Homecoming Chapter 3 (Serialized Novel)

Chapter 3

Stephanie McGee sauntered through the living room of her two story four-bedroom house, her green satin robes trailing at her heels, wine glass in hand. After a long day of lectures and grading papers she felt the drink a necessity. She made her way over to the couch where she slouched herself into the comfort that it provided her. Spread out against the black leather, she grabbed at the remote with her free hand and flipped on the television that was mounted on the wall in front of her.

For the most part, Stephanie McGee, the Professor Emeritus of Astrophysics at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., did not believe in watching television programs. This included the likes of the various news channels, which she had lost faith in with the emergence of fake news. In her opinion, these channels, with all their different slants were nothing more than a means of propaganda and fear mongering.

At the same time, she did not care for the images and messages that they projected that desensitized us to a world filled with violence, gloom, and doom. Just as she was not a proponent for the subliminal communications inherent in these presentations that promoted materialism, capitalism, and consumerism with every advertisement.

She had always considered herself somewhat of a Philosopher, and as such a lover of truth and wisdom, she had even written a paper on the matter during her vibrant youth while she was a student at Cambridge University. In the essay, she had likened the television and the living room which contained it to Plato’s allegorical cave. Therewithin, she compared the living room, and the false sense of security that it provided, to the cave. Whereas she attributed the television and the horrors that it depicted to the silhouettes and shadows that were projected onto its walls.

True as all that might be, on the night of July 4th, 2028, Stephanie McGee had her reasons for switching on the news station. As part of the epidemic relief package, Executive Order 2082 of the selfsame year had included the most shocking section in its promise to the people of an announcement regarding full cosmic disclosure. The world over, the precedents that this initiative put into motion would be followed by the leaders of all nations. From the mighty billboards of New York to the radio channels of Silicon Valley in California, people would be tunning into the most historical proclamation of all time.

Stephanie McGee spun her glass and the contents within around in her hand as she watched President Joe Biden promenade to his spot at the podium in the Oval Office of the White House. As the Presidential address started, she took a quick glance at the bookshelves next to the staircase behind her. Her eyes focused on a family picture of her mom with her grandparents.

For her, the topic was every bit as personal as it was a professional issue. Then again, her whole career had been somewhat personal. That was what had allowed her to thrive. She tried to think back, and as far as her spotless memory should care to serve her, she had been looking to the heavens for all the answers to life’s inquiries, including her own.

There was also the matter of her Grandfather’s insanity. Something that had brought the family name great shame for a while. Despite the rumors, she had always reserved a great respect for the man and had even looked for his conspiracy theories in the skies as well, and she was going to be extremely upset if this announcement went anything like she thought it would.

Inside the Oval Office, the President took his place beside the podium, his finely creased blue suite, white button up shirt, and red power tie matching the colors of the flags behind him. All around him lights went off, flickered, and reflected off the marble white walls as the journalists took photographs of the historical moment, reminding him of their first amendment rights.

Even so, he welcomed the reporters and the cameramen on either side of the room with a beaming smile. Nothing was going to stand in the way of his giving the biggest declaration in the history of humankind. He was only disappointed that his face was going to have to be obscured by his black COVID mask as he delivered the news.

Back in her suburban home, a loud beeping noise signaled that Stephanie’s kettle popcorn was finished cooking. She gracefully placed her glass of merlot down on the coffee table besides her couch and hopped to her feet. With the nimbleness of a mouse, she waltzed to the kitchen and retrieved the greasy bag from out of the microwave, holding it at arms distance at the corners of the bag as not to burn herself.

“Who said that women couldn’t multitask,” she said to herself as she made her way back into the living room, helping herself to a handful of her hearty snack as she took up her place back on the couch. She felt proud that she was able to accomplish all of this before the POTUS had commenced in giving his speech.

