by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
I have an extremely active imagination. So much so, I spend most of my time daydreaming about scenarios. Lately, of course, I’ve started to use this knack more productively by writing a novel. The point is — do not take the following seriously. It’s meant to entertain the way a History Channel program about “ancient aliens” is meant to entertain you while you’re high / drunk both after a party.
So, there’s this thing zooming towards the general area of Mars. It’s called C2019Q4. What makes it unique is it appears to be interstellar in nature. It’s also apparently reasonably large and going faster than it should otherwise. And it’s set to reach the Mars area Dec. 7ths of all times.
The thing about this type of space event is the lay person simply doesn’t have the context to properly know what’s going on. And given that any suggestion that the object may not be purely of a natural origin is enough to make “serious” people think you’re nuts, the natural inclination is to do everything in your power to suggest it’s just another rock from outside the solar system zooming towards us.
I’m not prepared to suggest that it’s some sort of alien probe sent to take a looky-loo at us. But that won’t stop be from simply running the scenario because, like I said, I have a very, very over-active imagination. So with that in mind, let’s take an enormous leap into every scifi fan’s fever dream — what if C2019Q4 was to become an object that was difficult for us to deny some sort of extraterrestrial involvement?
I think the first thing that would happen is all the government-funded telescopes looking at it would go dark. It would happen all at once. If the C2019Q4 started acting weird or became too conspicuous is its make up, the first reaction would be to go dark so as not to alarm the public. This would not stop amature observers from continuing to look at it.
The big wild card is Trump. Trump can not keep a secret to save his life. So there’s a decent chance that Trump would tweet something like, “You can’t impeach me, I have to speak to the aliens.” Or something equally crazy.
I guess the only reason why I even bring this idea up is it fits too much into how I imagine First Contact would happen. ET is more likely to zoom past Mars than it is actually land on the planet. That, in fact, might be any ETs way of preparing First Contact in the first place. Not do it all in one fell swoop, but give us a heads up of some sort that we’re not alone.
Anyway, this is just a daydream. C2019Q4 is not of any type of alien nature. It’s just a weird rock that we’ve noticed. This type of stuff probably happens all the time and we’re only just now figuring out how to detect it.
