The Crystal Skull

Spencer Escobar always held a keen fascination with the legend of the crystal skulls of ancient Mesoamerica. He wondered at their mystical powers and arcane origins. He pondered their purpose and delved deep into the recesses of the internet for any facts, theories, rumors, or gossip he could find about them. So devoted was he to the crystal skulls that he visited every known collection and exhibit, drank only Crystal Skull vodka. He even saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls more than once and swore up and down to any who would listen that the movie was actually good, making him the only person on record to do either. No scientific evidence or analysis could persuade him. Crafting techniques were too modern? Made by a now extinct advanced civilization. Materials were from the wrong part of the world? Aliens aren't concerned about oceans. Dating techniques revealed they were made in the 19^th century? What a mystery! The ancients who made it could have been time travelers, or used some other yet unknown technique! He refused to have his beliefs debunked. His biggest wish was to one day discover a crystal skull of his own. Then he could prove they were not fraudulent, as he would know his was no forgery but a real authentic piece of legend. As it happened, he found himself at a Halloween party, and there in the punch bowl, he saw one, laying among the red mix of fruit juice and rum. He rushed home to get a proper case, something that would keep the skull safe from damage or theft, something that would let the world know this was his find and they should not touch it. Naturally, he had planned for such a find years ago, but alas, when he returned to the party, the skull was gone. His only clue as to who had stolen it was the punch itself, which was a bit more watered down than when he had left.

- Originally mailed to J. Lawrence in Roseland, New South Wales, Australia

Plant Invasion

Aliens had invaded Earth. Our industrialization attracted them, and they needed the resources of our planet. They were strange and terrifying. Their bodies were green and lumpy and grotesque. They spawned offspring left and right, leaving their softball sized spores all over the countryside to grow into the next generation. We fought against them as best we could, but their bodies, more vegetable than animal, resisted all of our traditional attacks. Their diffused internal organs were hard to mortally injure as they were spread out so much. Most chemical attacks did nothing to them, but still we fought. We tried pesticides, which were effective, but they harmed our own food supplies. Still, we warred on against them. Not until they left our world, exhausted by the endless struggle. Not until we finally purged the last of them could we analyze what they had done, what lasting impact they had on our world. Earth was overflowing with resources they craved, resources we had in abundance since industrialization. We thought they came for our technology, our oil. We were wrong. They came for our greenhouse gasses and toxins. Food in abundance, which would allow them to thrive, which would allow our environment to stabilize. Their excretions and later upon their deaths, their bodies, created a super fertilizer that could improve food production by over three hundred percent. We could have lived in perfect equilibrium to one another, but each side responded with fear, our fear they would destroy us and their fear they would they would starve to death, we never sat down to speak.

- Originally mailed to Leoni Caljouw from Oud-Beijerland, the Netherlands

Unfortunate Appearances

On Regulus IV there exists a strain of hypersentient fungus who learned to live in peace with all their world. No longer did they have any predators and they bred only when resources were sufficient. They were experts in all sciences and mathematics and philosophy and had long ago diagnosed the nature of evil and purged it from their world. Their language, however, was a subtle one, full of shades of meaning, shades of color, pheromones, and timing. Few civilizations ever reach such states of enlightenment and sophistication. Unfortunately, the first men to land on Regulus IV never learned the language because they never considered a fungus could be sentient. As a result, on official records from then on, this amazing race was listed fungus phallus, the penis mushroom.

- Originally mailed to H. Longino from Gulfport, Mississippi

Dapper Plastic Aliens

People often look at the symbols older cultures created, or the works of art that can only be seen from the sky and they assume that long ago, extra-terrestrials came to earth to give us a scientific jump start. Of course, it is easy to look at symbols from another culture and make inferences about their meanings because we have no associations of our own to muddy up the process. This is why many of of the same people who point out the extra-terrestrial influences on the past completely overlook the signs that aliens still guide our scientific development. For instance, the Chinese are aware that without alien intervention, we never would have developed plastics. International relations being what they are, however, they cannot risk their position by making such a “ridiculous” claim. Instead, they create symbols much as the people of old did, imprinting upon containers from their takeout restaurants the following image. Most mistake it for a brand or something that simply means plastic. Only the few removed from their own personal experiences with Chinese takeout see it for what it truly is: a starman in a nice suit, surrounding himself with plastic. Theorists still debate, however, whether he is wearing a tie or has a fu manchu mustache.

- Originally mailed to B. Bowser of Brandon, MS

Thwarted Alien

It is a belief widely held by conspiracy theorists and ufologists that there exist just out of phase with our own world an infinite number of other realities neatly stacked atop our own. Those who scoff at tales of the long dead returning argue that ghosts are simply beings from these other worlds visible as through a window when conditions are just so and portions of the two parallel realities briefly graze each other. In the rare cases in which they overlap, we sometimes get reports of people vanishing without a trace or the appearance of people without a verifiable past.

On December 15, 1974, mankind quite unintentionally averted disaster when our world and another very different from our own intersected for seven and a half seconds. In that short time, a creature fueled by hatred and destruction crossed over into our own world. Thankfully, at that precise spot in space and time, we were building a parking garage and the beast found itself caught half phased within a concrete support pillar being poured. Because the parking garage was built by skeptics, they thought nothing of the haunting little round face in the middle of the completed pillar and dismissed it as a strange fluke in the cement.

- Originally mailed to J. Knight from Pascagoula, Mississippi

Fake Cat

The creature did its best to impersonate a cat. Its fur was a perfectly thick glossy black and its ears had the proper points. It pretended to enjoy activities like batting at things and snuggling with carpeted pillars. Its disguise wasn't perfect, though. It had no tail, its eyes lacked the proper slits, and it misunderstood that cats claw at things for the sake of clawing, and not to prepare a thing for eating. Still its disguise was good enough to keep him undetected on the planet for many months, in which time he learned that though mankind seemed eager to serve him, any being which could not tell the difference between a real cat and a lousy fake would make for terrible slaves.

- Originally mailed to S. Gill of Ocean Springs, Mississippi