sci-fi escapism | Pulpy Sci-fi

Do aliens like coffee? We think so! What intelligent being wouldn’t? As readers of my blog and fans of my novels have long suspected, UFOs are aliens just looking for coffee. For years, I’ve been the lone voice in the literary wilderness pointing this out to anyone who would listen, and writing a few novels about it. But now other serious writers are beginning to take notice. Joe Queenan, well-known columnist for the prestigious Wall Street Journal no less, has come around and now agrees. They’re here, and they’re looking for coffee.

The Wall Street Journal Finally Agrees With Me

In a recent WSJ column, “Are UFOs Just Aliens Looking for a Cup of Coffee?”, Joe Queenan argues this very point. And we think this is good news, because it means UFOs probably do NOT have hostile intentions or planning an invasion. If the aliens are just looking for coffee, then logic dictates they are nice, peaceful, intelligent and witty, because in my experience human coffee lovers are nice, peaceful, intelligent and witty. We prefer to sit and visit while sharing great coffee over interesting conversation, rather than invade foreign countries – much less attack someone else’s planet.

Now, the more cynical among us may argue the opposite. Since, to the best of our knowledge, Earth is the only known planet in the galaxy that can grow coffee, might not aliens be tempted to take us over? As their logic goes, the very fact aliens are coming to Earth might mean they’re planning an invasion so they can get their hands on our coffee.

But I don’t think so. Alien visitors are likely to be intelligent – after all they’ve managed to invent UFOs that can travel trillions of miles through space to get here. If they are smart enough to do that, they are smart enough to realize it’s much cheaper to simply buy the coffee from us rather than attack.

Planetary invasions can get pretty expensive.

Buying a Cup of Coffee is Cheaper Than Planetary Invasions

Do the math – it’s not all that hard. How much is a pound of coffee? My local grocery store carries it for anywhere from $5 to $10 a pound. I usually spend $20 on premium Rwandan coffee from a roaster here in town. It’s much cheaper – and quicker, by the way – to go shopping than it would be to invade Rwanda.

As a matter of fact, as I write this at 5 o’clock on a Friday morning, I’m getting low on coffee. And I think I’ll simply go see my local roaster and spend $20, rather than launch a military assault on an African nation at the cost of several millions of dollars (not that I have several millions, I’m just trying to make a point). If I can figure this math out, I’m pretty sure any alien astronaut can as well.

They Are Here for the Coffee

I feel confident our alien visitors have come to much the same conclusion. And the proof? Well – they haven’t invaded yet and apparently they’ve been visiting us for decades, at least since the 1950s when people started to notice UFOs, and have yet to take hostile action. If they were going to invade, I think they would have done so by now.

And what did it cost the US to invade Afghanistan? 1.2 trillion dollars! If it cost that much to invade a little country right here on Earth a mere 8,000 miles away, think of the cost to invade an entire planet across the galaxy. For an alien visitor, wouldn’t it just make more sense to come to Earth peacefully, find a human willing to trade, and spend the $5 to $20 dollars a pound?

And it would be much more pleasant for both the aliens and humans involved. They could sit down, enjoy a nice cup of coffee while comparing notes on our respective cultures. Launching military invasions is no way to make friends. A pleasant cultural exchange is much nicer than shooting at each other.

As readers of my popular novels have long suspected…

Let’s hope the Pentagon is paying attention. If the American military brass realize that UFOs are just aliens looking for a decent cup of coffee, not to invade, then they are much less likely to start shooting and inadvertently start an inter-galactic war.

Or, more to the point, is anything or anybody out there at all? Given the nature of my novels, I’m often asked if I believe in aliens. But that question can mean a couple of different things:

Do you believe in the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligences out in the universe?
Do you believe that UFO’s are alien visitors from space?

These are two very different topics. ‘Do you believe there might be other intelligent beings out there in the universe somewhere?’ – OR – ‘Do you believe that the UFO phenomenon is real – that UFO’s are real and they are spaceships visiting us from other worlds.’

Is there anyone out there?

Many serious scientists, notably those involved in programs like SETI, believe there may be, even likely is, intelligent life in the universe other than ourselves. They do not necessarily believe in UFOs. I fall into that camp. I am agnostic when it comes to aliens – I think there could be other civilizations out there. We just don’t know and programs like SETI are looking for scientific evidence for that.

But do I believe UFOs are alien visitors from another planet?

