Washington, D.C.,
August 2007
Arnie Lerma: I got up today and something happened to me.
Arnie Lerma Known Associate #1: What was that?
Lerma: I didn't think about Scientology.
AL Known Associate #2: Then what happened?
Lerma: Then I didn't think about Scientology again.
AL KA#3: How about I post about this to the news group, "Tomorrow Arnie Lerma will betray you all!!!"
AL KA#2: Why would you want to do that?
AL KA#3: I don't know. I just have this irrational compulsion to do something inane and stupid.
AL KA#2: You mean like something that will leave an everlasting impact on the human race?
AL KA#3: That's right.
Lerma: Could you post it anonymously?
AL KA#3: I would know who posted it, so it wouldn't really be anonymous.
Lerma: What about the psycho-political terrorist training I got when I was in the cult?
AL KA#1: You mean the "implant" that you cannot leave the news group until you commit overts against it?
Lerma: Yeah, the "truth" I was implanted with and am supposed to follow blindly.
AL KA#2: The psycho-political terrorist ideology doesn't work unless you think it's for a good cause.
Lerma: Like saving the planet?
AL KA#2&3: Yeah.
Lerma: How is a psycho-political terrorist group constructed for the purpose of subversion going to save anything?
AL KA#1: Good point.
AL KA#2: I got a better idea.
Lerma, AL KA#1: What??
AL KA#2: We could post information.
Lerma: You mean bona fide court documents?
AL KA#1: What would that prove?
AL KA#3: For one thing, it could prove that I could post anonymously.
Lerma, AL KA#1, AL KA#2: By Jove, I think we've got it!
EIGHT MONTHS EARLIER at a safe house near a small air field in West Virginia.
Choppers on loan from a nearby military base coming in from Camp David. Two stay aloft at either end of the field. One helicopter touches down. Passengers debark.
Appearing thousands of feet above the field in the troposphere is a sprite -- an electrical impulse that originated from the sun.
One of the passengers below, wearing a trench coat, is a little taller than the others. Lidless eyes set in scaly skin flick upward, rotate toward the rear of the creature's head, then come to rest at synchonous outward angles. Body guards escort the visitor to a waiting Yukon with tinted windows. One opens a door. The coated visitor slides in. The guard slams the door. The SUV drives three-eighths mile to the front door of the safe house. House and vehicle doors open simultaneously. Guards come out and form a human shield while the creature, looking less and less human, darts into the cavernous safety of the temporary dwelling.
Lerma and known associates greet the creature who, of course, is an extraterrestrial on a special visit from its terrestrial compound at the nearby military base.
"You've heard about Herr Oberst Cruise?" asked the lizard-like alien without blinking.
"Probably not the same thing you have," replied Lerma.
"He is going to Germany to 'pretend' to be a Nazi!" said the creature.
Lerma and known associates recklessly throw their notes up into the air.
"I give up!" said Lerma.
"They are really doing it!" said AL KA#2.
"Mass intellectual suicide!" exclaimed AL KA#1.
"Cruise is looking for a villa right now, on the Wannsee," the alien informed them.
Jaws dropped.
"He will 'pretend' to be a connoiseur of Satanic poetry. His purpose in doing so, of course, is to capture the hearts and minds of the German Volk, and to purify them," said the alien.
"And your concern is?" asked Lerma.
"He wants to mobilize the newly purified masses against aliens," replied the lizard. "What I want to know is, Do I have anything to fear from this?"
"Let's see," said AL KA#1. "Cruise is going to pretend to be a member of a cult..."
AL KA#2 continued, "... who goes to Germany and pretends to be a Nazi..."
"... who pretends to enjoy reading Satanic verse," AL KA#3 summed up the statement.
"Implanting the newly purified Volk with the 'idea', said Lerma, "that if they want to protect their children from drugs, and become successful in life, all they have to do is render the space aliens among us harmless, thereby saving the planet."
"You would know the human race better than I do," interjected the reptilian alien. "Do you believe Scientology can do that?"
"Frankly speaking, we have more confidence in the human race," said Lerma.
"It's a great con," said AL KA#3 thoughtfully. "Certainly the Scientologists could mass hypnotize themselves to believe they were saving the planet. Hubbard's technology could be used to stimulate the genetic fear the Germans have for Nazis to motivate them to attack..."
"Who are you anyway?" asked Lerma.
"FOTET," said the lizard. "That's Friends of the Earth's Troposphere. We try to measure greenhouse gasses and so forth, and place the information on the Internet, where it can be 'discovered' by Terrestrials."
"How come you get a free ride from the military?" asked AL KA#1.
"The military are kind enough to protect us from psycho-political terrorist groups on Earth," said the lizard. "They know those whackos would use us as an excuse to rob liquor stores and otherwise disrupt the economy," it continued.
"You've been getting a lot of bad PR, too," Lerma commented. "Was Xenu really a galactic overlord who tried to control overpopulation?"
"Puh-leeze!" said the alien. "Do atomic bombs in volcanoes seem like an ecologically sound solution to you?"
"You're right," Lerma and his known associates agreed. "There is just one hitch about this Cruise thing, though. We believe you, but we need to see a sign."
"Would a sign from Cruise himself convince you?" asked the lizard.
"What kind of sign?" Lerma wanted to know.
"How bouta movie advocating murder as a political solution?"
Lerma and associates were stunned. Lerma managed to untie his tongue long enough to say, "Uh, yeah . . . That would do it."
The creature smiled oddly, turned abruptly around, and whisked back out the door.