As I recall, I would have much preferred to be at the dead end of our street playing kickball. It was a sunny fall Sunday afternoon, the leaves were just beginning to turn colors, and I really, really did not want to write my current events essay for school. I liked Miss Simpson, my fifth-grade teacher, but I resented how much writing she asked us to submit. I didn’t mind it when we were allowed to make up stories, like the one I wrote about finding a Martian rummaging through our trash and punching him in the nose. But Miss Simpson only asked us to write fiction once every four or five weeks. Mostly, she asked us to write about our family members, current events, or our thoughts about the Lord Jesus.
My favorite classes at Aletheia Christian School were math, social studies, and physical education. I wasn’t awful at writing; I just did not enjoy having to figure out which words best communicated the imprecise ideas I encountered outside of the math classroom. Mom always told me that my number sense came from Dad, my natural curiosity came from her, and my athletic abilities must have been God’s “little way of saying that He had a say in creating the young man” I was becoming.
My ten-year-old self was also a procrastinator. I planned to write my weekly current events essay on Friday after school, but Tommy had said he would be shooting hoops in his backyard, and I forgot all about my school assignment. Mom was not happy when she came home from work and found I was not home and at my desk. She made it very clear that I would not be playing outside after church on Sunday until after I had finished my assignment. My kid sister, Ruth, found out about my situation and proceeded to go on and on to our parents about how she had already completed her weekend assignments.
On that Sunday, with Mom over at Mrs. Johnson’s house making plans for the annual Fall Festival, I was stuck in the house listening to the distant sounds of boys and girls playing kickball. Scrolling through ChristianTimes4Kids.com and ChristianExaminer.com/youth, I couldn’t find any news items that held my interest. Remembering that Tommy had said something about using CNN.com for one of his current events essays, I impulsively decided to venture beyond the websites that Mom and Dad permitted me to visit. I remember blithely thinking, “How awful could it be to see what a different news website is reporting?”
The truth is that I did not know what the word “Culling” meant when I saw the article describing preparations for the next occurrence coming up in less than one week’s time. I thought my friend Betsy might have mentioned the word when talking about the chicken farm her mom worked at, but I didn’t really understand the notion. Instead of talking about chickens or farming, the CNN.com article predicted that “another several thousand people would leave the planet” and never be seen again. My initial reaction was that CNN probably stood for “Comedy News Now” and that Tommy and I would have a good laugh at my naïve venture into new websites. When my curiosity next led me to follow a link over to Wikipedia, the non-Christian information source that I once heard my Aunt Catherine talking about, I began to sense that mankind’s most remarkable event ever had been occurring for over two years, and that my community of family and friends had not been openly discussing it.
The Culling
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
See also: Livestock culling
The Culling is the bi-monthly occurrence whereby between 1,000 and 6,000 human beings are rendered mute and unmoving for several minutes, have their bodies float out into an open space, and then move straight up into the atmosphere until they disappear from the sight of others.
“Mom,” I rather stupidly blurted out as she was arriving home, “what is The Culling?”
“Wait,” she paused, “what did you ask?” She did not look happy, standing there in the doorway, car keys in hand.
“What is The Culling?” I said louder, thinking she hadn’t heard me. “I’m reading about it on Wikipedia.”
Mom’s eyes closed for a second, and she pursed her lips. Dropping her keys in the blue rope basket, she looked away and whispered something I could not quite hear. When her eyes again found mine, she spoke slowly, “Harold Timothy, what are you doing? Why are you on Wikipedia?” I knew that Mom and Dad had told me to “stay away” from websites beyond their list of acceptable URLs. Mom had warned me repeatedly about the variety of cruel temptations of secular life I might wander into by visiting new websites. The list of between 40 and 50 appropriate URLs Ruth and I could visit was tacked up on our family’s corkboard.
I understood both that I was doing something outside of the boundaries my parents had established for me, and that this might be the kind of electrifying news from which I was being shielded. I was both afraid, anticipating my parents’ reactions to my behavior, and angry that I was not being allowed to pursue my God-given curiosity.
In an attempt to defend my actions, I said, “I’m trying to write … to write my current events essay. The first draft is due tomorrow, and I need a news … news story.”
“Haven’t we told you that you can only visit certain websites?”
