Reprinted with permission of The Suspicious Humanist.
© 1989 by Louis Lopez. Written in 1984.
All rights reserved. It is allowed to reproduce and distribute copies of this book PROVIDED that (1) full credit is given to the author Louis Lopez, (2) it is copied exactly as found here without any alterations to the wording and (3) no more than $20 is charged for each copy.
"So how long are you planning to stay this time?" asked Elliott.
"I want to speak to some of your earth leaders, but I'm not sure I can because so many people seem to be afraid and suspicious," said E.T., the likeable extra-terrestrial who had visited earth the year before in 1982 and had now returned. A knock had come at the back door last night and when Elliott opened it, everyone had been ecstatic to find E.T. standing there. This morning they were sitting around the table after breakfast. "I am afraid I may have to go back as soon as tomorrow. You see, last night your airplanes were trying to trap my ship. It had to take off immediately after it left me. I do not believe they saw me get off, but I think they will be looking for me anyway."
"Don't worry. We won't let them take you," exclaimed Michael, Elliott's older brother.
"Another thing we were planning," continued E.T., "was to have some of you boys go back with us."
"Gah, really? That'd be great," yelled Tyler, one of Michael's three friends who were also present.
"When are we leaving?" queried Gertie, Elliott's little sister.
"You're not going to let girls go, are you?" Elliott asked annoyedly. E.T. put his arm around Elliott.
"As a matter of fact, young boys can travel much easier in outer space so we would prefer to take only boys at this time. Of course, we have to get the permission of your parents." With that, they all turned around to look at Mary.
"Oh, come on, Mom. You are going to let us go, aren't you?" asked Michael.
"We'll see. We'll have to talk about it," she answered.
E.T. answered many questions about what it would be like to travel in space and what it was like on his planet. He then gave them an assignment. "I want you kids to go right now to the place where the ship landed and see what is happening. It's not far from here. I better not go. I don't want to risk their catching me. Let me show you how to get there on this map."
The boys were gone on their mission all morning and part of the afternoon, and when they came back Michael reported, "We saw some men working around a trailer that was in the trees next to the clearing where you said your ship landed. They were covering up the trailer with tree branches and leaves. We started circling around to go to the trailer, but a soldier stopped us. He said we weren't supposed to be around there. We asked him what was going on. He said they had been told a flying saucer had landed but that he didn't believe any of it."
"Good," said E.T. "A man came to the house looking for me."
"He showed me an I.D. from the F.B.I.," Mary said. "He was very nice. He asked if we'd seen a space creature in the last two days."
"E.T. is no 'creature,'" Elliott said indignantly.
"I have to try to leave tonight," E.T. announced. "I think it is too dangerous for me to stay. I wanted to meet many more of your people, but it will not be possible. You will have to decide by 6 o'clock tonight whether you can go with me or not. We will have to leave in the dark so they won't see us. You won't need many clothes."
The other three boys returned at 6 but their parents came, too. They had heard many things about E.T. since his first visit and said they wanted to meet him. They sat down to talk to E. T. along with Mary and her children. All the parents were against the boys going. The boys argued and pleaded for more than two hours to be allowed to go; they were certain there was no danger. The parents liked E.T., who didn't pressure them in any way, but felt it was too soon to decide on a space journey. They did, however, allow the boys to see E.T. off. This meant a long night hike because E.T. wanted to walk to a desolate point several miles away and wait to call in his ship at the quietest time of the night.
They left at 9:30 with flashlights and sleeping bags, but progress was slow and difficult. For a long time the boys were quiet and downcast with even the chance to camp out not offering much consolation. After walking for almost three hours, they finally arrived at a spot E.T. liked. He assembled some twigs and sent a message to his space companions the way he had done during his previous visit. He told the boys it would still be a few hours before the ship came. They sat and told stories and before long were overtaken by sleep.
About 4 A.M. they were awakened by bright lights in the sky. E.T. had everybody move to the clearing where the spaceship was supposed to land. A number of other lights suddenly encircled the spaceship, and then bright red beams of light shot out from each of the surrounding lights into the spaceship, which made it turn a bright orange. As E.T. and the boys ran back to the trees, they noticed helicopters landing all around the clearing. Soon after they got to the tree line, soldiers with rifles caught up with them. The ship had landed and was trying to take off again, but all it did was lunge slightly upward and fall again. What looked like a hundred soldiers surrounded it, aiming bayoneted rifles as they moved in.
E.T. and the boys were quickly put into a van and driven to Ft. Adams, an army base nearby. The van stopped to let the boys off at a building but left with E.T. The boys were led to a room but Elliott resisted, "I want to go with E.T. You're going to hurt him."
"Don't worry. He'll be all right," said a polite man dressed in a gray suit as he asked Elliott to come into the room and motioned for them to sit in a large sofa. "We're not going to hurt him. Why would we want to? We do need to ask him and his companions a lot of questions, and we need to keep them under close physical observation. Hopefully that won't be long."
