Shane has asked me to be careful with this one because this is a family website, and I will be, but it has to be said, and I am the one to say it, because I have had thirty years of experiencers sitting at my kitchen table telling me what happened to them, and the one thing they all say, every one of them, before the detail and after the detail and in the middle of the detail, is this:
Nobody asked.
The position
I will put it plainly. These are beings who can cross whatever it is between here and there. They can hover without noise. They can lift a cow through the air like she weighs nothing and put a woman back in her bed, or near it, without waking the house. They can make the dogs hum in a key.
And when they get here, with all that, the first thing they do, the first thing, is a medical procedure that a person would not accept from their own doctor without a form, a chat, and a cup of tea afterwards.
That is not advanced. That is a civilisation that has clearly never heard of a conversation first.
What it tells us
Dr Faraday says the probing is “data collection”. Cheryl says it’s the Programme. Shane says it’s “them just being weird about it”. I think it is simpler than all of those.
I think they don’t know how to talk to us, and rather than learn, they’ve gone straight to the part they’re comfortable with, which is the equipment. I have met men like that. Every district has one. Good with a machine, hopeless at a funeral.
Cheryl has been taken forty-seven times and not one of them has said hello. Not once. Gary, who she had a child with, has never so much as nodded. You don’t do that to a person. You don’t do that to a cow. When I load a beast I talk to her the whole way up the ramp. Doesn’t matter if she understands. It’s about who you are.
The Collective’s proposed etiquette
I have drafted the following and will be leaving a copy in the Top Paddock, laminated, on the gatepost, facing up.
- Lights on, then wait. Give a person a minute to put their pants on. Give a cow a minute to finish her mouthful.
- Introduce yourself. A name. Any name. Cheryl had to make one up and now the poor bloke’s stuck with Gary.
- State the purpose of the visit. “We are here to collect a sample.” “We are here to look at the dam.” “We were in the area.” Any of these is fine. Silence is not fine.
- Ask. This is the whole thing. Ask. Most people on this site, if asked nicely, would have said yes. Cheryl has said as much. Macca the truck driver has said he’d “have a go”. I would, for Beryl, have gone up that beam myself and held her head.
- No procedures on the first visit. Nobody gets a probe on a first date. That is a rule on Earth and it is a good one.
- Return the subject to the correct house. Mrs Kowalski at number 14 should not have been involved.
- Follow up. A light in the sky the next week. A shape in the wheat. Anything. Cheryl’s shin has had a triangle on it for twenty-seven years and she does not know what it means. Tell her what it means.
- Cows are not samples. A cow is somebody’s. She has a tag. The tag has a number. The number has a name, and the name is written on a feed bin at Boolaroo Downs where a nine-year-old Droughtmaster used to put her head every morning. Bring her back, or at least say why not.
To any of them reading this
Dr Faraday says they monitor the site. Shane says the analytics show “something” from an address he can’t resolve, which could be them or could be Keith on a new modem. Either way.
You’ve got the beam. You’ve got the craft. You’ve got, by all accounts, the manners of a cattle crush. Have a think about which of those you’d like to be remembered for.
The gate is open. The kettle’s on. The paperwork is laminated.
Come down and talk.
— Warren
Document U8MC-18-0505. Status: CONFIRMED. This file is retained indefinitely, or until the Men in Beige ask for it, whichever is never.