“Yes, but …”
“But … can’t you find any news to write about at yfc.net or Christianity Today? That’s where you’re supposed to be looking.”
“I looked there. Those sites are only talking about the latest miracles people have experienced or … or the songs being sung by Christian pop stars.”
“Oh, and reporting on miracles is not interesting enough for you? God’s daily miracles are not enough?” I could tell that Mom was getting mad now. She was grinding her teeth and glaring at me sideways from under her beat-up old Detroit Tigers baseball cap.
“But,” I stammered, “The miracle stories … stories always sound the same to me. Besides, Tommy told me that he uses CNN.com.”
“I don’t care what Tommy Blevins does to complete his schoolwork. My son is going to stick to the limits that his dad and I set for him.” As she pulled up the kitchen chair next to the desk, she barked, “Move over!” and took over the computer’s mouse. “You and I will work on this together.”
Neither of us spoke another word about The Culling until later that week.
First witnessed and reported in March of the year 2015, The Culling was widely agreed to be the Rapture (from Christian theology) whereby a group of people is left behind on earth after another group literally leaves “to meet the Lord in the air.” Although many writers and thinkers still utilize theological language and rationales when discussing The Culling, evidence of the arrival and departure of extra-terrestrial travelers to Earth timed to coincide with these mass disappearances has led most to conclude that non-Earth inhabitants are taking humans for some unknown purpose.
My current events essay was eventually written about a football player who had stopped a fan’s seizure by touching the man and praying for him. Miss Simpson said that she liked my topic choice and thought I had used excellent vocabulary, but argued I had “gone a bit overboard” with all my description of the fan foaming at the mouth and convulsing. I admit that I took some creative liberties with writing about the poor man’s medical predicament. Although I told Mom the miracle of prayer was keenly interesting to me, it was really the man’s seizure that most captured my attention. Happily, Miss Simpson gave me a B for my efforts.
At Aletheia Christian, the 5th graders were the oldest kids in the school, and we usually got to sit in the lunchroom wherever we wanted. Ruth had to sit with the other 2nd graders in the middle back of the cafeteria. That Monday, I made a point of sitting across from Meredith Connors. Meredith had a reputation for being the quirkiest kid in our class. She kept her long hair loose and often wore purple scarves as belts that clashed with our red, gray, and white uniforms. If the Connors’ family name came up in conversation, Mom would shake her head and say something like “Well, I guess that is how they learned things up in Oregon.” The Connors were not very strict about church attendance or, according to Mom, about following Jesus’ path.
I wanted to sit with Meredith because she was often the only one to know what was happening with secular musicians and movie stars. While Mom would have been scandalized by the topics, Meredith could be counted on to tell us who had a single that was about to be released and who was dating whom. She also knew which celebrity was supporting which environmental or social justice cause. Her favorite organization was the Anti-Cruelty Society for Animals. Given her awareness of secular topics, I figured that Meredith might know something about this mysterious Culling that Mom didn’t want me to investigate. I was thinking The Culling was some sinful gathering in Nevada where fictitious events were dramatized, or maybe it was the latest horror movie from that weird Tim Burton.
I also wanted to sit with Meredith because I got kind of excited when I was near her. Tommy said that I liked her, but I denied that to everyone but the mirror and to Jesus. Mercifully, Ruth did not know about my feelings for Meredith, or she would have teased me incessantly. Secretly, Meredith both delighted and scared me.
“What’s up, four-eyes?” Meredith chimed when I sat down across from her.
Pushing my glasses in instinctively, I looked away to hide my awkwardness. Then, pretending to arrange my backpack under my seat, I silently told myself that solving this Culling riddle had to be worth a couple of minutes of awkwardness. I also wondered if Meredith’s friends had been calling me “four eyes” for a while. “Can I ask you something?” I blurted.
“What’s that?”
Leaning forward, I half-whispered, “Do you know what The Culling is?” I was surprised at how I did not stammer when speaking with Meredith.
“Did you say, The Culling?” Meredith asked rather slowly, mimicking the volume of my voice. She looked kind of confused, like I had just asked about her aunt’s recipe for corn chowder, which she found distasteful.
“Yes,” I continued on, “I read about it on Wikipedia.”
