When an Antarctic scientist uncovered an alien space ship while digging for a latrine, he sent for the best crypto-biologists, archaeologists and astronomers to come to the Antarctic base. After the local Antarctic scientists were assembled, they entered the ship which had unrecognizable instruments and made weird sounds like those of a Theremin. They quickly discovered something encased in ice, which they hauled off to their camp.
Twenty-four hours later, the scientists from around the world had reached the camp, ready to see about the find. Geraldine Qwen from Canada had already determined that the ice was roughly 10 years old. The archeological team then slowly chipped away at the ice, revealing what appeared to be a three meter long salamander with a half meter penis and a human-like mouth.
Somebody said “That is the ugliest and biggest thing of its kind I’ve ever seen.”
The sort of amphibian responded “That’s what she said” followed by gasps and other expressions of shock from the group. The amphibian then said “Was that wrong? How about ‘What’s up, Yo Mama or Who Dat?’”
After moments of shock, somebody asked “So you speak?”
“You must be captain obvious.”
An Einstein clone amongst the scientists asked “We were, ahem, expecting a different level of intelligence from our first interstellar visitor and maybe some superpowers like shape shifting or being able to withstand nuclear attack.”
“About that. This whole enchilada was planned by our overlords on planet Ineque. They got me to agree with their plans by holding my 534 surviving larvae hostage. I was educated in earth ways by viewing reruns of your sitcoms, movies from Japan and reality shows. According to the big dome overlords my intelligence is below that of a dolphin, but above that of a ‘reality star’. To sweeten the algae, they said I could get some action from giant Chinese salamanders.”
“So what were you to do for the overlords?”
“The idea was to land in Japan, but that seems to have gone wrong.”
“Yeah, you missed the target big time.”
“Moving along. I was to find out if the monsters inhabiting Japan were too tough for a successful invasion of earth by the overlords.”
“You mean the ones like Godzilla, Gamera and Rodan?”
“That’s right. Another tough one is Ghidorah, the dragon with lots of heads. That one gives me the creeps. There’s a whole bunch of other ones that excel at ugly.”
The fat scientist in the Hulk front and Spiderman back shirt who had been jumping up and down trying to ask a question got his turn. “What about super powers? What happens if you are exposed to radiation or bitten by a radioactive spider?”
“They tried exposing me to radioactivity back on Ineque, the bastards. I turned brown and my skin cracked. It hurt like hell. The only spiders I know about are the ones from your movies. I would avoid them like the plague. Those guys are a meter or more across and wrap people in silk to suck dry later. Brrr.”
“So no superpowers?”
“You try traveling in an uncomfortable space ship for years and then being frozen for more years and come back as good as ever. Someone asked about shape shifting. I lost 10 kilograms on Dr. Gurgle’s diet to attain a slim new body. If you try it, I get a commission.”
Lead scientist Sapphire (no relation) Hendrix motioned for the group to huddle up. After some whispering they addressed the sort-of-salamander “I think we’ve got a deal that you will like. We can give you asylum and introduce you to some really sexy Chinese salamanders, if you will tell your overlords that the Japanese monsters would definitely defeat the forces of Ineque.”
“Deal. I hate those overlords, and so far I like this world much better. Most of the larvae won’t survive anyway.”
Qwen whispered to Hendrix “What happens when our interstellar amphibian discovers our salamanders don’t do sex like he thinks? Our salamanders have strange rituals, but no wham bam. He won’t like being a dateless wonder on this planet.”
“I don’t know, but this saves the earth from annihilation for a little while at least. I’d call that a win. Maybe we can block his communication after he explains the superiority of our Japanese monster defense.”
Image by Harald Matern from Pixabay – Fire Salamander staring at the camera.
literally stories 
It’s good to start the week with a laugh! Nicely done.
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Hello Doug
Always glad to see your work on the site. Godzilla Jr. and the Smog Monster didn’t make the cut the way the Big Three Did. Greek Salamanders were smarter than Aristotle because they proved him wrong–but at a great personal cost.
It will be consistent with existence if our conquerors from space are even dumber than we are, but have vastly superior weaponry.
Fun little story,
Leila
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Editor is a son of Godzilla fan. I thought I was the only one to remember smog monster, a movie that possibly made less sense than the others if that is possible. Biggest industry in Japan – rebuilding Tokyo. The leavings from the defunct Oswego (now Lake Oswego) smelter were called salamanders (because they were born in fire?).
As Will Cuppy indicated (the decline and fall of everyone), Aristotle thought the brain was for cooling the blood. He may have been right about that, but he may not have been the genius people think he was.
This story originated because I was going to do a reading for Synchronized Chaos at a national writers’ meeing in Portland. I started with a smart car story, but I didn’t like it. I was fortunate to see “The Thing” movie (don’t remember which – the original scared me a a young kid) before the meeting and quickly came up with this. Is the inspiration obvious?
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A few years ago I ran into a book that contained the original sf stories that teleplay and films were based on. Jerome Bixby had the brilliant It’s a Good Life which Sterling adapted. Also the Campbell story that was written in either the late 20’s or early
30’s. But it was called Who Goes There instead of the Thing.
Leila
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*Serling f@#$ing autocorrect
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I read a book a few (maybe a hundred) years ago named “Reel Stories” or something (get it?) about stories turned into movies. I remember two of them were Hatchplot movies – “Psycho” and “The Birds”. Amazed, I was at how short the original stories were and particularly with “Psycho” how little they resembled the movies. Other Alfred stuff – as one might expect, there wasn’t a happy ending to Highsmith’s “Strangers On A Train”. The similarity of and the connection of Highsmith and Hitchcox confuse me.
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Hi, Doug,
Anyone who can work in “half meter penis and Godzilla, Gamera and Rodan” into an entertaining story deserves an “atta boy!
At least your scientists didn’t pull out the “blood sample/hot wire test” on this misinformed visitor.
A good Monday eye opener.
Ed McConnell
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My inspiration was the original Thing movie, but that remake was closer to the original written story. I think it was a Matheson. Now I’ll have to look it up.
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John Campbell, I think.
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That sounds right. Matheson was the zombie last man on earth guy? The first movie left out all of the shape shifting, but was fine. Maybe movie making wasn’t up to the morphing in the early ’50s.
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Entertaining and seriously full of wise words. The weight loss plan has been tried and tested and as far as humans are concerned is a failure. You have captured the typical fearful response of anything alien that might surpass the situation of Earth’s stars quo. An attacking fleet of aliens causing destruction, come on, man can do that all by themselves and they have had hundreds of years of experience.
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Some sobering observations disguised in laugh out loud humor. Clever, entertaining and engaging. I found myself a willing participant in the serious frivolity (frivolous seriousness?). An excellent start to the week.
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Hi Doug,
Sorry it has taken so long for me to comment but I’m having computer problems and trying to work my way around new problems!
Before I forget, I see you mentioning ‘Physcho’ in one of your replies. It took me ages to remember a name of one of my favourite short stories. It was called ‘Enoch’ and was actually written by the guy who wrote ‘Phsycho’, Robert Bloch. It was one of those transference stories that have been done a million times, but it was probably the first time I had read something like that – I think I was around twelve at the time.
What can I say about the story, well this was a blast and made me smile. I loved the references and the idea of the alien trying to sell a commission based diet plan was inspired.
Hope all is well with you my fine friend.
Hugh
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Brilliant! I love the intelligence below a dolphin and above a reality star line – I guffawed at that one. The play on words with the title is also ingenious.
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