The other day a blog reader told me that I made a more convincing marooned ancient astronaut than I did a human. So much for my ability to blend in! The conversation got me thinking, however, that I may, having come out of the extraterrestrial closet, have more stature as an impartial observer than I had previously suspected. This was brought home to me when that same blog reader—one of the millions you know—asked me about my theory of the Mayan prophecy, and offered a pretty good one himself.

Guilt was mine.

You people of this world fear this event in your bones, even when you joke about it. And I, sitting here with the answer have done nothing to alleviate your suffering. And dear Charles, my human assistant, the latest in a millennia-long line of human confidants to assist with my studies and polish my Orbital Egress Pod in his spacious garage, is going to be taking down the website for the coming apocalypse predicted by the ancient Mayan astronomers. Of course, he has scheduled the site to reappear like a beacon of hope in the night on 12/22/2012, the day after.

In light of these developments I thought it only right that I should unburden my soul—yes, they are not exclusive to terrestrial life forms. I have often considered doing this in an academic setting. However, my evidence in the form of my 2,300-year old field notes, are missing. I am going out on the limb here, risking the censure of my university, and even the retroactive dissolution of my research grant…

The Native Americans understood me so well, and the Hindus get it, they really do. But the rest of you seem not to understand the inconvenient nature of transmigratory fieldwork. You see, when this particular earth body expires I must find another. I won’t boor you with the details. Let’s just say it is not an exact process. It’s not like I can just hop demon-like into Charles and inherit the fruits of this portion of my labor, as well as his assets and family. For this reason I must make provisions, such as I did in the dawn of history, at the end of my 11th terrestrial season of fieldwork, when my aged body began to fail.

I cannot remember the exact date. If I was a mathematical prodigy I would have been permitted to stay on my home planet and reproduce! I had made a discovery that would be of much interest to future generations of Earthlings. It is easy to relocate the Orbital Egress Pod. And do not expect me to let that secret out here. I know how prone you Earthlings are to theft.

Oh, excuse my prejudice. But really, if 100% of crime on this planet is committed by Earthlings what then is an extraterrestrial observer to deduce from this?

In any case, after recording the content of this particular meeting of leading stone-age astronomers, I made three, what I intended as imperishable, recordings. I fashioned one of silver and set it up on a pedestal at my landing place, at Machu Picchu. Another was carved on the Nazca plain; the third on gold tablets which were hidden in what later became upstate New York.

So much for my skills of artifact preservation! Now I know why my application for collections management was rejected.

The Inca sent away for the silver plaque to ransom himself from Pizarro, and it was duly melted down along with his body.

The tribe I put in charge of the Nazca record were apparently aspiring comic book artists and just made a big mess out of the whole thing, completely obscuring the pictographic record that I had so diligently inscribed there, burning up most of my fuel reserves in the process.

And, some eccentric fellow with a messiah complex apparently stumbled upon my golden tablets in the early 1800s. When I confronted his successor in Salt Lake City in 1858 he threatened to have me whipped by his many wives and had his Piute friends take me to San Francisco where I was abducted—but I digress. Suffice it to say that the record of the meeting I am about to describe to you exists only in the crowded precincts of this over-worked ape’s brain I am borrowing from a battered member of your species [I think it is actually damaged.] for the purpose of archiving my own work. This is like hiring a retired boxer to do your accounting.

There were four of us, three astronomers and myself, the ancient astronaut observer, kind of like the visiting scientific dignitary. They called me Feathered-Rain-Serpent.

The senior man was Puma-Star, dignified but unimaginative.

The second man was Three-Vampires-Crawling, the best mathematician, a genius really.

The junior man, just past 40, was Dog-Star, my roommate.

There we stood, around the altar in the chamber beneath the observatory. I will reconstruct the conversation as best I can, leaving out the formalities and ritual, which comprised the bulk of it.

Puma-Star: “Three-Vampires-Crawling, have you completed the sacred cyclic calculations?”

Three-Vampires-Crawling: “Yes, I have calculated the movement of the planets and the stars for the next two-thousand-three-hundred years. Do you want me to add a cycle?”

Dog-Star: “What do you want these brutes to think they are going to live forever! It is bad enough that they usurped the priesthood from us. And just today they threw the best looking girl in the region into the Sacred Well! An ugly one would have served just as well in the darkness of the underworld—let them fear the end-times.”

Puma-Star: “Give it a break. Yes, a world ruled by warriors is not something that we want to seem to be sanctioning with an endless cyclic world. But think of the farmers. They cling to the land in fear as it is. Let them think that their inheritors at least will go on and on.”

Three-Vampires-Crawling: “Feathered-Rain-Serpent, whether we decide to calculate a perpetual cycle or determine to stop calculating at the point that I have selected—and mind you it is an alignment, a deep one—we would appreciate your sanction. Perhaps you might endorse my calculations and my colleagues’ observations. As a visitor to this world your opinion will surely carry weight down through the ages.”

Feathered-Rain-Serpent: “Friends, I am honored to be present, and to have the pleasure of observing your methods. But, if my academic experience on my home planet is any guide, I must decline to endorse your work. You see if future Earthlings know that I was here, they will disparage your scientific accomplishments, as simply the copying of my knowledge. You will be depicted as no better than a monkey who imitates a man.”

Dog-Star: “So they threw your girl in a well too?”

Feathered-Rain-Serpent: “Not exactly, however I was not permitted to reproduce before being sent here. This was a political action, but was really based on my low GPA.”

Puma-Star: “Yes, the warlike rulers of all people have both coveted and disparaged our kind. But, none-the-less we serve them. What about the calculations? Do we have Three-Vampires-Crawling plot another cycle and then sanction it? Or do we let the rulers and the people think it will all end on some arbitrary date. And if so, do we assign observation-based meaning to this—perhaps the alignment he spoke of—or leave it to the war-priests and their cronies to interpret? Surely our kind, the thinkers among men, shall never lead again. Our day is past. So let the three of us decide how best to serve the New World Order.”

The four of us paused for long moments while the legless slave-boy beat a dirge on the drum outside by the sacrificial altar. Having meditated as night covered the land, the three ancient astronomers opened their eyes, as if greeting a new day, and looked at one another; and, I am proud to say, me—the poorest theoretical mathematician in my class…

Puma-Star: “I say let us give hope. Let us place two more World Cycles on the calendar.”

Dog-Star: “I say let them sweat. By the Underworld, let’s just redact everything back to forty years from now, and let that brat they’re grooming to take over sweat his balls off on the throne.”

Three-Vampires-Crawling: “I’ll do another cycle of calculations. I best head out immediately. I don’t know how much longer my eyes will hold up.”

So, we all clasped arms and nodded our plumed heads and followed the best mathematician in the land out onto the observatory stairs—where he tripped over the little drummer boy and fell face first, down the 80 limestone steps to his death. There I stood between Puma-Star and Dog-Star, who, as usual, managed to have the last word, “That settles it; the both of us together aren’t as smart as that man. I guess the world ends where he stopped factoring—calculating—extrapolating—whatever! I need a drink.”

I must admit to tying one on with Dog-Star that night. It sure beat hovering around Puma-Star as the drummer boy was tortured and executed.