“Wait, you’re allowed to go to that webpage?”
“No, actually, I’m not. I only saw the first couple of paragraphs before my Mom got home … home and took over the computer.”
“So, what did it say?” Now, Meredith leaned forward and seemed excited to be speaking with me.
“It talked about humans floating into space, which made no sense to me.” I was surprised to discover that I might know more about The Culling than Meredith.
“Wait,” interrupted Stacey Esposito, “you saw humans floating into space?”
Stacey was Meredith’s sidekick, always by her side, at least in school. Tommy had told me that Stacey was no longer able to visit Meredith’s house when gossip spread that the girls had been passing around an open wine bottle late during a sleepover. Word was that only Meredith and Stacey had taken sips, but four of the five girls had been punished. According to Mom, Meredith’s parents “did not understand the benefits derived from a good spanking.”
“I read about it,” I said, getting rather uncomfortable when another couple’s faces glanced towards me. “I couldn’t tell if it was even … even real. I mean … floating people?”
“Oh my God,” mouthed Meredith, looking behind her at where the teachers sat for lunch. “I think it might be real. My parents told me there are disturbing things happening every couple weeks.”
“That’s what Wikipedia said … said when I clicked on a link to The Culling.”
“The Culling,” snorted Stacey, “what does that even mean?”
Origin of the term
The word culling comes from the Latin colligere, which means “to collect”. Historically, the term was applied broadly to mean sorting a collection into two groups: one that will be kept and one that will be rejected. The cull is the set of items rejected during the selection process. When done with intent, the culling process was repeated until the selected group was of the proper size and consistency desired. “The Culling” (used capitalized) was coined in early 2016 by Richard Farnsworth, then President of California Institute of Technology, when he and his team of Astrophysicists reported to the public that alien space travelers had been visiting Earth twice monthly. Used in this more recent context, it is unclear why some individuals are selected and others are not, and unclear whether the individuals taken or the individuals left behind should be considered the cull.
“It’s like what chicken farmers do when they try to produce the fattest chickens,” said Meredith. “You only let the fat chickens make eggs, not the skinny chickens.”
“They do that?” asked Stacey.
“Wait, Meredith,” I interrupted, “you think humans really are flying into space? That can’t be.”
“I know, right?” Meredith looked at me wide-eyed.
“But that doesn’t make any sense.” I did not care that I was repeating myself. “How does … does that even work?”
The phenomenon
Victims of The Culling experience three known phases: the initial floating stage, the moving stage, and the final departure stage. Mankind does not yet know what happens to the victims of The Culling after the departure stage.
With Stacey distracted by Tommy playing with his fidget spinner, Meredith explained, “My mom told me it was nothing I should worry about, but my dad said later he was worried about what was happening to people. Some co-worker of his said his cousin knew someone who ‘got taken during the night.’ My dad also said that people disagreed about what was occurring.”
“At first, the Wikipedia article said that the rapture was happening, but didn’t that … that happen like hundreds of years ago? Or is it supposed to happen sometime in the future?” Whenever our Sunday school teacher talked about the Rapture, which was not often, I was both horrified and bewildered. Maybe the rapture was another one of those parable things to which Minister Evans often referred.
Meredith looked confused. “My dad didn’t say anything about the Rapture. He was talking about people floating up into space and being taken by aliens.”
I was feeling pretty dumbfounded, too. How could it be possible, I wondered, that people were floating up into space and that God was not involved?
“Didn’t Wikipedia say anything about aliens?” asked Meredith.
“Yes,” I responded, more loudly than was appropriate for the cafeteria. “I assumed that was an example of the crazy ways atheists use to explain miraculous events. Everyone knows there is no such … such thing as aliens, right?”
“I’m not so sure anymore,” whispered Meredith, as Mr. Waters both asked that all students bow their heads to pray and put an end to our lunchtime conversation.
At the end of that day, for the first time ever, Meredith spoke to me as we walked through the hallway on our way to the school buses. I was very happy Ruth did not see us together. My shoulder actually touched Meredith’s as she leaned in conspiratorially and said, “I’m looking up the Wikipedia posting tonight after I finish my homework. I’ll let you know what I find out.”
“Thanks” was all I said in response, though I felt like shouting a hallelujah.
