Contact (2029)
This story is about coming into contact with a friendly alien species who land on Earth. It is a story for everyone and all age groups.
It was a cool late afternoon in October and the sky had been overcast for days.
From the corner of my eye, I noticed that something didn’t seem quite right about the sky. I turned my body and focused my gaze towards this object that seems to have been suspended. At first I thought that I was dreaming and so my immediate reaction was to observe the reaction of others. I even asked a senior couple next to me, if they were seeing what I, what all of us were looking at. Clearly, it looked more like a scene out of a movie versus what I was witnessing right in front of me.
I noticed a strange sensation going throughout my body. It was a feeling of utter calm. It was almost as if this vessel that I was looking at was communicating with me. It was not a numbing sensation. But pure calm. It was almost like the feeling that I’d get when I would walk out of the gym after a good workout and a warm shower.
A couple of minutes may have passed and a crowd had begun to converge in the park that I happened to be at. It was just our luck that this strange vessel was directly above us. There did not seem to be any panic or any feelings of anxiety being experienced by anyone. So I began to wonder if everyone was feeling what I had been feeling. If so, I wonder who or what was inside of the vessel that we were all looking at. As well, how is this thing, these beings communicating with us on what appeared to be a psychological. It was almost as if something was controlling the endocrine system of everyone from a distance.
Shortly thereafter, the military and the police arrived and everyone was instructed to clear the area that was directly under the vessel.
I called my mom and asked her if she was watching what was going on. My parent’s house was not too far away from the park that I was at and I was visiting them for reading week. My mother was watching the news unfold on tv and she insisted that I immediately head back towards home. I told my mother that I will be fine and decided to hang-up on the call. I tried to call my friends Arjun and Julie, but at this point the lines were jammed.
The military and law-enforcement units were quick to put a barricade around the site. There were different barricades. So it wasn’t like someone could climb over the first two series of fences and they’d once again be directly under the vessel.
By now a crowd was beginning to gather around the site. I had never been a fan of large crowds and I started to retreat from the grounds and towards the incline. Around the same time I received a call from Arjun and it just happened to be the case that he was with Julie. We decided to get together at the meeting point where we would often gather around as kids. There was still a bit of a forest left right in the middle of the city.
I found my way to the rendezvous point. It felt good to connect with my friends. Even though I did not feel any negative feelings from what we had all been observing. That being said, it felt good to be in the company of friends.
Getting together meant we needed to share with each other what we had been observing. So the meter for excitement and borderline disbelief spiked again.
Arjun had some snacks in his backpack, which was great. As I had skipped lunch.
The area where we were at was hilly. There was a ridge that looped around the field around the park. This was probably the largest tract of green in the entire city. We knew that if we follow the trail atop the ridge, then it would bring us to this junction that would be directly under the landing site. We would still be behind the barricades. But there would not be anyone else around. Because the path was filled with rocks, it was very uneven, you had to walk through shrubs and barely anyone took this path anymore.
So half an hour later, we found ourselves to be exactly in the spot we wanted to be.
By now the sun was nudging the horizon. It had started to get colder. It was a good thing that all of us had our jackets on. The vessel was barely a couple of kilo-meters from the surface.
We could see the glint reflecting off of the surface of this strange toroidal shaped vessel.
I asked Julie if she suspected that the vessel was slowly lowering itself down. Indeed, Julie confirmed my suspicion and mentioned that she had observed a couple of new stars in the background. This was a good enough metric in order to be able to confirm our suspicion, because there wasn’t any tall building or any other structure in our line of sight.
The law-enforcement and military personnel had also picked up on what we had been discussing and the area directly under the vessel was cleared completely in a manner of minutes.
Well, the excitement was building up. We could see TV camera crews appearing on the horizon and on the other side of the field. As well, from our vantage point we could see the flashes. There were reports that similar sightings had been observed in other parts of the world.
Suddenly a hologram appeared right underneath the toroidal shaped vessel. It looked more like a 3d holographic advertisement that you’d notice on a billboard at the town square vs something you’d expect coming out of a vessel that clearly appeared to be extra-terrestrial or who knows where it came from, in origin.
The holograph was a giant smiley face and the audible reaction of all the people who had gathered around echoed around the field.
There were a couple of such emojis. They were of different colors and of there were these slight variations. They were animated. Whoever designed them, clearly did think of the nuances.
A thought occurred to me, if anyone in the entire history of humans would have thought that first contact would involve emojis.
Shortly thereafter, the hologram changed to bright letters in orange with a yellow border around them. It simple said ‘Please stand back. Thank you.’
Concurrently we could hear an audible signal in the air. It didn’t seem to be coming from the vessel. It was almost as if someone was saying this from a distance.
