The Day Logan, Utah Stood Still
The event that I am about to describe is eerily similar to an event depicted in the famous 1950’s science fiction thriller classic ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ (not the 2008 remake with Keanu Reeves). The only difference is that this event actually happened.
It happened in late December, Christmas time, in Logan, Utah, a sleepy college town nestled in a sheltered valley in northern Utah about 20 miles from the Idaho border. There wasn’t much snow in the valley yet, but a huge storm was predicted to hit on Christmas Eve. The weather had been unseasonably cold in the preceding weeks, however, with crystal clear blue skies and gorgeous, dramatic sunrise and sunsets over the mountains. Maybe that’s why they picked Logan as a landing spot, for the cover and protection the mountains provided. It was December 21st, Winter Solstice, the moon was full.
Three of them came at sunset from the west. Large disk-like airframes reflecting like silver off the setting sun. At first, it was hard to tell the proportional size of the strange aircrafts. They came in quickly as a group then hovered over the valley in stationary positions, like enormous floating helicopters, but with no sound. Complete silence. They were emitting a peculiar vibration, however, that could be felt on the ground.
Suddenly, two of the three strange crafts took off, quickly, in an instant, to the east and disappeared over the mountains in seconds. The third one landed slowly, silently on Logan High School’s football field. The vibrating sensation stopped.
It was just a few days before Christmas break and classes were still in session. Everyone’s spirits were high and the sight of this ‘flying saucer‘ thing landing on the football field was indeed a curious, frightful, yet somehow hopeful vision. It took up almost the whole field as it landed and settled, then it just sat there in dead silence.
By this time, the whole nation, the whole world, was aware of the situation in Logan. It was soon discovered that this same visitation, this landing, was happening in every town and city, every community, in America. The National Guard was called in and fully armed soldiers surrounded the disk. CNN and all the other news networks were reporting with live coverage. The Logan City police were trying to contain the students from throwing things and making contact with whoever or whatever was inside. Logan’s mayor, who was meeting with a multi-unit apartment complex developer, was called and she ordered the space vehicle booted and ticketed. President Trump followed suit and ordered whoever was inside the spaceship deported and the vehicle impounded. Great minds think alike.
But just then, a hatch opened on the spacecraft, and in dramatic slow motion a gigantic, menacing 8 ft. metallic robot appeared and walked down the ramp to take up station at the foot of the vehicle, like a sentry or guard. The robot creature was followed by a man in a one piece metallic looking flexible-for-comfort, ease-of-movement suit as he walked toward the 50 yard line. He was pleasant looking and had a professional haircut. He announced that the robot’s name was Mort and not to be afraid, no harm would come to anyone. He went on to say that his name was Lamar Jensen and that he was sent on this mission to Earth’s America, to Logan, by an intergalactic federation from an unnamed galaxy to warn Logan residents, and all Americans, of the critical danger they were in regarding their “unreasoning suspicions and attitudes”. He told of an imminent self-destruction of the Earth from air and water pollution, from potential nuclear holocaust, and from psychological pollution due to mass media influence, specifically from the burgeoning social media technologies.
Lamar said he wanted to meet with President Trump and the other world leaders, and that he had a gift for our president. When he reached for it from the stylized zippered pocket in his metallic space suit, he was instantly shot by an over-anxious Logan City policeman and mortally wounded. The now broken gift was a device which would have allowed the president to study life on other planets.
Lamar was taken to Logan Regional Hospital for treatment then transported to Sunshine Terrace Nursing Home for hospice and palliative care. There, he died from his wounds, but before he expired he asked his hospice nurse, Donna, to go to the spaceship, find Mort, and speak these three words to him, “Lamar barada nikto”, which apparently meant, “Get me outta here!”.
Donna did, that night sneaking past the national guard soldiers surrounding the spacecraft. Mort and Donna went back to Sunshine Terrace where they retrieved Lamar’s body and Mort carried Lamar back to the spaceship where he brought Lamar back to life. Temporarily.
Lamar was determined to demonstrate his power and prove the sincerity and seriousness of his mission message to save the earth from itself, or face complete obliteration. He used the power of the electromagnetic spectrum to render all iPhones and social media access websites inoperable for a period of 24 hours, the exact amount of time Lamar had left to live. Unfortunately, due to a miscalculation, Lamar died before he could rescind the social media and smart phone ban. He mistakenly forgot to leave the app for Mort or Donna to reset and restore power.
Mort and Lamar, and Donna the hospice nurse, left Logan High’s football field the following evening in a quick, silent assent to the west into the sunset and out of Earth’s atmosphere toward a distant galaxy never to be seen or heard from again. This same incident played out in towns and cities all over America is a similar way with the same basic results.
Here on Earth, we were left with no smart phones or social media, and we lived happily ever after ...for a while.
President Trump was ultimately impeached and replaced by his son Barron who lost the popular vote and won the electoral by a small margin.
Logan’s mayor, city council and planning commission ultimately approved a deal with the multi-unit track housing developer, and many other similar “deals” with unsavory local developers, and continued to lay the community to waste with uncontrolled development and uninspired, irresponsible city planning.
Donna the hospice nurse, and Mort the gigantic metallic robot had a thing for a while, but she eventually returned to Sunshine Terrace where she lived out here remaining years surrounded by her co-workers, friends and family.
I keep watching the western sky for the strange metallic disks to return.
iPhone and social media services remain dormant to this day.
It happened just that way, or at least that’s the way I dreamed it.
John Kushma is a communication consultant and lives in Logan, Utah.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-george-kushma-379a5762
http://newsbout.com/a/John+Kushma