Stephanie paused and took in the full weight of her emotions with a sip of her merlot that flowed as deep of red as her lock of hair and her flushed chest. While her area of expertise was in time and all spatiotemporal considerations, it had been the stories of her grandfather that had instilled in her an obsession over the question of whether or not there was life in the universe. She had always wanted to take part in the conversation of full cosmic disclosure. To be a part of it. And to an extent she had been. Yet, while she was excited by all these developments and their ramifications, it upset her that it also implied that her grandfather may not have been as crazy as they made him out to be.

“My fellow American’s and all other citizens of the world,” the President finally began on the fifty-two-inch device hanging from her living room wall. “Today is a momentous occasion where I address you as a leader from such and such a nation, but rather, as an equal to discuss one of the most important issues as it relates to the only home that we have here in the universe. Planet Earth. That, and to answer one of the greatest inquires that humankind has ever had since the dawn of time itself,” he continued with great zeal and enthusiasm.

“Then why won’t you do anything about the terraforming, fracking, deforestation, carbon emissions, and other essential environmental risk factors occurring here on our only home in the universe,” Stephanie contorted, throwing popcorn at her television set as she did so. To say that she was disappointed with the state of her nation was a bit of an understatement.

“I have come here in front of you all today to discuss the subject of life as it may, or rather does exist in the universe. Now, as you may know, in the month’s past, Executive Order 2028 was set into motion, that promised to bring into the public’s awareness full cosmic disclosure,” President Joe Biden said to a frenzy of photograph flickers on all sides of him.

“Before I continue on any further, I just want to touch on a couple of points as they relate to our own place in the universe. It was President Ronald Regan who noted back in the 80’s that, in order for there to be peace here on Earth, that perhaps some alien entity would be necessary for us to come together. What I will tell you today, which might be surprising to some, and shocking to others, speaks to his wisdom and insight,” the President trailed off for effect, and to carefully consider every word that proceeded from his mouth in what would be the biggest show in the world.

“What I am hearing you say sounds a whole lot like you have been aware of the presence of extraterrestrial life for years and are getting to the point where we want to know the truth,” Stephanie went on, with a little toast of her wine glass at the television screen, the merlot starting to get to her nerves and senses.

“For decades, we have depicted extraterrestrial forces as hostile beings whose ways are worse than our own, and that have technologies that far exceed us. That these beings want to enslave or destroy us, and that they are an agent to be feared. Similarly, I am aware of the various medias that suggest that we have been wanting to instigate a war against alien beings in the name of Jesus Christ, as horrid a thought as that might be. I assure you that none of this is the case,” President Joe Biden relayed as calmly as if he were telling a fireside story to a grandchild.

“Could that be because art imitates life, and that is the human collective unconscious expressing and projecting our own history, biology, and behavior onto other sentient life forms and that ultimately serves a larger narrative or agenda,” Stephanie asked,” starting to enjoy her little mock conversation with the President. “God, get on with it. Like, this is the scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail where they all say it. Life exists in the universe. We are not alone. Just be direct with it and don’t make an inaugural speech of it. Christ, this is why I’m single,” Stephanie went on hoping at the very least that they could provide specifics about these beings if things were to be so drawn out.

“That being said, it is perhaps my highest honor to tell you here today, on that day which stands as a day of Independence in our homeland, that we are not alone in the universe,” the President said as if he were somehow consciously aware of what Stephanie McGee had said and was responding to her comments. Stephanie had similar thoughts as she sipped her wine giving the television her utmost attention. “What I want the people to know here also relates to the issue of full cosmic disclosure. The world leaders have known about this for quite some time. Perhaps even before the Eisenhower administration,” the President bashfully admitted to a room that had erupted in another round of flickering lights and questioning murmurs and mutterings.

“Settle down now,” came a voice in the room, to which the President brought both his hands above his head and pressed them down in unison together to express the same thing to the disrupted room.

“They didn’t quite like that one did they Joe,” Stephanie jokingly asked the television set with a smirk from behind the rim of her glass. “The truth always surfaces eventually. Sorry you had to be the one to deliver it,” she said absolutely relishing in the recent developments. “On a side note, no more wine for Stephanie,” she said as she drained the contents of the glass with one last gulp. “Especially when she starts referring to herself in the third person,” she trailed off, hanging to the President’s every word.

