We Are Not Alone

The first shield was found in 2029. Over the following eight months, the government learned about it at a high enough level to get involved and a Dr. Phil Ollie worked out how to duplicate it, passing the knowledge on to others to research and manufacture.

We knew where the first one was found, but we’ve never discovered where it came from, who invented it or who left it. Thousands of hours of historical research have been done trying to figure that out. I don’t know why it’s important to know, but some worry about it a lot. I think they’ve just convinced themselves that this busy work is important. They can get advanced degrees in it now, so maybe it is. Who cares? We’re different people now.

It was found in an abandoned house by an airport near Muskogee, Oklahoma. Neighbors said it was a quiet man, others say a woman, dark skinned or light, blond or brunette or redhead, very tall and thin or short and obese. It’s been speculated that images were sent directly to everyone’s mind letting each of them build their own pictures and when they discussed him or her amongst themselves each simply heard their image described.

Witnesses say they saw the man/woman, etc leave the house and drive away. Whoever it was or the car has never been found. Seems no one could remember any specific data and there were no pictures of them or the car. There’s controversy over the make, style, color, etc of the car too. Some think it’s a convertible, others don’t. Some think it sprouted wings and took off from the airport. The same theory of sent images is applied to the car. I’m starting to consider aliens from another dimension.

The first one was a full face shield, but with Ollie’s work and the additional thousands of minds quickly joining in, a better solution was found. They developed glasses first, then contacts, but it soon evolved into a transparent membrane that was cheap and fast to manufacture in quantity and simple enough to apply that anyone who had steady hands could do it. A half square inch of the material placed directly over the cornea with tweezers instantly bonds to the eye.

No cutting or scraping and no pain, the eye isn’t touched. It’s not a contact lens, but a modification to the eye. Like wearing glasses that become part of you, do not require cleaning and your body exhibits no rejection. It’s a success story that rivals creation.

As more sites produced the material it became widely available and within a year nearly every one of the 4.5 billion humans on the planet had their vision corrected so we could see them too. There are some very amusing stories about children getting it applied. Infants and nonspeaking toddlers looked amazed for a short time but just accepted it and went on as normal. Talking to toddlers and older took longer asking a lot of questions, but all accepted it in a very short time.

It’s taken over 100 years for people to get used to them being everywhere and as much a part of the environment as we were. There was really never a serious problem. A few scuffles that led to black eyes, bruises, and broken bones, mostly on their side, they didn’t like to fight and most humans simply tired of picking on them.

All of the previous tensions among humans about what we’d perceived as significant differences have gone away. When it was accepted by the majority that they were so much a part of “Us,” our societies and cultures, that other than looks we were exactly the same it no longer mattered who you worshiped or what color your skin was.

So many idolize Ollie I think they may canonize him or just start another religion.

When all the dust settled and it was accepted as “just the way it is” it turned out that almost one-half of our population was not human. They always knew there were two species of dominate animals on the planet because they could always see the difference, we had to find the fix so we could too.

They’re not frightening, they have a . . . mild(?) face. I think the males look like Dagwood Bumstead from the cartoon, “Blondie.” Smooth, flat face that always has a pleasant smile and three inch long tufts of hair that stick out over each big, round ear, mostly bald too. Who could ever fear Dagwood?k The females have more of a pixyish look, a narrow chin with smaller ears and tufts.

We are two complimentary species that do not compete. They were essentially in every profession and job, doctor, lawyer, president (yes one was, and a good one), teacher, and everything else and as frightening as the Stay-Puffed Marshmallow Man, although Stay-Puff did play the heavy in a movie.

Until we could see the difference there wasn’t one. They’ve always thought we were the other dominant hominid, part of the natural order of the world, so much so that it was never discussed. We simply couldn’t see it.

They are a gentler species than us, none of them have ever been part of starting a war, they’re the compromisers, always promoting as a solution to fighting, talking until you gain understanding of the other’s position and accepting it as just different. The peacemakers, the always smiling and pleasant people it’s good to meet.

With a tremendous amount of research into where they came from, a possible genetic split a few million years ago has been ruled out because their genes are very different than ours. An argument that supports my alien theory.

We’ve reclassified the human species to include them because they are so much a part of what it means to be human. Where the taxonomic notation was once H. sapiens, Mammalia, Primates it’s now H. sapiens, hairy, Mammalia, Primates, and H. sapiens smooth, Mammalia, Primates.

After the change most of the humans that discovered they were married to a hairy divorced. The harrys already knew so there wasn’t a problem for them. The species can not interbreed. Mostly smooth marry smooth and hairy marrys hairy, but mixes are occurring more frequently, they don’t have children, they adopt..

The idea that our societies exist as they are because of the different species and acceptance is happening for us too. Pretty soon there won’t be an “Us and Them,” just us.

One rather astonishing fact is the number of mixed couples is increasing. Mixed now has only one meaning, but many of the world’s orphans are being adopted because the mix doesn’t matter anymore.