A funny thing happened to me the other night when I was trying to see how well I could handle a bottle of Patron Tequila.

I passed out.

In the vast darkness that is my mind a bright light suddenly illuminated my entire brain. It woke me up. It was then that I realized that the brightness was all around my bedroom. A light billow of smoke came up from my wooden floors swallowing everything in a dense fog. I thought the room was on fire.

Suddenly a bright red light began to float down from the roof to the floor, growing wider as it reached the ground. The brightness popped and in front of me stood two glowing figures, slim in build, with long arms, oval heads and dark oval eyes.

“What the heck? Who are you? Better yet what are you?” I asked. “Are you guys aliens from out of this world?

“Yes,” the smaller one said, his antennas now popping up from his head. “We are,” said the other. “We are also your Supreme leaders. We run everything that happens on Earth, especially here in the U.S.

“Why here?”

The taller alien floated a bit closer as I tried to hide under my bed covers. “Because the people on this part of the planet are gullible and quick to fight against each other,” the floating alien said. “We are waiting for you guys to destroy yourselves so we can land our space crafts and rebuild the Mayan Temples and bring Atlantis back out of the water to its full glory.”

“Wow,” I said. “I can’t believe you guys are real.”

“We are and we are not,” the shorter one replied.

“Is that like we can neither confirm nor deny?” I asked.

The taller alien floated across room and hovered over my head. “YES,” it barked back “We invented that phrase and implanted it into the ones who first realized we were part of the true reality.”

“You mean the CIA or FBI?” I asked 

“NO!” the shorter one replied.” “We mean the MIB. Didn’t you watch the Documentaries?”

“I thought those were just movies,” I said.

“It was a glimpse of the true reality,” the taller one said. “A small glimpse into what we allow you to see...an alternate reality.”

“Oh, you mean like fake news,” I said.

“More like alternative truths,” he replied. (Assuming it was a he, could have been a she. I don’t know they didn’t appear to have much of an anatomy).

“So how does this alternative truth stuff work?” I asked in wonderment.

The smaller alien floated toward my bedroom door and said, “We mix truths with small amounts of complete nonsense and repeat it ad nauseum until it eventually becomes a truth and with mix that in with a method known as cognitive dissonance.”

“Cognitive what?” I asked.

Suddenly the two aliens merged together to form one massive being reaching from the floor to the roof. It began glowing between red and white. It came forward to me and said, “In laymen’s term it is what happens when you believe in something or someone profoundly, only to find out you were wrong, but you will never admit you’re wrong, so you look for theories to support the fact that you are still right despite being wrong. For example, the people who believe the world is flat will always seek and find something that will support their theory, despite it being wrong.”

“Wow, that’s incredible and incredibly confusing,” I said. “What does that mean about Bigfoot?”

“Oh, he is very real,” came the reply. “And his name is Darrell. We have a few of them scattered across the mountain ranges and swamps to add a certain amount of credence to the narrative we need to complete our mission.”

“What about climate change?” I inquired.

“That is real, but we had nothing to do with that,” it said. “You guys managed to do that on your own and we were quite pleased about that.”

“But doesn’t alternative news and cognitive dissonance create more conflicting narratives, causing more conflict and destruction?” I asked.

“Exactly, our plan is working out well,” it said. “We’ve put all the right people in place!”

“The right people in place?” I asked.

“Yes, but we can’t tell you the specifics,” was the reply. “But the plan is working nicely. All sides are fighting. There is no more unity, no more trust, and a complete loss of respect and humanity for one another. Devastation will follow and only then can we swoop in and reclaim our land.”

Suddenly I heard my dogs barking outside my bedroom door. I sat straight up, looked around and all was quiet and normal. I let me dogs in the room, swore off Tequila and went back to sleep.

Or did I?

Patty Leon

Senior Editor