Floating stage
During the floating stage (also referred to as the levitation stage), victims stop breathing and their hearts stop beating. Body position and facial expression remain as they were before. Previous activity (e.g., verbalizing or running) ceases immediately. Unless constrained by another object, victims’ bodies typically levitate immediately between three and four inches from their original location. Despite sporadic testing, it is unknown to what extent consciousness remains. The floating stage lasts between 16 and 19 seconds. The handful of biometric devices that had been previously attached to victims during this stage indicated no cardiovascular, respiratory, or muscular activity. Low-level nervous system and endocrine system activity has been recorded (specifically in the Cerebrum, Thalamus, Hypothalamus, and Thyroid Gland), leading many to conclude that victims have not fully died.
When I first passed Meredith in the hallway that Tuesday, with eyes wide, she silently mouthed to me, “Oh my God.” The next time I saw her, after second period, she simply said, “Just wait!”
On the playground during mid-morning recess, Meredith beckoned me to follow her to the far corner of the fenced-in play area. Looking over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching, Meredith pulled out three folded-up sheets of paper from her back pocket. “I’m only allowed to print up to five sheets of paper per night,” she complained. “My dad keeps talking about how many trees we are killing when I print out school assignments, and I used the first two pages for our stupid history project.”
Somewhat afraid to read what was on those pages, I asked, “So, what did you learn?”
“Just read. I’ll get the next couple of pages tonight.”
As I read, I became more and more uncomfortable. The events being described were so surreal, so far beyond my understanding of what could happen, that I started feeling light-headed. I kept shaking my head, and I’m sure my mouth was open. I wished that there had been a chair nearby so I could have sat down. To say I was incredulous would be an understatement. “How?” I stammered. “Why?”
Meredith kept staring at me. I think I saw horror in her eyes, too, and confusion … and maybe a touch of empathy for the emotions I was now having and that she had likely experienced the previous night. I was conscious of being on the slower end of Aletheia’s 5th grade readers, and I did my best to read quickly. After I had finished reading, she murmured, “Can you believe it?”
“No,” I said matter-of-factly. “But why would they make all this stuff up? Is Wikipedia even a real … real website? Is this another example of fake … fake news?” Dad had told me how the mainstream media likes to twist the news so that Christians and conservatives look ignorant. I couldn’t figure out how reports of aliens abducting humans would be helpful to the liberal cause.
“It’s got to be real,” said Meredith with more confidence than I would have expected.
“Wikipedia postings are written by thousands of different volunteers and none of them gets paid. Why would a bunch of random people make up such an incredible story? And wouldn’t the posting get canceled immediately once it was found to be false?”
“I don’t know. Who … who even is in charge of Wikipedia?”
Meredith wondered, “Hey, if there is someone in charge, maybe we can email them to ask if this is a joke.”
Frustrated, I spat, “I don’t know. It’s got to be a game of some sort. Seems to me it’s like that ‘War of the Worlds’ radio … radio show we heard about, where people went crazy over a fictional story. Wait, was … was his name Arson Wells?”
“No, it was Orson Wells. I’ll look tonight to see if Wikipedia has a headquarters or something so we can message them and find out what the hell is going on with this story.” Even though I knew Meredith’s reputation for questionable behavior, I was surprised to hear her swear. I guessed that Meredith was as riled up about this story as I was. Glancing over her shoulder, she sputtered, “Dammit, here comes Stacey. I ditched her because I didn’t want her to tell her mom about our research project. Pretend we’re talking about Britt Nicole.”
With Stacey fast approaching, I said whatever I could think of about Christian pop star Britt Nicole, but secretly also relished the taste of Meredith using “our” when describing our confidential research.
Moving stage
During the moving stage, when it occurs, victims’ bodies move from their original, levitated location in a direct path to the nearest space at which the sky is accessible above. While some of the victims’ bodies move only inches or feet to get out from under tree branches or a building overhang, others move hundreds of feet to get out of buildings, subway tunnels, or caves. Body position and facial expression remain constant during the moving stage.