"I bet you're going to put him under that plastic thing we rescued him from last time," Tyler said, referring to the boys' removal of E.T. from the clinical observation unit government doctors had placed him in the year before.
"We will if it's necessary, but it shouldn't harm him. You see it's very important to make sure these people aren't carrying any strange communicative diseases that we may not be able to control. It would be a great disaster for everyone on earth if they were. You kids didn't seem to understand that before, but it is a very serious matter. If these visitors from other planets care about you, they shouldn't mind spending a little time under observation."
"Can we see E.T.?" asked Michael.
"I'm afraid you can't. He'll probably have to be in isolation for at least three weeks. He's going to be under the care of people from the Centers for Disease Control. You guys are going to be given a quick physical by our doctors, and then you need to go home and get some sleep."
After waking up later that afternoon, the boys returned to Ft. Adams to look for E.T. They tried to go into several buildings but were turned away by guards. Everyone they tried to talk to said they didn't know anything about any extra-terrestrial. Elliott's mother wasn't concerned at first, but that evening she made phone calls to Ft. Adams and was told by everyone that they knew nothing about E.T. That made her angry so she called the local television stations and told them what was happening. They asked to meet her and the boys at Ft. Adams the next morning for an interview. The boys were thrilled that they were going to come out on the local news, but the story got bigger as the day progressed and they actually came out on the national networks. The State Department called a brief news conference and admitted that space people had landed who were now under investigation and quarantine.
Not satisfied with what the government had said, the boys staged a demonstration in front of Ft. Adams. About a dozen boys from the neighborhood came with them. The story kept gaining ground on the news, and the next day about 50 people joined them to picket. Signs were quickly constructed with sayings such as "Love Thy Stellar Neighbor," "Don't Be Xenophobic," and "Stop Government Control of Friendly Space Visitors." Letters of support started to come in from around the world, and FREE, the Forum to Release Our Extra-terrestrial Equals, was organized and started taking contributions. Elliott tried to contact President Reagan by telephone to tell him what was happening. He couldn't talk to him, but the next day Reagan referred to the crisis in a passing comment that was barely audible under the noise of the helicopter he was boarding, a customary way of his to communicate with the country. "This may be another one of those many cases where bureaucrats are going too far in trying to control things, and I, for one, will not stand idly by."
National polls came out showing the American people opposed the detention of the extra-terrestrials, and soon members of Congress started expressing concern. Mary and the boys were booked on Donahue and Late Night America. Doctors with the CDC and the National Institutes of Health, however, spoke up in favor of the quarantine, but this only seemed to anger people more. At Ft. Adams there were small incidents of violence. The term "bureaucrat" fell to an all-time low in public esteem.
One week after the capture of E.T., Mary received a phone call from a member of President Reagan's staff who told her, "We will be releasing the space people tomorrow. The President and his advisors have looked into the matter and decided that it's time to let them go, even though there are still many in the government who want to continue the quarantine."
The next evening President Reagan made a rare nationally televised speech, "The question is whether we are going to allow freedom, dignity, and progress to be interfered with by bureaucrats who have taken it upon themselves to protect us. Now last year one of these space people came and made friends with Elliott and his family, but government bureaucrats interfered. Well, we're not going to let that happen again." The President went on to give some of the details of E.T.'s previous visit. He finished, "Mary, Elliott, Michael, and anyone else who wants to go visit with these people can go if they so desire. Of course, we will do whatever we can to help make it a safe trip, and remember, we will never stop the fight to keep the government off our backs."
After E.T. and the others were released, they were set up in an expensive hotel in Washington, provided limousines with chauffeurs as well as many other luxuries, which were all paid with the generous contributions that had continued to pour in and totaled close to a million dollars. Money was also raised by charging people for tours of the spaceship. World leaders and famous celebrities came from all over the world to dine with the visitors. There were the usual gripers who complained about giving so much money and attention to the visitors while humans were hungry and homeless, and there were still those who said that the extra-terrestrials should not have been released yet.
A lottery was held to decide which boys were to be allowed to go on the trip. Seventeen were to be taken besides Elliott, Michael, and their three friends. The whole world was in tune the day the ship was to leave. Half a million came to see it off, with President Reagan saying a few words.
It wasn't long after the ship lifted off that the boys became enthralled with the scenes outside the windows as the spacecraft travelled at a speed 100 times faster than the swiftest human spacecraft. The boys shared their observations and excitement. Neither E.T. nor any of his planet cohorts were around. In fact, Elliott had not had a chance to talk to E.T. since they had left earth. That evening two of the space people came and quickly took three of the boys away. Later that night groans and occasionally muffled screams could be heard at a distance. The boys started getting scared, but Elliott and Michael told them not to worry.
The next evening they came and took three more boys. "What's happening? I want to see E.T. Where's E.T.?" Elliott screamed as he grabbed one of them by the arm. "What are you doing to them?"
The spaceman stopped and looked at all of them with a leering grin. "Well, I guess we may as well tell you. You'll know soon enough. Now we are good people and we'll treat you as good as we can, but we do have a problem. You see, we all suffer from an unavoidable compulsion for young boys."
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