“The reasons that this intelligence has been kept from the public’s awareness has always been because of a matter of safety and in order to prevent a scenario of mass hysteria which we were almost always certain of. That it would cause us to cause our existence, our theologies, and our way of life, and in so doing place us in a vulnerable position. The reasons we felt this way were many. We have found that in certain cases, that they do in fact have technologies that are similar to or more advanced than our own. Just as we were astonished to find that there was more than one species of extraterrestrial life. And what’s more, that they had their own leagues and alliances. We have heard of one such alliance known as the Galactic Federation of Light, to which we still known little about at this time.”

There was an intermittent pause that was replaced a series of photographs that caused Stephanie McGee to let out a startled gasp. On the television in front of her came disturbing images of grey beings with elongated heads and beady black eyes whose profile was shown from each side of it. They reminded her of the types of extraterrestrials that you’d expect from a low budget B-rated Hollywood production, although some of those were more yellowish in their color.

These, however, were not the only beings, which was the only word that she could ascribe to them, that appeared on the television in front of her. It also gave a rather frightening depiction of one particular species that looked reptilian in their genetic makeup. Yet, at the same time, they were very humanoid, in that they had swinging arms attached at the torso, and were as far as she could discern, completely bipedal. Despite everything that the POTUS had just said, these entities seemed anything but friendly.

There was one last series of pictures during the intermittent pause that consisted of large physical objects of a wide array of different sizes and shapes, varying to those that were circular or cigar shaped, to some that were cylindrical and massive, which she assumed to be their aircrafts. Whatever they were, they certainly were not of this world. Not only that, but if Stephanie was not quite mistaken, she would have assumed by the looks of it from what she had seen in pop culture and in the media is that we reversed engineered some of our own technologies and aircrafts from their own. “Oh, my actual God,” Stephanie let out underneath her breath as the depictions on the screen returned back to the live footage.

“While the images that we have just shared with you may be disturbing to you all, do not let them deceive you. There is always much more to a thing than the outward appearance of things. After all, as the old saying goes, you can not judge a book by its cover. And again, I would like to assure you all here tonight that these beings are not hostile by any means. If you take nothing else away from my message here tonight, I would like it to be this fact alone,” the POTUS continued on after his short break.

“Mr. President, how can you be so sure of this,” and a number of other inquiries shot out from the sea of reporters that spanned out across the room before him. It was noticeable that the tone and pitch of the voices were concerned, and panic stricken.

“Please now, order, order in the room. Save all of your questions until the end,” a stern voice near the President droned in their response.

“It’s okay, I’ll wait,” the President interjected as the distinctive chattering simmered down to an inaudible whisper. The President looked off into the crowd of people waiting for the right moment to pick back off. His gaze settled on the front row, where his wife Jill Biden. He could just barely make out her slight smirk of pride from beneath her COVID mask, but he took it as his cue to do so.

“As with anything in this life, we can not say whether or not this is definitively the case. We can only go off of the empirical data and information that we have about them at this time. From this alone this certainly seems the case. For instance, I can tell you that they have been here for some time. Since around the 50’s I want to say, maybe longer. To this end, they have closely collaborating with the leaders of our world. They have been exchanging technology and information for their presence here on our planet. Think of it as a kind of pit stop for them out in vastness of space. At least, that is as it has been described to us. We also think that this is the case, because in our interactions with them, it would seem that their technologies are far superior to our own.

On that note the President paused, and stepped down from his place behind the podium, which was unusual for this kind of address. Several of his security guards motioned towards him but he waved them off with a little back paddle of the hand. With great courage the aging President took center in the room of people and opened his arms welcomingly.

