How To Talk To An Extraterrestrial

No point in being abusive or rude
unless you wanna be alien food.

Forget Urdu, Sanskrit, or Latin
unless you want yer head to fatten.

English, Mandarin, or Cantonese
won’t make ‘em any weaker in the knees.

The Vulcan mind-melding technique
is about as useful as Hindu or Greek.

It’s way too pushy and indiscreet,
as vacuous on our part as Lorikeet.

Chirp, chirp, chirp. What would we say?
They’d have our customs down in a day.

Ix-nay on Pig Latin or Val Speak too.
Esperanto’d get us a spot in a zoo.

Might as well grunt, walk on our knuckles,
use sign language or Smiles ‘n’ Chuckles.

No. Forget blatherin’ in any tongue.
They’d as soon read entrails, examine our dung.

We’re the furless monkeys here.
They’re the egg heads; that is clear.

Best to listen, use mathematics.
Let our bats out of belfries and attics.

From one pencil-neck geek to the other,
swapping equations ‘n’ formulae one t’other

that’s the ticket! No pronunciation gaffs!
No giggles or sniggers, guffaws or laughs!

Geometry, Algebra, Calculus, Trig --
remember: their foreheads are really big!

You want to get inside their noodles,
you gotta put aside the Trix and Zoodles.

You can use spare change, loops and strings
to show them we know the planets and things.

Flash cards and flashlights are good too,
but pizza might make ‘em gag or spew.

Pi, that’s the new Rosetta stone
to get E.T.s to grab the phone.

Pi, as in Pi R squared, not lemon or flapper.
That’ll reach alien scientist or kidnapper.

Quadratics will make ‘em quake ‘n’ quiver-
better than offerings of steak or liver.

Yeah. Pure math! Never mind what they are munchin’.
Let computer networks do the crunchin’!

Find more by Richard Stevenson in the Author Index

Comment on this story in the Aphelion Forum

Return to Aphelion's Index page.