Whoever these beings were, they had really thought things through. Here, from the perspective of accessibility. All three of us had this feeling that the messages were also being beamed directly to our minds. So we closed our eyes and covered our ears and sure enough, our suspicion was confirmed.
The vessel continued to descend downwards and before we knew it the vessel had landed in the field.
There was chatter amongst the crowd across the field. There was complete ease and everyone, including the law-enforcement and military personnel were completely mesmerized with what was about to happen next.
The next ten minutes seemed like an eternity. Then finally and without warning a door appeared and then another on top. The door did not open, it appeared. Meaning, there was the outer wall of this vessel and the next moment there was a passage there.
The level of noise would go up and down with the passage of such events. Then there was complete silence, because no one had any idea what was about to happen next.
The military did not have their weapons pointed at this vessel. They were probably feeling what we all had been experiencing.
Arjun, Julie and myself were barely a 150 meters away from the landing site.
And then suddenly a creature emerged out of that opening in the vessel. And all of a sudden it made sense why two set of doors or openings appeared.
The creature appeared to be humanoid relating to it’s composition. Slightly larger than humans and with a much longer neck. Possibly half the length of that of giraffe’s (neck). It was wearing silvery rings on it’s neck and had long arms that extended all the way down to it’s knees. About a dozen other creatures of the same kind soon followed this individual. Some of them were smaller in size and a bit apprehensive. They were behaving how some children do and so it was safe to assume that these were the children of these beings.
A hum had built up in the environment. There was frenzy across the field, but it was controlled. Everyone was simply amazed with what they were seeing.
Everything that was being observed seemed very very real. This was the moment when any thought, suspicion of this being some kind of a hoax had vanished. At-least this is how the three of us were feeling. We could not take our eyes off of what we were witnessing. Occasionally we’d look at each other in disbelief and ask each other if we could believe what we were seeing.
Shortly thereafter, other creatures appeared right behind the creatures with the longer neck and arms. Many different creatures of many different shapes, sizes and variations began to emerge.
There were beings that seemed to be made out of plasma. Other beings who were humanoid in their shape and composition and translucent. Almost like a human jelly-fish with brilliant bioluminescent lights going through their bodies. There was a large floating rectangular shape powered by some kind of an anti-gravity device and there was some kind of a swarm inside of it that was visible. I thought it must be a tinier lifeform. Perhaps on another scale.
There were creatures that were half animal and half plant. A being that looked like a Venus fly trap. It had eyes, limbs and two beating hearts that were visible through a transparent sheath on it’s chest.
It was hard to keep up with the type and the diversity that was emerging out of this vessel. A vessel that appeared to be in a capacity to have a couple of thousand individuals of human size live on it.
There were also these orbs of lights that moved about in a rapid manner. They moved from point to point very very rapidly. If you tried to maintain your gaze on them, then that would be sure to make you dizzy!
Before we knew it, there were thousands of such beings of various kinds that had emerged out of these opening that kept appearing on the vessel. It looked like there were a lot of children on these vessels. Unless there were extra-terrestrial beings of different sizes and of the same kind.
The very first extraterrestrial entity that had first emerged from that vessel then did something that no one had expected. He walked up to one of the military police individual who happened to be a woman and requested if they may borrow her megaphone.
The human individual hesitantly offered the megaphone. As with everyone else, it seems like she was also in disbelief with what was going on. Extra-terrestrial beings had traversed enormous distances and here they were with their advanced technology, politely requesting to borrow a megaphone from a human.
The extraterrestrial entity with the long neck and arms and silvery rings on it’s neck, cleared it’s throat and started with a greeting.
It said “Hello, I am Baz.”
The crowd was mesmerized. You could hear all sorts of reactions. Now, people were vocally expressing their disbelief. But in a good way. There were cheers, loud whistles. There were many different reactions. But all of the reactions were positive.
The extraterrestrial entity being continued. “Well, that is the shorter version of my name.”
It continued “As you may have observed by now. There are a whole lot of us on this vessel. This ship.”
As the extraterrestrial entity continued talking, a series of giant tanks filled with water emerged out of the vessel. Again, they moved without any assistance. Suspended in mid-air. Inside these tanks there were cephalopods and octopi of different types. At this point it clearly looked like a scene out of a Hollywood movie a decade and a half ago.
The extraterrestrial entity continued. “What you have been observing is real. This is not a hoax. By now you have witnessed a variety of different beings emerge out of this vessel. Most of us are actually from this Galaxy. And yes, there is indeed an inter-galactic network.”
“And yes, some of you may have guessed correctly. We come here with our children and our loved ones.”
“Right now, hundreds of vessels like ours have landed across different parts of the worlds. Across rural areas, across the steppes of Mongolia, amongst the tribes of Africa, across towns and cities like yours. We also have smaller vessels visiting the poles.”
