Yesterday and today: ALIEN TRACTORS

ALIEN TRACTORS


I'm sure many people cheered when Al ore won an award a the Oscars last week. But perhaps you failed to notice that we might not be on the brink of disaster after all. New technologies with new solutions are being developed everyday. And if we can't depend on former VPs and the good folks at MIT to develop strategies, both economically and technologically driven then it is time we begin to search else where. Our good neighbors North are smart enough to suggest its about time we steal from our intergalactic observers. Don't you, too? I'm not afraid. Are you?

Perhaps you remember the story of William Huxesle. A rural farmer from Nebraska who, in the early 1960's, was able to harvest two billion pounds of corn. Never in the history of man kind had any such harvest occurred. When the man was questioned by the Feds about his god-given fields they discovered that he had what some historians call a Sirus XP 3000. An interplanetary tractor believed to have been purchased on the ABM (Alien Black Market). This crop collection device not only picked, shucked and stored the corn in its two ton storage tank but it was also capable of duplicating genetically everything it held 100 fold. Huxesle was a humble man who used G-D as an excuse for such a large crop. "I'm just trying to pay my bills," his wife Gertrude remembers him saying. "And the good lord has blessed me with the best field in the universe." It was this quote which led the feds to investigate his farm. Even today scholars wonder what the real meaning behind the statement the best field in the universe really meant.

Sady, in 1965 Mr. Huxesle vanished, as did his machine. Some believe he owed too much money to the ABM, unable to meet the high fees in Beatles memorabilia that the ABM hustlers demanded. "All we demanded were locks of hair from Ringo, a couple bobble head dolls and a lunch box depicting the Beatles appearance on the Ed Sullivan show." A former ABM dealer said.

The cult of the Sirus XP 3000 began shortly after that. Tales of the legendary tractor spread throughout middle America as Huxesly's corn created a minor crash in the stock market that year. Many people remember the taste of the corn being different than any other on the market. "It tasted like cotton candy mixed with peppermint spam," one nearby farmer, asking to remain nameless, remembers. "My child began speaking in tongues. His teeth turned green, he began to read Viking epics."

This technology was great. Limitless in its ability to end world hunger, with the possibility to engage children in historical myths,we can only wonder why was such a device taken from us? And who lead the investigation? We may never know...

And what else exists for us in our endeavours to save our own civilization? We have only the Canadian government to ask. Unless we can come up with that crazy Beatles album with the bloody babies on the cover, we may never know.

(The author's reconstruction of the Sirus XP 3000 Interplanetary Tractor based from witness testimony and blue prints purchased from the ABM for an autograph copy of Julian Lennon's debut album. )

photo of reconstructed engine (built into my Yugo) from blue prints.