Word Count: 300 Max
Genre: Whimsy
Written on:
Not part of a contest but was inspired by jokes with The Eleveneers for Whimsy Fiction writing comp
The following is an excerpt from the textbook Modern Scientific History By Dr. AH Warmly
On February 14th, 2027 every electronic device with a screen and a speaker showed a stream of strange symbols and made a high-pitched buzzing noise. The incident persisted for over an hour, causing people to worry about possible nuclear or cyber warfare. The hysteria that followed had governments blaming each other, businesses blaming hacker organizations, and AI blaming a man named Heath Brownson who died of cardiovascular disease in 1992.
It was not until a few years later that an eighteen-year-old cryptanalyst prodigy named Anna Mestlings discovered what the true cause was. Though at the time the scientific community, led by Dr. Mark Sounders, rejected this young genius’s theory on the merit that it was too ridiculous to be true.
Dear Earth,
Though we have come to you and killed many of those large, annoying mammals with leaky nipples and given you the blessings of a good probing many times, you have not reciprocated our kindness.
We have left many notes in the fields of the long yellow plants that we would very much like to feel. They appear ribbed for our pleasure.
Please reply.
It is thanks to Dr. Mestling’s bet with Dr. Sounders that we now have anti-gravitation propulsion technology. The message she sent back was:
Dear Aliens,
We did not want to come off as rude, but we have no way to get to you in order to probe you with the item we call corn. If you come to [Coordinates of Stanford University] and share your knowledge of intergalactic travel. Then my colleague would be more than happy to reciprocate the probing.
Regards,
Please see chapter 27 on the first case of xeno-relationships and more on Dr. Sounders.