Opinion: We're being invaded

Here's my dad on Thanksgiving in 2008. At family dinners, he entertained us with his theories and opinions. Little did we know, he had some good ones stashed in old files. 

Harry had no shortage of opinions and theories. Recently I discovered several essays titled, simply, "An Opinion." I assume he submitted them for publication. Do you suppose he wrote this one in the 1960s? A few details give us clues.


Have you ever stopped to wonder where all the people come from who fill all the new apartment houses being built throughout the country these days? Every major city, for example, is in the throes of an apartment boom, with modern high-rise monstrosities coming to dominate the skyline from coast to coast. These apartments aren’t inexpensive, either, with rentals ranging from over $100 a month for efficiencies to several hundred a month for multiple bedroom units.

Frankly, I find it hard to believe that there are enough people around to fill these buildings. And I find it doubly hard to believe that there are enough people around who can afford these prices. So where do they all come from? Well, I have a theory about that.

The fact is, I don’t think they’re people at all. Have you been reading all the reports about flying saucers lately? Well, judging by the frequency of these reports, it seems to me that somebody “up there” is running a shuttle service to Earth – that there’s a mass immigration taking place right under our noses. To those of you who would scoff at this suggestion, I ask you to consider these statistics.

The astronomers estimate that there are about 6,000 million galaxies, like our own Milky Way, within range of our 200-inch telescopes. (There are probably millions more that we haven’t seen yet.) They also estimate that our galaxy contains about 30,000 million stars, most of them bigger than our Sun and each of them with its own family of planets. If each of the galaxies contains approximately the same number of stars, and the truth is, most of the galaxies are considerably bigger than our own, then we can conservatively guess that there are something like 180 million million stars out there. Multiply that figure by ten and you get a rough idea of how many planets there are.

Now with all those billions and billions of planets, literally more numerous than the grains of sand on all the beaches of all our oceans, there must be at least a few on which life similar to ours has evolved. And if they’re anything like us, they must think the grass is greener here, and maybe it is, at that. Anyway, I think they’re coming here, probably from many different places, landing secretly on dark nights, printing their own money (which accounts for the inflation that’s taking place) and setting themselves up in residence. Maybe they look upon the Earth as a vacation capital of the universe. After all, viewed through their eyes, we’re probably good for a lot of laughs the way we behave towards each other. Or maybe they look upon us as a horrible example and are trying to figure out how to avoid making the same mistakes themselves.

To be sure, I know they’re studying us and our culture. If you want to get a close-up look at them, just visit any of our major university campuses. Oh, there are some superficial similarities between them and human beings, but if you look closely, you’ll see that many of them can’t possibly be products of this planet.

Anyway, I think it makes more sense to believe that we’re being “invaded” by extraterrestrials than to believe that we’re filling up all those apartment buildings and colleges ourselves. If you find that too hard to take, though, I have another theory, too. It has to do with time travel, but I’ll tell you about it another time.

View from Harry's grandson's 12th-floor apartment in Harlem. We're pretty sure he's an Earthling.

I used to ask my dad if he knew secrets of flying saucers and government cover-ups because he had Top Secret Pentagon clearance; he claimed he didn't. In retrospect, certain conversations suggested otherwise. I’ll post two more of Harry’s “opinion” pieces in the coming weeks. 

Copyright 2016
Elaine Blackman