A candid talk with Herb, the alien.

601/2 Parsecs Due East of the Milky Way Galaxy
By Joseph Walther


Several months ago, a friend of mine told me, “The Vatican has made contact with aliens and they believe in God.” Yes, he actually said this…in front of two other witnesses. He is a well-educated individual; and he was stone cold sober when he said it. He emphasized that the Vatican Observatory in Rome, Italy had confirmed the alien contact.

I asked him if there had been any independent witnesses to such an extraordinary event, or had it been another case of someone being all alone when this burning bush started to speak. He told me that the Vatican would not release any details. “I don’t blame them”, I said. However, I asked him how he found out. Had the Vatican called him? Sent him an email? Sent him a telegram or letter? “I read it on the Internet”, he told me. “Oh, then that’s that”, I said, still trying to stifle waves of heaving laughter. “Everyone knows that if someone goes to the trouble of publishing it on the Internet, it just has to be true,” I continued.

Anyway, sometime later, I was working on my computer. I dropped my pen and bent over to pick it up. As I did so, I heard a rather dull thud and suddenly found myself face-to-face with this… um… alien. He stood about 4-feet tall, had an oval-shaped head with huge round bulging eyes. His mouth was small. He had no nose but had the biggest, pointiest ears I have ever seen. He was wearing some kind of a brilliant white robe. He seemed to sort of hover in mid-air. I must have seemed startled because he began talking to me in a very calming way, assuring me that he met me no harm. He told me to call him Herb.

Remembering the claims made by my friend about aliens believing in God, I asked him if I could interview him on behalf of the citizens of Planet Earth. He replied, “That’s a great idea, dude, ask me anything you want. No one on your planet will believe you anyway, especially when you try telling them that my planet is sixty and a half parsecs due east of the Milky Way Galaxy.” The interview follows:

The True Facts
The Vatican claims that you’ve spoken to them and that you believe in God.

Herb:
The Vatican? Oh, you mean the Pope gig and all that stuff? The infallible one and all that?

The True Facts:
Yes

Herb:
Why would we want to make contact with the Vatican? If we were interested in the human race, we’d choose people with brains, like Albert Einstein or Carl Sagan.

The True Facts:
Well, they’re both dead.

Herb:
Oh, that’s right. We heard about it. Well, Stephen Hawkings will do, then.

The True Facts:
Gee, Herb, he’s busier than a cat burying shit on a tin roof right now. I think it has something to do with a unification theory or something like that.

Herb:
I know. We’d still like to talk to him. He has a tiny mistake in one of his equations. As soon as he corrects it, all of the mysteries of the universe will become crystal clear.

The True Facts:
Um, would you like me to send the correction to him?

Herb:
You? You are joking, right? You don’t even understand Tensor Calculus!

The True Facts:
So, you never contacted the Vatican. Is this correct?

Herb:
Right-on, Bucko!

The True Facts:
Well do you know if there is a God?

Herb:
What? Are you kidding? How the hell should we know?

The True Facts:
I guess I just assumed that you folks are some sort of advanced civilization.

Herb:
We are! It’s no big deal, though. All civilizations, compared to most of Planet Earth, are advanced. Don’t take this personally, but you folks are, relatively speaking, stupid. You can’t help it. You people under use you mental potential so badly that it’s hard to believe that you haven’t destroyed yourselves already.

The True Facts:
That bad, huh?

Herb:
Let me put it this way. Aliens throughout the galaxies for parsecs around, look at Earth as sort of the Alabama of the universe. We know you are there, but we’re just too damned ashamed to acknowledge you.

The True Facts:
Anything specific that bothers you about us? What make you guys so advanced?

Herb:
Here’s a few, but there simply aren’t enough paper resources on your planet to list all of them. Besides, you wouldn’t understand most of them.

Herb:
Your mental capacity, individually and collectively, is so underutilized. You could eliminate ninety percent of your problems by increasing your modes of sensory perception and developing that aspect of your brains to the limit, instead of relying on tradition and the “conventional wisdom”.

The True Facts:
Um… like what?

Herb:
Take gravity for instance. What’s to figure out about this? You are busting cranial blood vessels trying to figure this out. There’s nothing to figure out. Get a life.

The True Facts:
Oh yeah, not even Einstein could figure it out.

Herb:
That’s what you think, pea brain. He understood warped space. That’s gravity, Buckaroos! Think of it this way. You live with your wife, who is a petite 120 pounds. You, because you drink too much beer and eat too many hot wings, weigh 450 pounds. When you climb into bed next to her, she rolls towards you. Vanity-driven as you are, you think its love. It isn’t. It’s gravity, stupid! Think of the mattress and box spring as the universe. Your huge mass warps a lot more space than her smaller mass… get the picture?

Religion is another big issue with you Earthlings. However, no one on your planet has had an original idea or undertaken a restructure in thought for over two thousand years. Times and circumstances are not static.


The True Facts:
Can anything go faster than the speed of light?

Herb:
Yes, government workers at quitting time! Pull your skivvies out of your butt; I’m just kidding. Back to your question…No, Einstein was right about this. No physical entity can move faster than the speed of light.