If a victim’s body is unable to access an open space because it is in a closed building or vehicle, then it will experience up to six attempts to exit the space. These attempts involve 1) a reorientation of the body such that the feet are pointed in the direction of windows or doors and 2) steadily faster ramming movements into the windows, doors, or walls. Attempts to leave a building or vehicle begin at the same time as most other victims experience the departure stage. While some victims exit the building after one attempt, many (especially during the first several months of The Culling) experience six attempts to leave. Six-attempt victims often suffer significant bodily damage as they are repeatedly forced into windows, doors, and walls.
With Wednesday came the rain, a soaking and steady rain that kept the fifth grade in the cafeteria for recess. Meredith could not talk with me about The Culling without Stacey and Tommy overhearing, which somehow had become our unspoken agreement. The only thing she said was, “By the way, there is no Wikipedia headquarters, at least that I could find.” She was, though, able to slip me two additional printed pages of the Wikipedia posting. The slow drip of Culling information was both exasperating to me and exhilarating. As I learned later in life, while reading suspense novels, I loved the ache of anticipation brought about by wanting to learn more, coinciding with the thrill of trying to figure out what is coming next.
I read these next two pages in the bathroom, in the last stall. I was worried that Tommy would somehow find me there. Descriptions of the floating, moving, and departure stages confused and terrified me. I could not believe what I was reading, but I also could not ignore the level of detail that was being provided. Human beings were suddenly floating up, moving outside, and then accelerating upwards into the sky … really? Some people got locked indoors and experienced their bodies being smashed against doors or windows, six times … they’ve got to be kidding. Their bodies left the Earth’s atmosphere and have not returned … no way this could be true!
Tommy had seen Meredith hand me the papers and expressed his curiosity about what was going on between the two of us. His interrogation of me at the end of that day, though, was lackluster. When he asked about the papers Meredith had passed to me, I lied and told him they were related to our Sunday School’s “Kids Fair” that was being planned for the next month. I also asked that he not tell my sister about my meetings with Meredith. He only smirked knowingly, said something about not wanting to ask about feelings that he wouldn’t be willing to share himself, and then changed the subject. I wondered if he might like someone from church or our class, and he was not telling me about it.
Departure stage
During the departure stage, victims move directly upwards, accelerating to a recorded speed of 213 miles per hour. Biometric devices previously attached to victims during this stage continue to indicate no cardiovascular, respiratory, or muscular activity. Nervous system and endocrine system activity have been recorded at stronger levels during this stage than was true during the floating stage. Three-dimensional GPS tracking devices, developed soon after the identification of alien space travelers, have indicated that victim bodies travel on a path directly perpendicular to their Earth departure point until they reach the edge of the atmosphere (known as the Karman line – an altitude of 62 miles (100 kilometers) above the Earth‘s sea level, representing the boundary between the Earth’s atmosphere and outer space). Beyond the Karman line, it is believed that victim bodies move straight toward one of eight waiting alien space ships.
By Thursday morning, I was feeling like I could not wake from a shocking dream. I began to question many of the fundamental truths that I had come to know. Gravity held us to the Earth … well, maybe not always. The biggest risk to my well-being was when I took a car ride with my parents … well, maybe I should also worry about full and new moons. Looming beyond these concerns, I also began to question one of the most essential lessons that I had been taught since I was first able to talk. Would being a good Christian protect me, or more specifically, protect me from being culled? I knew that by acting as the Lord had instructed, I would be going to Heaven when I died. What I was yearning to ask was if following the Ten Commandments would also protect me from being taken away by aliens.
When I saw Meredith at recess that morning, I could tell she was faring about as well as I was. She looked tired and upset, and I was surprised to see she was not wearing one of her colorful scarf-belts. “Hey,” was all she could say to me at first.
“Hey,” I said back. “Is there more?”
“I’m not sure you want more. But, yes, I do have three more pages for you.” She wasn’t looking at me, and I believed she was making sure Stacey didn’t see us together. Though I did not fully understand it at the time, I now assume that Meredith would have been ashamed if her peer group had found out she had been interacting as much as she had with such a nerdy, stuttering, and awkward boy. She handed me my new pages. “You know it all started over two years ago?”
Having only read the first couple of sentences of the “History” section of the Wikipedia posting, I knew the first occurrence was in March of 2015. I was eager to learn more about when, where, and to whom this event was happening. “It doesn’t … doesn’t feel real to me. Are … are we sure that it is?”
