By Laurie Baron
SAN DIEGO — A Harvard University Professor of Astronomy speculates that the Interstellar object 3I/ATLAS currently hurdling around the sun is exhibiting characteristics that indicate it could be an alien craft or space probe. Heading towards Washington D.C., this is the scenario that might transpire when it telepathically communicates that it seeks a meeting with the president.
As the crew of 31/ATLAS disembarks, Pete Hegseth meets them. Behind him stands a brigade of soldiers aiming rocket launchers at the ship. He shouts through his bullhorn, “Stop! You are dealing with heavily armed white men who no longer are weakened by having diverse inferior backgrounds, facial hair, or homosexual inclinations.
31/ATLAS vaporizes their weapons and floats to where the East Wing once stood. The 31/ATLAS commander observes that the earthlings lack building skills. Otherwise, why would their leader reside in a structure that was so poorly constructed that it collapsed?
The 31/ATLAS ship then flies to the West Wing. Before it can get past the locked doors, masked ICE agents try to tackle it because they learned on a Signal message from Hegseth that aliens have breached the grounds of the White House. Steven Miller has instructed the agents to use excessive force because the aliens have come to take away jobs from Americans working at NASA and SpaceX. Before the agents can tackle and teargas the beings on the spacecraft, 31/ATLAS remotely removes their masks and broadcasts their identities to the relatives of individuals who have been arrested and deported by ICE. 31/ATLAS emits a gas that paralyzes the agents. This enables a crowd of outraged immigrant families of those who have been deported or interned to descend upon the agents and zip tie their hands. 31/ATLAS subsequently teleports the agents to CECOT in El Salvador.
Finally, the 31ATLAS ship fires its lasers to cut holes in the locked doors and go into the Oval Office where it confronts President Trump. Trump calls them “losers” and threatens to place tariffs on any interstellar objects that enter the United States. He berates them as puppets of Antifa, foreign terrorists, or radical Democrats. He warns them he will send drones to bomb them if are smuggling drugs into the United States.
Rather than reason with Trump, 31/ATLAS departs and heads back to the galaxy where it had begun its journey. The commander explains to his crew: “We had come in peace searching for intelligent life. Unfortunately, we found none.”
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Laurie Baron, retired from San Diego State University, is a professor emeritus of history. Now he fears being escorted away by ICE agents after Donald Trump reads this column.