The True Facts:
Then, how did you get here so fast? I may not understand Tensor Calculus but I can multiply. Let’s see. I believe that 60.5 parsecs times 3.25 light-years per parsec is about 196 light-years. Right?

Herb:
Correct, you are! However, the assumption that physical travel is the only way to get around the universe is a tad short sighted. Thoughts are not physical and they can travel much faster than light. With the proper mindset, a thought can put a body anywhere in the universe in an instant. Children do it all of the time.

The True Facts:
Yea, but kids do a lot of pretending. They imagine stuff. Adults know better.

Herb:
Yes, they sure do. This is one of your major problems. “What the mind can conceive, the body can achieve.” Have you ever heard this? Kids believe it. Adults do not! What a shame.

Children possess unlimited modes of sensory perception, but they lack the knowledge and logic to apply them and control their actions. Adults possess the later but have lost most of the former by the time they’re adults. This is what happens when an educational process is comprised of giving people things to memorize instead of problems to solve.

Think for a second, Dum Dum. Am I physically present, speaking with you? Or, is my sensory power so advanced that I can make you believe it? Think about it.

The True Facts:
Do you people practice abortion?

Herb:
I knew you’d get around to this stuff sooner or later. NO, we do not practice abortion. It isn’t a question of morality with us. Abortion is not necessary. When we engage in copulative behavior, we do it because it feels good and is fun. If we wish to procreate, however, both participants must agree. Once two minds meld in this manner, both parties gladly assume total and equal responsibility for the welfare of the offspring until such a time as the child reaches maturity. There is no need for an abortion because there are no “accidents”.

The True Facts:
What about birth defects? Suppose that you discover a genetic problem?

Herb:
Science eliminated those problems eons ago. Science also solved the problems of taking care of our material needs, freeing up mental capacity to delve into matters that are more important.

The True Facts:
Do you people have wars and crime?

Herb:
No. In terms of your years, I am 1,345 years old. I have never experienced a war or a crime. Our civilization knows that unsatisfied material need is a major cause of crime. Unfulfilled psychological need is an even bigger instigator of crime. We are happy with who we are, as well as what we have. Our people are high on life and we don’t need external stimuli to help us along.

Your minds are too preoccupied with stupid things: sexuality, the dictation of morality, politics, and satisfying enormous egos, to name just a few.

The True Facts:
Are there homosexuals you your planet?

Herb:
See what I mean? You people spend way too much time on things that mean nothing. Boys kissing should not even register on the “concern’ scale. This is especially true when so many members of your civilization are starving, even with an abundant food supply.

Here is a news flash. Sex is supposed to be pleasurable. It’s one of the primary reasons for people doing it As long as it is not forced and the participants are eligible and of sound mind, same sex activity is irrelevant. Your Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are wrong about this. Only on Planet Earth do people keep tabs on harmless, same sex fun.

The True Facts:
But, you are a Godless civilization?

Herb:
Whoa! Who told you that?

The True Facts:
You did, just a few minutes ago.

Herb:
No, I didn’t. I said that we don’t know if there is a God. Many of us believe that there is. But knowing and believing are not the same. The rest of the universe understands this simple concept. Earthlings do not. This is why you are killing one and other over who has the best imaginary friend. Earthlings comprise the only civilization in the universe that claims an omniscient, omnipotent, and ever-present God, yet feels compelled to help Him when it comes to venting His wrath on the alleged misbehavers and outright unbelievers. Such is not the God of my faith.

We also make sure that everyone’s beliefs are included.

The True Facts:
What about Intelligent Design Theory? Do you think there is anything to it?

Herb:
There may be. I, personally, believe that there is. However, on my planet, individuals don’t get to have their opinions turned into law.

True science is the same throughout the universe. The rules are the same. Form a hypothesis. Set up continual tests against the hypothesis. Reevaluate the hypothesis against the test results. This is how scientists throughout the universe develop theories. No one proves a theory “right”. Once formed, a theory remains in force until circumstances show it to be invalid.

It isn’t that Intelligent Design Theory is invalid by nature, but rather the fact that it isn’t falsifiable. In other words, because it isn’t susceptible to contradicting evidence, it is not a testable hypothesis. It just isn’t science. Is any of this stuff sinking in, boy?

The True Facts:
Well, let me tell you, Herb. A lot of people are raising hell over this here on Earth. Our President, George Bush and the Majority Leader in our Senate, Bill Frist, believe that we should be teaching Intelligent Design Theory along with Evolution in our public schools.

Herb:
You people are doomed!

Hold on. Something is happening here. You are breaking up, Herb. Don’t go! My head is beginning to ache. Geez, how’d I get on the floor like this? Holy crap, my head really hurts, now. Where did I get this huge hickey on my forehead? God, it hurts. I must have hit my head on the edge of the computer table when I bent down to get my pen.

I must have passed out. I need to tell Lonesome Polecat and Hairless Joe about that bad batch of Kickapoo Joy Juice.

What a crazy ass dream. Herb, come back. Herb, you still there?

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send email to: TheTrueFacts@comcast.net