It continued “We have a much larger vessel parked in a stable orbit near one of the gas giants. Earlier on, we made contact with the civilizations on Europa.”
The being than waved for the human jelly-fish with the bioluminescent lights to come and step forward. This being stepped forward and waved at the crowd.
All of a sudden there was a flurry of activity within the crowds. Cameras started going off. News staff were scurrying to try to get a good shot.
Baz continued “Well, technically speaking your neighbours from Europa do not have names. They communicate with this combination of high-pitched frequencies and the patterns that appear on their limbs and bodies. A combination of these frequencies and patterns is how they identify each other. This combination is as unique as the fingerprints that you have. Only that amongst your neighbours, they can identify each other via these patterns instantly. I guess it’s kind of like how two practitioners of Zen would identify each other on Earth.”
It was clear that not only could Baz speak fluent English, it/he was also intimately familiar with the human culture.
Then Baz said, “Alright, I know you must have a lot of questions. So I am going to pass this back to you.”
With that Baz handed the megaphone to the military police personnel. Right at the moment of handing the megaphone, Baz said “Wait, why not let his wonderful lady ask the first question. And before I hand the device back and we know you folks had a pandemic situation less than a decade ago. Let me assure you that no individual on this vessel is carrying anything that could be harmful to humans. Just to make you feel safe and relaxed.”
The individual from the military seemed hesitant at first and then she inquired: “Why are you folks here?”
Baz took the megaphone back from the individual and paused for a moment. It then smiled and said “We are here to welcome you all to the inter-galactic civilization.”
The crowd erupted in cheer. People started clapping. There were whistles and cheers.
When the noise subsided, Baz continued “Yes, indeed there are a lot of civilizations in this and the nearby galactic cluster. As we keep exploring, we keep finding new civilizations. In-fact there are more proto-civilizations in this galaxy. As well, there are a lot of species that are in the process of developing the rudimentary framework of language. It takes a while to develop the cognitive architecture that enables language.”
Baz continued, “Also, the human civilization has now made the leap from one planetary body to another. You are also very close to getting to technological breakthroughs and these breakthroughs are going to equip you to decode information that has been, well, floating around.”
“Pass the megaphone around please.”
First contact with extra-terrestrial intelligence seemed a lot more like a town-hall meeting versus how it may have been depicted in popular culture.
We moved in a bit closer and were now only tens of feet away from the barricade and fences that had been setup. The law enforcement personnel saw us, but they just ignored us. Everyone was intrigued and wanted to know what Baz was going to say next.
What was really beautiful was to see alien moms holding their kids on the side of their hips. They had technologies that seemed to be thousands of years advances compared to ours. But at their core, they were just like us and loved their children as much.
The moms and the kids went back in the vessel as it was close to their bed-time.
There was a tiny device that the extraterrestrial beings would wear on their neck. Somehow this created a force-field of sorts and the words were converted from the native alien language to the native human language via this invisible force-field. We noticed this, because from time to time they would adjust this device near their neck. However, the words that we would hear sounded just like someone had grown up speaking English all of their life.
The evening continued to evolve. Some military individuals and also some humans started interacting with the extra-terrestrial beings. Selfies were being taken.
It seemed like the crowd around the landing site was only growing larger. It was almost as if the entire city had descended near the landing site. And it was almost as if the extra-terrestrial intelligences had anticipated this. Because at one point, Baz had mentioned that ‘your homes are going to be protected and that is our responsibility and as long as we are going to be here.’ How that was going to happen, was going to be anyone’s guess.
Later during the night, Baz also highlighted that others from his immediate group and he called them ‘keepers’. The keepers had been visiting Earth for thousands of years. He mentioned that the stories that you have been hearing about ‘sky-brothers’ are true.
He had an interesting sense of humour. He would do these gestures and these antics, which made him/it really likeable. Like he would move rapidly to one location and do an about turn. Or if someone asked a question, then he would turn his attention to where the sound was coming from, smile and move both of his eyebrows. Things like that.
Couple of hours in and it seems like we had all completely forgotten that an alien or aliens had emerged out of these vessels.
Then something weird happened. Majority of the walls across the Toroidal vessel became completely transparent. Inside, we could see compartments, we could see the command area, there was a kitchen area. There were larger pools where the alien cephalopods and octopi seemed to be resting. It looks like the resting areas were situated inside the vessel. Aliens also need some privacy. It looked like light and sound could only pass in one direction or maybe the actual reflection was projected back on the surface.
The vessel was going to stay at this location over-night. The same was to be the case with vessels throughout the world.
Humans from all walks of life were being invited to stay at these vessels. As well, to visit the main ship. Apparently these vessels could travel really fast and could get near the gas giants in a matter of hours.
<the story continues>