The big news this week is that President Obama is set to announce that he is in contact with aliens. There are even rumours that this was the real reason behind his Nobel Peace Prize. The prize being seen as a form of global mandate in the upcoming intergalactic parley.

While it doesn’t surprise me that Obama has been chosen to speak to the aliens, I am very surprised to hear that he wants to speak to them. In fact, I am shocked, maybe even a little alarmed. For years, I have heard only horrible stories coming from America about how their country has been overrun by aliens. That these little buggers have been stealing jobs from good American folks. Running drugs, committing crime and apparently driving unlicensed taco-trucks. You may be wondering what type of alien drives a taco truck? Well, that question also confused me. A converted 1977 Ford F350 pickup is a little different to the Millennium Falcon. For ages I scoured the library and read every paper I could get my hands on looking for clues. I even journeyed into the cyberspace hunting these fast-food aliens. But to no avail. No clues, no pictures, no descriptions, nothing. The closest I came was an obscure ballad by a man named Sting about an alien in New York. I am pretty sure that Sting may be a pseudonym. ET speak for old man who sing pseudo intellectual popsong. But either way, my efforts were fruitless in tracking them down.

That was until last week when I went to America. It wasn’t my first time there but it was my first time looking for aliens. As soon as I landed, I started speaking to bunch of folks about their alien problem. A nice man at the airport patted his MP5 HNK submachine gun and simply said to me, “Not on my watch.” I felt secure that a big bloke like him had my back. Over the next few days I found that everyone had a different theory on the aliens. Hell, some people even thought they were good for the country! But they were just crackpot hippies with those “take me to your dealer” posters on their walls, so I took no heed. Now the problem was I  had a lot of success in talking about aliens but no much in the way of seeing aliens. No one could point one out. I hadn’t seen any little green men or anything or anyone that vaguely resembled an alien. It looked like I would leave empty-handed. But on the last night while drinking Total Domination IPAs I met this fella from a small group of dedicated citizens called the minutemen. Off their own backs, they work hard to protect their nation from aliens. I was stoked. He had to have some answers. But all he did was point at me and said, “You’re the motherfucking alien, man!” (Then he spat on the floor and asked me if I cared to dance. But that’s another story).

He wandered off and I wondered about his words. Finally, the penny dropped. I realised the Americans are dealing with a much more insidious enemy than I had imagined. Some sort of shape-shifting extra-terrestrial that can take on the human form. And there’s nothing I hate more than Martians pretending to be Earthlings. My dad grew up in Britain in the 50s and he told me all about the Triffids. Imagine it. Colour has not yet been invented. The entire world is doused in dreary tones of black and white. You’re in the middle of the Cold War, waiting for the Russians to come, but instead you’re invaded by alien plants pretending to be people. Just awful. It is no wonder the Americans are scared of these aliens. They remember the day of the Triffids all too well.

Which is why I’m not following Obama’s logic here. Where’s he going with this thing? Why is he talking to aliens? I mean even Dubya understood aliens. That’s why he built that big-ass fence in Texas. To guard against an invasion by slimy three-eyed space things. Why he built it in Texas I am not sure. Could be that he was just trying to look out for his home state. That could also be the reason he never went to Vietnam and just stayed in the Texas home guard. He wanted to defend the Lone Star State against Startroopers. And there was everyone jumping down his throat for being a coward. He’s a goddamn hero!

Ok, granted a fence is not much defence against a spaceship. Even a well-aimed taco-truck could probably take that thing down. But talking to aliens? That’s just crazy talk. I realise that Obama may not trust Dubya but there’s a whole bunch of other people on this planet that don’t like aliens either. Like here in South Africa. My mind goes to a shocking documentary I saw recently. District 9. You may have seen it. It’s about the aliens in Jo’burg. I haven’t been to Jo’burg in years but it looks a right mess with all those crazy prawns. As if the Parktown Prawns weren’t bad enough, now they’ve got full-size ones. It’s just appalling. My mind boggles that even with such startling evidence Mr Obama still wants to do this thing. I wanted to send him a DVD copy of the film but it isn’t out yet. I even thought about sending him a downloaded copy. Don’t worry I didn’t. I know it’s illegal. And I don’t want to get Mr Obama into trouble for piracy. But I also don’t want him to get into trouble with these little green men. So Mr. Obama, if you read this, please think carefully about how you deal with these visitors from outer space. I really don’t want to become a good source of protein for some intergalactic cowboys who have blown up their planet and now want to eat my brains …

P.S. I never got to the bottom of the taco-truck thing. I did find a taco joint that was also a strip joint. On further investigation it turned out there was just a bunch of nice Mexican guys and Eastern European girls in there. Not a single damn alien in sight. 

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  • David Smith is a world famous artist and a British Olympic hammer thrower. He is a curler for Scotland and Manitoba. A pro wrestler fondly known as the British Bulldog. A Canadian economist and a Mormon missionary they call the Sweet Singer of Israel. He is a British historian and a bishop. David Smith is the biographer of HG Wells, a professor of physics, a composer and a music teacher at Yale. He played rugby for Samoa, England and New Zealand. He created the Melissa worm, a deadly computer virus. He is the Guardian's man in Africa, he starred in a reality TV show and shot his way to silver in the 600m military rifle prone position at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp. But this isn't that David Smith. This is the blog of the other David Smith. David J Smith. The one from Durban by the Sea. The one who lives in Amsterdam. Yes, him. The David Smith who likes to write about himself in the third person. To learn about all the other David Smiths: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Smith To contact this David Smith: [email protected]

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David J Smith

David Smith is a world famous artist and a British Olympic hammer thrower. He is a curler for Scotland and Manitoba. A pro wrestler fondly known as the British Bulldog. A Canadian economist and a Mormon...

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