Well, I have my doubts. And here’s why. If UFOs are visitors from other planets, then they aren’t very smart or seem to be very confused about what their mission is.

The aliens seem to be confused about what their mission is

Consider this: The aliens either want us to know about them, and are here to reveal themselves to us, make contact, hopefully just to trade or engage in cultural exchange and other benign activities.

Or, they are here on a secret mission and don’t want us to know about them.

Either way, they seem to be doing a lousy job of it. If it is a secret mission, then they’ve screwed up big time. Thousands of people are on to them, and if the UFO conspirators are correct, then apparently the US Government knows all about them too.

If they are not on a secret mission and are here to reveal themselves and make contact, then that is not going very well either because the vast majority of us rational people aren’t convinced that they even exist. It’s still a big secret only the conspiracy theory people and the US Government seem to know about. And the government is involved in a massive cover-up to keep it from the public.

Alien Cover-up?

If aliens from other worlds are really visiting us and want us to know about them, then HOW could the US Government cover that up?

I mean, wouldn’t it be a simple matter for our alien buddies to make themselves known and initiate cultural contact? Why don’t they just land a big ship in Times Square, or the front lawn of the White House, or Red Square for that matter.

Or how about in front of parliament in Ottawa? Canadians are generally pretty nice and aren’t as likely to start shooting.

But conspiracy believers will say they don’t do that because they aren’t ready to reveal themselves, or we’re not ready for them yet, so they still have to keep their presence secret. Well, if that’s the case we still have a big problem because they’ve been photographed and spotted literally thousands of times. And they seem to be obsessed with hanging around top secret US government airfields and stuff – and getting spotted.

Why are the photos always so fuzzy?

Again, not very smart of them.

But no, apparently they only reveal themselves to fruitcakes. Because from the documentaries I’ve watched about people claiming to have met or been abducted by aliens, the people involved don’t seem to be entirely well balanced.

And why is there NEVER any hard evidence? Just lots of fuzzy pictures.

Sure, lots of pictures but those are easily faked. Of course, this is where the conspiracy believers will say – “but there is hard evidence…and the US Government is hiding it and keeping it from the public… and they’ve used the tech to build spaceships that get us to Mars in 3 days… and there is a colony on Mars already…but it’s all a secret because people can’t handle the truth…”

Yup, you can watch documentaries on Netflix where people go into great detail ‘proving’ these very things.

The aliens are making a lot of rookie mistakes

But here’s the thing. Suppose for a moment that all this is true. I don’t think the cover-up is necessary any more because I’m pretty sure the public is long passed caring. What I mean by that is not that people wouldn’t be interested, it’s just there wouldn’t be panic in the streets. If the ‘truth’ came out, most of us would watch it on the morning news shows while drinking our coffee, mumble something like: “It’s about time the government finally came clean on UFOs”, then finish getting dressed and get on with our day. Sure, it would be cool, but we’d hardly panic.

Maybe the aliens coming here are cadets, spaceship pilots in training, and that would explain all the rookie mistakes they seem to be making.

Well, I think I’ve ranted enough. I’m sure the US Government has a lot of secrets they are keeping from us. I think they have to – how could they function otherwise. But I don’t think UFOs are one of them.

Why are the aliens always hanging around US Air Force bases?

I think all that stuff that gets spotted in the sky, sometimes hard to explain, is exactly what a rational person would suppose. Advanced drones from China or the latest generation of advanced aircraft technology that the US is working on.

Think about it – at any given time the Air Force must be working on the next generation of technology, and of course it has to be kept secret. And of course they have to test fly this stuff. When they first started working on stealth bombers, it would have been top secret and someone who happened to spot a test flight might easily mistake it for a UFO. I mean, after all, we don’t have anything like that on Earth, right???

Interestingly enough, the vast majority of so-called UFO sightings are in the vicinity of military bases. Now, I don’t think aliens who have the ability to travel light-years across the galaxy would be all that interested in our primitive military gear!!

While my fellow bloggers on this site will disagree, I don’t think UFOs are visitors from space. If they are, they certainly make a lot of rookie mistakes. They keep getting spotted, and one of them flew dangerously close between two Navy fighter jets, almost causing a collision. That doesn’t strike me as very bright! I’m pretty sure any alien astronaut arriving here is going to be smarter than that.

Whatever these UFOs turn out to be, the explanation is likely to be very earthbound and mundane.

(Updated November 3, 2022)

Tag: sci-fi escapism

UFOs are just aliens looking for a good cup of coffee