1964. Technological wizardry

(This is the third of seven days of Science Faction).

Alton and Warren were friends. They were also note-worthy scientists who worked at the famous Aeronautical Research Centre. Both men held strong views about UFOs and aliens. They advertised an evening to be held in the local school hall and titled “The truth about space aliens”. Had intergalactic craft been photographed and espied? Had people seen cosmic aliens?

The school hall was packed. At last the truth would be out. Alton began.

“UFOs are a hoax and I’ll tell you why. Here you have unidentified space craft that would have had to have travelled hundreds, possibly thousands, of light years through space to arrive here. I don’t doubt the possibility of such space travel being one day possible, so I am not ruling out that alien beings can’t do this.”

“Secondly, these space craft have been seen and in some cases videoed. The craft can dart almost instantaneously from one part of the sky to another. Again, I have no doubt that such technology could one day be available to us poor Earthlings,”

“But what gets me is this.” Warren continued the narrative. “And I’ll put it up here on the audio-visual screen. Don’t tell me that an alien civilization with the technology to travel hundreds of light years through space and to dart instantaneously through our sky upon arrival can be videoed because they haven’t yet developed our stealth technology! It’s a nonsense! The whole alien-UFO thing is a hoax. It’s baloney!”

Suddenly two strange men appeared on stage from nowhere. They each were carrying what appeared to be a Christmas candy cane. They zapped Alton and Warren into little piles of what looked like fluff under the bed (which had this happened in America the little piles would have been called Dust Bunnies). The two strange men then disappeared. Into nowhere. Into absolute nowhere.

A message appeared on the audio-visual screen: NO STEALTH TECHNOLOGY? YEAH RIGHT!