September. 1976. The Shah is in power. The carpets are Persian. And up in the sky... There is a light. A blinking, flashing, rotating light. Is it a star? Is it a bird? Is it a weather balloon filled with swamp gas? No. It’s something that is going to make the Imperial Iranian Air Force look... Very silly. General Yusefi picks up the phone (ring ring). "Hello? Yes? A bright light? Well, send up an F-4 Phantom to take a bite!" Pilot Jahfari straps in the jet. He’s got Sidewinder missiles, he’s all set. He breaks the sound barrier, boom-boom shake-the-room. He approaches the object, prepared for doom. It’s flashing blue! It’s flashing green! It’s the wildest disco he’s ever seen! I’m gonna shoot the alien! I’m gonna lock on with radar! I’m gonna show this galaxy who the real primates are! (Click... click...) Wait. Why did my dashboard go dark? Why did my radio die? The alien just hit "Mute" on my fly-by! I have no power! I have no comms! I’m flying a brick over Tayran's palms! The Mothership. It’s mocking me. It’s hovering there, defying aero dynamics. And then... it gives birth. A smaller, glowing orb detaches from the bottom. Is it a missile? Is it a probe? Is it a baby? It’s coming right for me. I try to fire. I try to eject. I try to pray to a deity I’ve neglected. The tech-nology of 1976 is no match for a civilization that mastered gravity. (Obviously.) The orb circles me. It does a lap. It’s literally trolling me. It’s a celestial tea bagging. Imagine traveling for-tee lightyears. Through the vacuum of space. Past black holes.Past nebulas. Just to come to Earth... And disable the ee-leck-tronics on a McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II. Why? Is it a test? Is it a warning? Or did they just want to see if we would try to shoot them? (Spoiler alert: We always try to shoot them.) We are monkeys with car keys. And they just took away the keys. They turned off the car. And now we are plummeting. THE INSTRUMENTS CAME BACK ON! AS SOON AS I TURNED AWAY! IT'S A PRANK! IT'S AN INTER-GALACTIC PRANK! THEY ARE LAUGHING AT US! THEY LANDED IN A DRY LAKE BED! AND WE FOUND NOTHING! WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE?! IT'S RAY-DEE-ATION! IT'S MAGNETISM! Ugh... IT'S EMBARRASSING! The pilot landed safely. The report was filed. The US Defense Intel Agency said, "Huh. That’s weird." And the aliens went home. Probably to upload the footage to Space YouTube. "Watch me freak out this hairless ape." (Millions of views). Goodnight, Tay-rahn. Keep watching the skies. But maybe leave the missiles at home next time.