“While this might be discomforting to some, and hard to believe for others, I promise you all that what I am saying is the case. We have been observing them for years, as they have been observing us. They are a different race from far away places, and with ways and customs different than our own. That being said, they are an interesting lot, that seemed far more evolved than we are. Be that as it may, during this time, we have also noticed how there is a direct relationship between their presence here and with our nuclear activities. What is interesting to note about this is that while their technologies are far superior to our own, that they seem highly concerned by these behaviors. Interestingly enough, from this place of concern, they have acted as a nurturing parent would in making sure that a child doesn’t go down the wrong path of destruction. To put it into perspective, these extraterrestrials are capable of interdimensional travel. What this means is that they can travel great distances and length of space is under a second as if there was no space at all between the two distances, and they seem more interested in our best interest, and that we do not harm ourselves,” the President pushed forward, clasping his hands together in front of him as he did so.

Another series of illustrations and videos made there way onto Stephanie McGee’s Vizio television screen. They told of instruments with the capability of creating mass holographic distortions, reality augmentation, the dematerialization of matter, and about a plethora of scientific breakthroughs that Stephanie relished in, and that peaked her attention.

The one that most fascinated her was a video labeled Project Paperclip where a nuclear missile was shot into space, where one of the cigar shaped objects shot what looked like a laser beam from out of it to which the nuclear missile all but disappear. There was yet another where video footage was taken at the ultraviolent spectrum of light where a fleet of these aircrafts were operating outside the visible spectrum of light. At the bottom of the screen was an enclosed blue bar that had the caption BREAKING NEWS: WE ARE NOT ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE written in it with white lettering.

Once the videos had finished broadcasting, the news station cut back to the live feed of the President who remained firmly rooted in his stance before the crowd of people. He could not get any closer. Jill sat nearest to him in her royal blue day dress that perfectly matched his outfit. One step further, and the two would be touching.

“On that note I would like to bring up a sentiment that is constantly brought up in our religious doctrines and communities. The United States has always been a God-fearing people. In recent years, it almost seems like we have lost sight of that, and perhaps that is why we find ourselves in the state that we do at present. That being said, the teaching of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ constantly tells us to love thy neighbor as thyself. This is a simple ideology, whose principle is found in most theologies the world over. We see it even in do onto others as you’d want done onto you. It is a fundamental practice that is easier said than done. The condition of the world at large is a living testimony onto that. Whatever your religion or creed, it is this precept that is going to be essential in establishing peaceful relations with these beings. We have to accept that we are being thrust into a galactic community that has with it differing celestial citizens. They share the vast expanse of space with us every bit as much as we do it with them. Thus far, they have not imposed their will and beliefs onto us, nor have they harmed or injured us in any way,” the political maverick preached to his church and to his gospel.

“Turn volume up five bars,” Stephanie said into her little black device that controlled the television. “I’d be very careful in the water that you’re treading through there Joe,” she commented as the smart T.V. followed her command. “I can see why you kept this from the general public, but it will raise some eyebrows that you’ll say in one sentence that we aren’t fighting a war in the name of Jesus Christ in one sentence, and then make your whole conclusion about him in another. In a round about way, it seems that’s exactly what you’re trying to do. That doesn’t include that it looks like you’re afraid that the beliefs that you cling to might come crumbling down as we enter into the cosmic neighborhood. That, and then there is the fact that there are several demographics that aren’t going to like the direction that you’re going with this,” she told the television set, wondering to herself as to what the views and beliefs about life after death and the afterlife that these sentient lifeforms had.

“Also, I should like to think that it is fitting that we establish it as a sort of universal handshake with these beings to say onto one another, ‘love thy neighbor as thy self,’ or similarly, ‘heaven is nearer than it appears,” the President continued on completely unaware of Stephanie’s thoughts on the matter. “I say this because the skies above make up our heavens, and they are filled with this intelligent life. Whether this is the case or not, it certainly calls us to seriously look to and point the fingers at ourselves. We hope to have peaceful relations with these foreigners, but we cannot obtain peace with ourselves here on what is the only home that we have in the universe. What is happening in the world with the war between the United States and Russia is a living testimony onto that. And maybe it should come to pass that these beings are more enlightened than we could hope to be, and that they can teach us how to live a more peaceful and harmonious way of life. At any rate, it seems that Reagan was right all those years ago when he seemingly prophesied that, perhaps it would take something like an alien force to create for peace on our planet. We can only hope that this is the case. I would like to close by saying that I personally guarantee that this is not a time for us to panic, but rather, one that calls for celebration. This is a quantum leap for humanity and join hands with other sentient life forms to be found out in the cosmos. One where we answer the long sought-after inquiry as to whether or not we are alone in the cosmos to which the answer is a resounding no. We are not alone in the cosmos. What a momentous occasion this should be, and I am happy that it should happen on this day of our Nation’s Independence,” the President reported with an affectionate glance at Jill his wife.

