To the Stars

Download just the song for your MP3 player (no titles or intro, just the music)

We have some breaking news to report. I'm sure you've all heard that what appears to have been an alien flying saucer spent several days landed on the US Capitol lawn. Today that craft seems to have taken off; when news crews arrived this morning, it was nowhere to be found — only three shallow depressions in the ground from its footpads. The question everyone has been asking is where did it go?

Today, we have that answer. Reports are that within the span of only a few minutes, the craft dashed around the nation, visiting several US cities. According to military radar, it then flew straight up, left our atmosphere, and has, for the past few hours, been on a direct vector toward the star Zeta Reticuli.

But even that's not the very latest news. NASA is currently giving a press briefing, and we've just had an incredible report that we are actually receiving a radio transmission from that spaceship. A very famous astronomer is in fact confirming that for us right now:

                    FAMOUS ASTRONOMER
I am a famous astronomer, and I can confirm that this radio signal is coming from an alien spaceship.

I'm sorry we have to break away from that, as there's a new report just in from some of those cities the spaceship visited before leaving Earth. It appears that at least five people have been abducted and taken away. We're now getting the identities of the abductees — and, oh my goodness, running my eye down the list it appears that they include many prominent members of the UFO community.

Now we're cutting back to the press briefing, where they've just announced they're now going to play the audio from that radio transmission. Let's listen in:

                    TOM DELONGE
Man, this is some kind of wild trip.

That sounded like Tom DeLonge, the former guitarist of Blink 182 who became a UFO conspiracy theorist and founded To The Stars Academy to produce comic books, music, and TV shows promoting his belief in alien visitation. And I think we're hearing someone else:

                    LUIS ELIZONDO
I didn't think a Tic Tac had this much room inside!

That, I believe, was Luis Elizondo, who worked for a time for billionaire Robert Bigelow promoting three Navy UFO videos, but describes it to the press as having worked for a secret Pentagon UFO program.

                    LESLIE KEAN
Are there seat belts in this thing?

That sounds like Leslie Kean, longtime author and promoter of alien visitation and the afterlife, who co-authored the famous New York Times article with her colleagues to promote Bigelow and Elizondo's claim of a Pentagon UFO program, in an apparent effort to make belief in aliens more mainstream. Notably, Kean and Elizondo are reportedly the main characters in a new dramatization of their life story on HBO, which will no doubt portray them as courageous whistleblowers who "uncover" the government's covert UFO program.

                    HAL PUTHOFF
Apparently this craft uses a gravity drive system, so without inertia we shouldn't need any seatbelts.

And that must have been Hal Puthoff, a parapsychologist best known as the lead researcher looking for ghosts and inter-dimensional beings at Bigelow's Skinwalker Ranch — yes, the one from TV. And I think we're hearing one more voice coming through:

                    ROBERT BIGELOW
Write down the specs, Hal, I'll call up Harry Reid and have the Air Force build us one just like it.

I recognize the voice. That was the big man himself, Robert Bigelow, the bankroll behind this whole group and their decades-long quest to persuade the public that UFOs are not only real, but are also the same inter-dimensional phenomenon as poltergeists.

And now I think we're getting something else. It sounds like a... could that be a concertina? If I'm hearing this right, it sounds like these accidental shipmates might be starting to sing a sea shanty. Oh how awful, the poor dears must be out of their minds with fear...

                    TOM DELONGE
My name is Tom / and I am the bomb
And I'm also a spaced-out bro.
I quit my band / to understand
What they don't want us to know.
It's that aliens live among us now
You can bet, I guarantee.
So I'm fighting back with my website called
To The Stars Academy.

                    ALL [CHORUS]
To the stars we go on this UFO
To a galaxy brightly aglow
They're taking us to space
To their alien base
To the stars on a UFO.

                    LUIS ELIZONDO
They call me Lou / and I'm in the news
'Cuz I worked at the Pentagon.
Or so I say / It's kind of vague
But over me the networks fawn.
I am known for three UFO videos
They're debunked, but that's only a snag
Just don't double-check / 'cuz my story's a wreck
If my lips move, it's a red flag.

[CHORUS]

                    LESLIE KEAN
I'm Leslie Kean / I'm a writing machine
Got my story in the New York Times.
Now the whole world knows / about Lou's videos
And you'll see us on Amazon Prime.
I have written a book about the afterlife
And some more about UFOs
'Cuz it's all real / as I'll reveal
In a movie on HBO.

[CHORUS]

                    HAL PUTHOFF
My name is Hal / and I'm your pal
If you claim to be psychokinetic.
I'll believe whatever / And I'm yours forever
If you say you're electromagnetic.
Bring on aliens, poltergeists, ghosts, and grays,
For my mind is open so wide,
I'll write a paper to prove them all
My degree makes them bona fide.

[CHORUS]

                    ROBERT BIGELOW
I'm Bigelow / spending lots of dough
Like a kid in a candy store.
At my Skinwalker Ranch / I give carte blanche
To find aliens, demons, and more.
Then I got my hands on some federal funds
Paid my guys to find UFOs.
My latest search is the afterlife
Coming soon now, I suppose.

[CHORUS]

It sounds like we're losing the signal... Yes, the NASA spokesperson has just announced that the spaceship is no longer transmitting.

Well that was certainly something you don't hear every day. But if we heard it a little more often, the world might get slightly more rational each time. But that's not where we are now. The newspapers and cable channels continue to produce fictional crackpottery in order to garner more clicks and eyeballs under the guise of honest reporting, and they will continue to do so as long as we all keep clicking and watching. Clicking the clickbait is still just another way of feeding the trolls, inter-dimensional though they may be.

By Brian Dunning
Follow @BrianDunning