The year was 1963, but not on Zex, the eighth planet in the Alpha Centauri System. On Zex, it was commonly believed that the year was 4589, commonly but not completely. In fact, on the planet Zex the year was to become the year 4590 sometime in the next 10 minutes, Qwen was deliberately ignoring the exact time which was pulsing annoyingly in the bottom left hand corner of his screen. The number, pulsing steadily downward in 85 second minutes, was reminding Qwen that he was not out partying with the majority of the population who were convinced that it was, indeed, new years eve.
He entered a long string of code onto the computer in front of him, the numbers flashed, he deleted the long string of code, and the numbers continued flashing. There was nothing like working on new years for productivity. The string was re-entered and duly deleted several times more before his speakers exploded with sound. “HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!!” screeched the automatic employee-pleasing program installed by the company that afternoon designed to let the people working in on a little of the festivity before the continuation of their long night shift slog.
“Happy bloody new years” grumbled Qwen extending three of his legs while balancing on his other two in a stretch, then rotating until all joints had been flexed. He then cracked all ten of his knees just because he knew how much everyone else hated it. He hoped that it would somehow ruin the fun they were having. Suddenly he noticed another blinking but this time it was in the dead middle of the screen, it said “Your spacial radio monitor has picked up a signal. Would you like it to be sent to the auditory program? Press X for affirmative and V for negative.” Qwen made an attempt to re-locate the stool which he had been perched on and sit in it but failed dismally and ended up on the floor. Within a minute he was up again and hopping excitedly from leg to leg to leg to leg to leg. When the program had run the speakers kicked in and a steady, rhythmic pulse accompanied by a sound not quite unlike the average Yrwus and what was definitely vocals of some sort. This was big, this was huge, this could be first contact. His friends would pay for calling him a nerd. He had to call up the president.
The president of the peoples who commonly agreed that the year was 4590 was a man not above a little fun, especially on new years eve. It was for that reason that, when a call came from some guy working late in Ytwas his first instinct was to ignore it. Unfortunately for Qwen, the president was a man who trusted his instincts. “Poor bastard,” mused the president, “gotta be crazy working all night on new years”, the thoughts of sympathy ended abruptly as someone handed him another drink.
Little did he know that he could have then prevented the biggest ever government botch-up of all time. When Qwen left the office that night he left the tape of the first signs of intelligent life on his desk in the offices of a popular radio station and the next morning it was taken to be the work he hadn’t done the night before. Within the next day this vital top-secret recording was number one on all the charts. People all over Zex were walking around singing “I wanna hold your hand” and “Can’t buy me love”. The one thing the people on Zex , even the ones who didn’t believe to year to be 4590, couldn’t understand was this business of hands. Even with the most sophisticated translation software used to make these songs understandable couldn’t make clear exactly what a hand was supposed to be for. Holding, was the general comment but many wished to know more- like whether or not this had some kind of sinister overshadowing of threat to Zex. Finally the Zexan government and people who did or did not believe that the year was 4590 agreed on one thing they would have to go and find out.
It took three years for a suitable plan to be made, by this time it was 1967 on Earth because the Centauran year in longer than ours but the problem with hands had not gone away. The radio signals had proceeded fairly steadily and now the public also ached to know what a walrus was. The only thing left to do was launch, everything else was ready and Qwen (remember him?) had been chosen as one of the crew. The entire planet of Zex buzzed with the upcoming feat of technology and the prospect of more of the wonderful off-world music. The trip was to take two years the mission was to scout out the 3rd planet from Sol and make contact, in a subtle way but to establish the friendship of the peoples who made good music.
The year was 1970, then it was 1971. Just like that and a new zodiac started. It was at this time that a completely unreliable witness saw a light in the sky. Meadow Woods was throwing a party for new years but also to celebrate her official name change. She thought it had a certain ring to it.... anyway she was throwing a party and had stepped outside awhile to look at the stars on this particularly freezing cold and cloudy winter’s night. Unperplexed by the lack of celestial view, Meadow lay down on the snow in the yard and stared upwards into infinity. “There,” she thought,” a star, there was a reason to come out anyway which was.... hrm.... seem to have forgotten.....oh yea a star.” If you hadn’t already guessed this star happened to be the spaceship containing the curious Zexans who were coming down through the atmosphere and had chosen their contact. The ship came closer and closer, zoning in on the large house out in the middle of nowhere where, other than the sprawled figure miserably retching by the stairs, Meadow was the only one around. The ship descended further and further until it became like another sun, then plopped awkwardly from the atmosphere and landed, in less than a minute, about ten feet away from this strange biped figure.
Unable to do much more than squeak in terror, Meadow tried to burrow herself into the snow. A UFO, she couldn’t decide whether to be overjoyed or terrified, subconsciously she chose a mixture of both. Suddenly she heard something vaguely familiar, then totally familiar, someone on that ship was playing The Beatles. What the hell? It was then that she stood up, slowly, swayingly stood up to face the unknown and caught sight of a queer, five-legged furry shape coming towards her holding something that might have been a boom box. “Oh oh,” she thought “this is bad, time to go to bed.” but the creature seemed intent on communication. From somewhere behind it’s legs came an unsteady, badly accented voice speaking and it took her awhile to figure out that it was English. It seemed to be asking two questions over and over “what is a hand?” it demanded “What is a walrus?” Meadow stepped backwards and stumbled into the snow but decided to try and answer. Holding up her left hand she said “This is a hand.” then held up both “hands”. The creatures conversed a bit and what they were saying wasn’t understandable then one came forward awkwardly and raised one of it’s evenly spaced legs which she saw had sort of fingers, and grasped her hand, squeezed it and started to sing what was recognizably “I wanna hold your hand”. Suddenly Meadow broke free and ran towards the house, once inside she ignored the inquiries to what she was doing and took every single Beatles recording from the shelves and even Let it Be which was spinning on the record player. Then ran back outside, just in time for the Centaurans were almost off to find out about walruses. She held out her complete collection of Beatles LPs and they took them and somehow she knew they were smiling.
She got back to the door at about the time everyone got co-ordinated enough to see what she was doing and there was a mass collision on the door mat. There were many cries of “What the hell was that about?” to which she said simply “Aliens” before passing out on the sofa.
Needless to say - the event was not recorded properly in Earth history but that was first contact and also how a complete set of Beatles albums and singles made their way across deep space to Zex, the eighth planet in the Alpha Centauran system and home of the interstellar Beatles fan club, who have created this page.