“We’re on a road trip from Illinois to Santa Monica,” Joey explained. “We’ve all read about the UFO crash that allegedly took place here in 1948 and saw on your Facebook page you had some exhibits about it.”
“The UFO crash that allegedly took place?” Darla asked like she was speaking in front of a giant crowd. “My friend, if you think it’s all just a bunch of allegations, then the government has already won. I bet you believe we actually went to the moon and Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK, too.”
“So the crash actually happened?” Sam asked.
“Were George Washington’s teeth made of wood? Was Walt Disney cryogenically frozen moments before death? Was Beyoncé created in a Houston laboratory as an instrument for world peace?”
This only confused them more, and they stared at her blankly.
“Beats me, too,” Darla said with a shrug. “There’s absolutely no evidence to prove or disprove any of the theories I just mentioned.”
“There’s a theory Beyoncé was created in a lab?” Mo asked.
“When it comes to solving conspiracies, you should never look at the information they give you, only the information they don’t,” Darla said, and winked like a broken baby doll. “And when it comes to the UFO crash of 1948, the government sure spends an awful lot of time and effort telling us it didn’t happen.”
“I can’t tell if that’s brilliant or just bonkers,” Topher whispered to his friends.
“It’s 150 percent bonkers,” Cash answered.
Darla clapped her hands. “So you guys want to see some cool alien crap or what?”
She led them to the far side of the room to a square case that was covered in a black cloth. She put her hands over the top as if an exotic animal might jump out at any second.
“Before these objects are revealed I think it’s important to give you a little history lesson,” Darla explained. “Picture it—New Mexico in 1948. Truman was president and there wasn’t a damn thing to do but reproduce, raise cattle, and die. Two lonely farmers named Elmer and Essie Fitzpatrick awoke one summer night to the sounds of their livestock going berserk. They ran outside to see what the problem was and they saw smoke in the distance. They hurried toward it as fast as Elmer’s clubfoot would allow. In the exact spot where this tower stands, the farmers discovered a crashed flying saucer and four dead bodies of extraterrestrial beings!”
“Neat,” Joey said.
“Whatever,” Cash said.
“What did the farmers do?” Sam asked.
“What any respectable couple would do upon such a discovery—they called the sheriff,” Darla said. “However, Elmer and Essie didn’t realize at first what they had discovered. Being simple country folk during the time of World War II—and blatant racists—the couple assumed the four little green men among the debris were Japanese fighter pilots. So the sheriff immediately called the military when he got off the phone with the Fitzpatricks. They drove up from a base in southern New Mexico and were at the scene of the crash within three hours—but it only took a matter of seconds before they realized what they were looking at. The military had the whole scene cleared in under an hour and they shipped the wreckage and the bodies off to some secret government facility. The Fitzpatricks were told the crash was just a weather balloon and the bodies were seasick little people who had stolen it. But luckily for us, that wasn’t before Elmer Fitzpatrick took a piece of the wreckage for himself!”
Darla uncovered the display case with gusto, revealing a very thin piece of scrap metal.
“That’s a piece of aluminum foil,” Cash said.
“I see there’s a skeptic in our midst,” Darla said, and zeroed in on him. “If you think it’s a piece of foil, then answer me this: How could the Fitzpatricks get their hands on a piece of aluminum foil if there was an aluminum shortage in New Mexico during the late 1940s due to World War II?”
“Fuck the Fitzpatricks—you could have stuck that in there this morning for all we know,” Cash said. “You can still see some chicken grease on the corner of it.”
“You’d be surprised how similar chicken grease looks and smells to extraterrestrial DNA,” she said. “Trust me, I have my doctorate in Ufology from the William Shatner Online Institute. Now, please follow me to exhibit number two.”
Darla led the group to the opposite side of the store, where another square case was covered by a black cloth. She removed it at once and the others stared inside at a tray of oddly shaped pieces of metal.
“What are those?” Mo asked.
Darla looked around the room to make sure no one from the government was listening. “Those are alien implants found in abductees,” she whispered. “They’ve been removed from people from all over the world who have been experimented on by the tall grays, the short grays, the Nordic blonds, the mantis, and the Reptoids. As you can see, each alien species leaves a differently shaped object in their victims.”