ET, Call Downwind

“We will not go quietly into the night airshow. We will not leave the warbird area without a B-17 flight. We’re going to swelter on. We’re going to eat cheese curds. Today, we celebrate our alien AirVenture® attendance day.”

                 President Thomas J. Whitmore (Callsign, “Lone Starr”)

It stands to reason, based on all the science fiction movies, social media posts, and recent government photo releases, that space aliens are among us. We can assume they are out there hovering above the nether regions of our atmosphere, just itching for a little human contact. This itching is exacerbated by their having tentacles and no fingernails for scratching. 

Where will they finally show themselves? Well, where would you go if you had a brand new, state-of-the-art, possibly experimental interstellar spacecraft? Oshkosh, right?

It stands to reason that alien pilots are like all pilots and are even now puzzling over the Fisk Arrival, wondering how they can waggle their wings to show ATC compliance when they are saucer-shaped and move through multi-dimensions rather than airspace.

Will they materialize out of the yearly super thunderstorm that hovers over the Wittman Field like an ominous sci-fi movie trope, or will they splash down in the seaplane area that their internet-gleaned information mind implants tell them is: “Nestled deep in the trees in a picturesque cove along the Lake Winnebago shore?”

Our ET flying buddies may encounter some negative vibes upon arrival. Our government frowns on non-citizens, and a security probing of their mommy and daddy parts and looking for their intergalactic travel visas is in the offing. 

Another pain in the ink sac for our visitors will be a lack of prior planning. Like most first-time attendees, these star-oriented air venturers may be shocked to find that, even though they arrived in a state-of-the-art interdimensional star ship, they are not allowed to park at Boeing Plaza with all the other big, weird, and expensive aircraft. 

After landing, considering that their craft operates in a zero-gravity bubble, they will be marshaled by heavy-set, orange-vested people on motorcycles to the weirdest and most exotic location on the grounds—the ultralight area. 

Parking space is limited there and will be problematic for a six hundred-and-fifty-two-foot gleaming orb from space. People who fly ultralights are very accommodating and will probably make room for them near the Ultralight Barn and invite the UFO pilots to their yearly hacky-sac tournament.

I do not know what the on-grounds camping fee is for a 199-meter-long craft, but you can bet your last out-of-date box of sic-sacs that a golf cart will be along to collect it before our little green buddies can stretch and wiggle their eyestalks.

Our interstellar pilots will no doubt be awarded the trophy for coming the longest distance to the show and will collect their prize at the Theater in the Woods from Harrison Ford right after a showing of Air Force One on the big screen. 

Here are a few short factoids on how to handle meeting and interacting with our intergalactic guests:

• They haven’t pooped in over six thousand light-years, so if you see one of them exiting a porta-potty and they tell you, “Don’t go in there,” it is no joke—do NOT go in there
• If you are a young volunteer or one of those officious Boy Scouts tasked with keeping people to one side or the other of a painted line on the ground or a rope, please do not yell at the ETs. They are sensitive to the sound of pre-teen voices and might blast you with a ray that could postpone the end of your puberty for seventy-five years.
• If offered a free tour of their craft, do not panic if you see a large book being held by their tour guide. It is a large-print copy of the classic sci-fi novel The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and is not a cookbook.
• When our alien guests, who are used to a methane atmosphere at minus 12°F, travel around the grounds, please keep in mind that they do not sweat as much as they ooze, and that Gatorade or bottled water is poison to them. A little squirt of any inexpensive Methylene Chloride Stripper into their food intake holes will bring them right back from heat exhaustion.
• They love cheese curds and brats.
• They will most likely leave the morning of day four because of an old saying from their planet—“Guests and Zeeboid wheezers begin to smell after day four.” 

I hope you are there for their departure. As they board their craft wearing fresh EAA hats and T-shirts while waving their tentacles to the crowd, a solemn feeling of good wishes and space-borne peace will probably fall over you.

They will zoom away, trailing red, white, and blue smoke, and that smoke will descend on the crowd and wipe away any memory of their visit—just like every other year they have attended the fly-in since 1973.