“On a final note, I would also like to offer this formal apology to the general public on behalf of all the world’s leaders. What I should like to say is this. We are sorry. More specifically, we should have told you of all these things sooner. All over the globe, we had our reasons,” the President said, offering his condolences.
“Apologies don’t count if they are not authentic and sincere Joe. The reason you were doing it was because you were getting something out of it, and these advanced technologies gave you a competitive edge against everyone else in what is our survival of the fittest rat race here on planet earth. I mean, come on, you haven’t answered why it is that these extraterrestrials would have such an interest having their presence here on Earth. If you ask me, that seems pretty suspicious in and of itself. I highly doubt that we are nothing more than a Douglas Adams rendition of a universal bypass to them. There has to be a whole lot more to it than that for them if they are willing to give us these technologies. After all there is no such thing as a free meal,” Stephanie objected, highly disappointed, and dissatisfied with what she was hearing from the leader of the free world. She flipped through the channels but the address that came in the form of an emergency broadcast was on every last one.

“The only reason that we did not,” the President went on, “had to do with matters of national security. All over the world, it was felt that the broaching of this conversation piece would create for panic and mass hysteria. There was concern that it would cause societal collapse and that it would make us question our existence, our place in the universe, and the reasons that we do the things that we do. We were afraid that it would strike fear into the heart of the average person, and that was all the sorts of things that we wanted to prevent from happening. It was never in our intentions to deceive the people, or to keep them out of the loop. Although I could certainly see how one could argue that this was the case. And so, again, speaking on their behalf, we humbly lend our apologies. We were all acting in what we thought was in the welfare and best interests of the people with the information that we had. We feel that the time is now, and that we are all mature enough to handle it. This is it. The cosmic disclosure that you have been looking for. I hope it was everything that you were looking forward to and more. Now you know everything that we do. I can tell assure you this because in our nation, the highest level of security clearance is that of Q or Cosmic Clearance. We even have a type of politics for them in what we call exopolitics, and this comes straight from the camel’s mouth so to speak. I thank you for listening to this address, and may God bless America, and all the people of the world. Now, are there any questions,” the President finished, clasping his hands together once again as he did so.

Back in her suburban home, Stephanie switched the television off. As far as she was concerned, the President had simply told the people what they had already sort of known and had only been waiting to have confirmed. She didn’t want to listen to the reporter’s inquiries. In her line of work, Stephanie had been studying the subject extensively in private, and she had so many questions of her own. Stephanie was well aware that only one-third of the population prior to the address had believed in extraterrestrials, herself included, and what the President had said only validated and substantiated everything she had known and believed.

As captivated as she was by what the President had just informed the nation, it was hard for Stephanie not to take it personal and be upset. At the end of the day, the McGee family name had been run through the mud because of her grandfather and something that he probably had been subjected to. She had had to study life out in the cosmos from behind closed doors as a result of her family’s ordeal, and this only added salt to the wound. Even so, it gave her a lot to think about. That, and she was extremely excited to hear it. The thought of life in the universe had always mesmerized her.

Stephanie McGee rolled herself up into a ball, her knees in her arms, on her large spacious sofa. Her thoughts were filled with little green lizard and insect people, and cohabitating infinite space with them. “Who would have thought,” she said to herself as she shut her eyes, in disbelief that they looked like creatures found on earth. She would have to make the transition of thinking about space to the contents of the lecture on time that she was expected to give early in the afternoon. That, and she was going to have to sober herself up.