AmEarth

Brianna was in her sixth-grade history class, sitting with her best friend, Camilla, and her best male friend, Anton. The teacher projected a video onto the smart board and asked all the children to be quiet and pay attention. Most girls were secretly using their phone wafers, but the teacher hit a button on his desk and they all started ringing, calling out the culprits.

“Anyone with a wafer ringing needs to turn it off right now.”

“Phone off,” Camilla said.

“Phone off,” Brianna said to her phone, just as many others did the same.

The video began with the seal of the president of the United States. Then, the audio came on, and the class could hear gradually diminishing clapping followed by the voice of Donald Trump, the forty-fifthourth pPresi ashe began hisis last Statof the Union aaAaddress, bac in024167.

“Listen, listen carefully, please. I am here today with a momentous announcement that goes well beyond my tenure as president of the United States. It is about the Truth, with a capital T.” In the early part of the space race, all of us saw the competition between two powerful nations with opposing political systems attempting to master space. When we reached the moon, we were a jubilant and excited country, but that was fortyforty-s-eigiftI was only twenty twoseven! Since that proud momemerica has sped past all of its neighbors….”

Clapping and smiles of approval interrupted President Trump. She paused and gestured with her hand for the crowd to stop.

“As I was saying, America has sped past all of its neighbors at great economic cost. But the reality behind the aim of this massive space program was not only to reach the moon or to launch satellites; it was about our survival as a species.”

There was a hushed mumbling and then silence fell over the entire hall.

“We have been sending unmanned spaceships to another planet in our galaxy twenty-three point five eight 23.5 light away. We have been sending these unmanned ships with cultural and technological information discoveriesd for over fiftsixtyy5ars. thermore, we have been communicating with alien beings on this planet through radio frequencies, but the response time is twenty-three and a half years! Therefore, we only have a fractured conversation. America has kept this information secret from the world, but today, I am afraid that it must be shared. Some of America’s technological prowess and superiority can be attributed to controlled leaks of the information shared with the aliens. Although America has profited in some ways from the technological advantages afforded by this knowledge, we did not keep these secrets solely for our benefit! We have done so because our greatest interest is the survival of our species. Releasing this information too early could have turned our planet into a chaotic mess. Today, we finally have the tools for mass communication that are needed to prevent this chaos. Ninety-nine percent 99% of theld has some connection to information and we have been in communication with over two hundred200 governts so that this speech can play live and be translated on all television stations and Internet sites. stations. et is also going to force people to view as they connect. By this time tomorrow, we expect ninety-nine percent 99% of the world’s potion to be aware of this important tTruth.”

A sudden buzz of voices and commotion erupted on the floor and balconies of Congress.

“Calm down, calm down. We are in no imminent alien danger. We are simply confirming to the world something that we have all known for a long time.”

Trump paused for effect.

“We are not alone in the universe…but I must stress this: no ship is going to arrive carrying aliens to the Earth and we have not sent anyone there. That is simple math. There is no science fiction warp speed or wormhole that can magically connect our two planets. Our fastest rockets traveling to Kepler 3763, the alien planet so named by astronomers, move at half the speed of light, and they are small vessels carrying tiny payloads and lots of fuel. Imagine a USB drive traveling at 100,000 miles per second, on a predetermined course. We’re not even sure if our ships will make the journey and no confirmation of their arrival is possible until roughtly twenty four years after the forty-seven-year journey. That places the first pmation exist and we believe contact was successful but it is still unconfirmed.”

“Let me be very clear about this next point; no life form could withstand that journey. It is as impossible for them as it is for us. It takes forty-seven years to get there, and there is no ship that could hold a live human being with all his needs supplied that can also travel at 100,000 miles per second!

“We expect alien ships traveling at roughly that same speed to arrive in our atmosphere at some point. We cannot know where they will land and the odds are that they will hit water and not land, but we are prepared to retrieve and study these ships. We expect that they will have cultural and technological information that will be of interest to everyone on the planet and we intend to share it. Of course, it must be quarantined to first ensure that no biological or nuclear threat exists, but we do not expect hostility from this advanced alien society.

“Both planets have a commonality and from our communications, we have been able to decipher some of their language and music, and we have sent ours to them as well. We are going to begin a sharing process with all the countries on the planet of these technologies and cultural discoveries. Most of the world’s leaders, as well as a select group from Congress and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have known about this for some time. America is uniquely positioned as we have the communication line to the alien society and the expertise to study whatever they send us. We have entered into agreements with most countries of the world to be the firsthand responders at the impact point to examine any alien ship.”

Mr. Edwards, Brianna’s history teacher, turned the video off and turned the lights back on. Brianna was interested in the video, although many of these words seemed like old news. She knew about the alien threat, but Trump had been playing it down back then. She had seen this video a few dozen times; they all had. She raised her hand.

“Yes, Brianna?” Mr. Edwards said.

“I was wondering what happened. Why are we so afraid of the aliens now? Trump said that they couldn’t hurt us.”

“Good question, Bri. It’s called fear-mongering. Has anyone here heard President Chen Tyson espouse the view that the aliens are dangerous?”

“No,” many students replied.

“Exactly! We have no certainty that the aliens will pose any threat to humans. All of their ship landings have proven to be harmless and technologically interesting to humanity.”

“Then why are we building the honeycomb protection system? My dad is an engineer working there,” Anton asked sincerely.

“It is merely for prevention, just prevention. It doesn’t imply an imminent threat,” Mr. Edwards said robotically, as though this was his established pat response.

“Well, I’m scared.” Camilla said.

“So am I,” Bri agreed.

“Listen up, boys and girls. It is simply an insurance policy. It is there ‘just in case.’ It is only being built for a very unlikely scenario. Are you afraid of flying in a plane? No, of course not. Because the odds are in the millions to one that something bad will ever happen. Well, this time the odds are in the billions, so we shouldn’t have anything to worry about.”

“I don’t like flying,” Camilla whispered to Bri and Anton. They both laughed, but quieted down at Mr. Edwards’s stern glare.