Aliens too baffled by humanity to come visit

Humans deemed ‘too lame’ for social interaction with the rest of the universe

By Rebecca Peterson, Humour Editor

There was much excitement in the scientific community this week, after mysterious transmissions from outer space—picked up by those big-ass satellite dishes in the desert you see in sci-fi films—were successfully translated by top xenolinguists at NASA, resulting in our first-ever samples of communication between alien life forms.

This excitement was swiftly muted, however, when it was discovered that the aliens were talking shit about humanity behind our backs.

NASA released part of the transcript to the public on Tuesday, with certain parts edited for clarity. It reads as follows:

LIFE FORM #1 (LF1): [Greeting].

LIFE FORM #2 (LF2): [Greeting].

LF1: Have you been to [Earth]?

LF2: [Affirmation]. 45 [years] ago. Why, have you?

LF1: Just came back. Was very confused. Last I heard [Earth] was populated by [dinosaurs]. Was excited to see [dinosaurs]. There were no [dinosaurs]. [Disappointment].

LF2: [Affirmation]. [Humans] exceedingly strange. Was worried when they started entering space.

LF1: Not worried. [Humans] have given up on space. [Humans] focus mainly on making weapons now.

LF2: Not very different from [other alien life form]. Not very strange. Not as strange as [movies]. [Humans] like pretending bad things that are not real then are unhappy when bad things happen in real life. Very confusing.

LF1: Things have escalated. [Humans] now have technology to pretend bad things are happening to them in a half-reality setting [likely referring to video games]. Some spend [hours, days] pretending these bad things are happening. Still don’t like bad things happening to them in real life.

LF2: [Mild surprise].

LF1: Also make strange sounds in certain parts of [Earth]. Very discordant. [Likely referring to country music].

LF2: [Agreement]. Do they still make [movies] pretending we take them or fight them? Very [rude, impolite].

LF1: Worse than that. [Describes porn].

Lf2: [Distressed noise].

LF1: [Agreement]. [Distressed noise].

LF2: No wonder [interplanetary supreme leader, or possibly “mom”] doesn’t want us to associate with [humans].

LF1: Some [humans] recently elected an [orange human] to be leader of one part of [Earth]. [Orange human] has no redeeming qualities. Confusing and bad.

LF2: [Other alien life form] wanted to invite [humans] to [interplanetary meeting, or celebration] next [century/millennia].

LF1: [Distressed noise].

LF2: Not worried. [Interplanetary supreme leader/“mom”] said no.

LF1: Good. [Humans] are [derogatory word, probably “lame”].

LF2: [Agreement]. [Dinosaurs] were so much [complimentary word, probably “cooler”].

NASA’s formal statement on the matter was simple: “We don’t mind if alien life forms critique us, we just feel it’s slightly rude that they did it behind our backs rather than to our faces. We didn’t want to go to their stupid party, anyway.”