumb one). So, keeping still is your best bet for staying alive and proving you have some semblance of intelligence.

The second thing you need to know is that once contact is established, don’t try to impress them with anything. They won’t be uneducated savages. Think about it: they’ve managed interstellar travel which, at the rate of Earth’s technology, probably won’t be developed here for a long, long time. So if you try to do a show-and-tell with the aliens, they will have seen it. I promise. This doesn’t mean don’t show them anything, however. Go ahead, turn on your computer. Cook something in the microwave. It will prove to them that YOU aren’t the uneducated savage. Just don’t expect them to be all that impressed.

The third thing that you are going to want to know can be learned from any alien movie. Once a friendly contact is established, don’t try to hide it. Inevitably, some powerful politician will for some reason want to silence you and take the alien for himself. SO TELL EVERYBODY! Grandparents, parents, friends, neighbours, pen pals, everybody! Most people probably won’t believe you, but the more you tell the higher chance someone will, right? So in summary, stay still, don’t show off, and scream about it from the mountain top. With me so far?

If for some reason the aliens want to keep things quiet, go with it. They are probably more persuasive than you anyway. So if they want to be friends and invite you aboard their ship, there is another thing you should know. DON’T. TOUCH. ANYTHING. And not the don’t-touch-anything-you’ll-probably-break-it that your mom always tells you when you enter a china shop, which you ignore and quickly touch everything you can. Two things can happen if you touch something. Remember how if you have little siblings and they come and mash every key on your computer keyboard, and it messes everything up really easily? Whatever computer-type-thing the aliens have is probably a lot more complicated and a lot more powerful. Even if you recognize it, don’t touch it. You’ll just mess it up. The second thing that could happen if you touch anything is you’ll die. Inevitably you’ll be drawn to the brightest, shiniest thing, which will probably end up being some sort of energy core and you’ll die. Don’t do it. With this, of course, comes the strict rule to not eat anything. It’s probably not meant for human consumption. Even if it looks and tastes like chicken, it probably isn’t.

One more thing. If the aliens are indeed hostile, don’t call in the army. Don’t try to fight back. It is guaranteed to mess things up. My advice to you is play nice, say your prayers, and perhaps be their slave. If you try to fight, remember that they’ve travelled billions of miles to your planet. Do you really think that if they have developed engines like that, they’d neglect shields and weapons? And how bad can being a slave to an incredibly intelligent race be? Instead of working at a fast food place, you get to use their incredibly efficient cooking machines to bring them food. Shucks.

So, to sum up your plan for the greatest encounter of human history, stay still, don’t show off, tell everybody, keep your hands to yourself, and don’t fight back. It won’t get you anywhere. Here’s hoping that the aliens decide to land on some backyard inhabited by someone with a lot better social skills than you and me, but at least you can say you were prepared.

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