Extraterrestrialism and the Unbearable Boredom of Being Jiggely

Was he born under a bad sign or just a misread constellation?  That question always confounded Jiggley Wiggley. He could never tell the two apart. After all, a bad sign could be attributed to a misinterpreted reading, but how many mystics ever copped to misreading a star or two? And tea leaves weren't to be trusted - there was simply too much wiggle room left at the bottom of the cup.

The irony was not lost on him.

So, be it a bad sign or a misread star, the reason Jiggley was most mistrustful of things from space was due to an extraordinary encounter of the worst kind. Now we all know that aliens have been among us for many millennia.  Aliens have had an impact on the planet for so long you wouldn't be able to separate alien events from that of normal human events. Many times alien influences came after a monumental human invention. Such is the case of the automatic bread slicing machine, which was gifted to mankind after the invention of peanut butter. For obvious reasons. But now is not the time to get into peanut butter sandwiches, because if we were talking about peanut butter sandwiches then Jiggley would be the jelly in our story. And we don't want to get started on jelly. 

Not today.

Let's just say that when one cosmically challenged star gazing mystic misread a stray satellite, it prompted a global warning across the terrestrial plane that attracted the attention of even the most apathetic astrologist, and even a astronomer or two. And that is where our story gets interesting. Because a wayward satellite is of very little interest to an astrologist, but a wayward star is a very interesting matter indeed to an astronomer. Now Jiggley Wiggley, like most people, often confused the two professions - they both look at the stars and use a lot of big words, and neither seem to work for a living. So when a member of the International Volunteer Astronomers Guild appeared in the television to report that a heavenly body might crash into the earth Jiggley absently turned the channel because he had no interest in his future, lucky numbers, or what was on the cusp of who. 

So he missed the warning.

While it is true that UFOs exist, just as UAPs have been confirmed as long as man has had the ability to look up in the sky and wonder "Is that a bird?" it is not always true that those sky peepers are necessarily correct in their excitable conclusionary reports.  Flying discs, frisbees, hubcaps, and paper plates have found more than fifteen minutes of fame on the magic box, mesmerizing millions of mostly mundane house husbands and spoiled, lazy cats. It was among this constant noise that a true warning went out across the airwaves - life on another planet had been confirmed via radio wave. But that story was not as exciting as the appearance of a lonely cryptid emerging from a saucer in Siberia seeking a mate.

Besides, they were very far away.