Meredith sighed, “Well, based on the big fight I had with my parents last night, I know it is real and I know that they have been hiding the truth from us kids. Minister Evans and Principal Waters are making sure we don’t find out.”
“Your parents told you that?” I couldn’t believe kindly Minister Evans and righteous Principal Waters would hide such big news from us. They both spoke often about the importance of honesty and the joy that could be found in learning all about God’s universe. “What did your parents … parents tell you?”
“Well, I confronted them with what we’ve been learning on Wikipedia, and similar information I’ve been finding on both FoxNews.com and ChristianTimes.com.”
“And?”
“And they denied it at first, but then Dad looked at Mom and said, ‘She’ll find out eventually.’”
History
First Culling
On Thursday, March 5, 2015, at 18:07 GMT, at least 2,934 human beings left Planet Earth in a manner previously unknown and unrecorded. Given the simultaneity of the occurrences across the world, losses were documented in the daylight and the nighttime. Lost humans included children as young as four days old (Charlotte Evers) and the elderly as old as 93 (Xiao Lu). All major racial, ethnic, religious, and sexual/gender identity groups were represented among those lost. Healthy individuals as well as several terminally ill patients were taken. No non-human life forms were known to be taken. Video images and sound from several dozen episodes were recorded by families, friends, and strangers (e.g., see the documentary The First Culling). By the end of the next week, a list of the names of these individuals was collected and printed by the New York Times, the London Telegraph, and China Daily. During early March of 2015, only one reporter (Sven Lundquist from The Copenhagen Post) noted the “coincidence” that The First Culling occurred at the same exact time as the full moon.
“So, what did … did they tell you?” I think I actually grabbed Meredith’s sleeve at that point.
“They’re scared that it might happen to someone they know and, if it is the rapture, that we’ll get left behind. They also agree with Minister Evans and Principal Waters that the kids in Aletheia are not old enough to fully understand what is happening.”
Inclined to argue, I had to admit that the younger kids at Aletheia Christian probably were too young to fathom what was going on. I knew Ruth could not deal with these revelations, or even understand them. But I felt I was mature enough to handle whatever truth God was orchestrating. I was offended that the adults in my life did not believe they could trust me to cope with the news of the day. “I thought that ‘Aletheia’ means … means truth in Greek. Do Waters and Evans really feel that all of us need … need to be protected from this news? Why can’t at least us fifth … fifth graders be told what is going on?”
Meredith kept checking over her shoulder. “I guess there’s been a debate about that during the PTA meetings. You’ve noticed they’re now meeting every week.”
Ruth and I had wondered why Mom was out of the house on most Tuesday evenings. Letting go of Meredith’s sleeve, I said, “Let me read these next couple … couple pages and I’ll see if I can get anything out of my parents.”
Without saying anything further, Meredith looked grimly into my eyes, backed away and hurried over towards the swing set where Stacey and Tommy were pretending to not watch us.
Responses to these incidents were described at the time as both horrified and confused. Family members, friends, and neighbors frequently reported their efforts to grab and hold on to victims during both the initial floating stage, the moving stage, and the final departure stage. Multiple reports described individuals whose bodies were thrust through windows and doors, causing damage to buildings and vehicles, before they were swept up into the atmosphere.
The Second Culling occurred on Friday, March 20, at 9:39 GMT and corresponded with both a total solar eclipse and a new moon. At least 5,038 humans left the planet on this date. For a complete list of all Culling dates and times, see The Culling dates.
After dinner that evening, I somehow got up the courage to ask my parents about The Culling. We had rice and beans for dinner, though I had eaten very little. I was dreadfully afraid they would be disappointed and maybe even angry I was asking about these events. At the same time, I was beside myself with curiosity to learn more. I was unable to pretend I did not know what was going on. I was also desperate to hear my parents’ reassurances that I would be safe because I was following God’s path.
After Ruth went upstairs to do her homework and after taking a very deep breath, I said, “Mom, Dad, I need to ask you something.”
By her tone of voice, I could tell Mom was leery. She was standing at the sink finishing the dishes. After glancing at Dad and beginning to dry her hands, she said, “OK, honey, what do you want to ask?” Dad was glued to his phone, as usual, probably checking the status of his fantasy baseball team. He was a “man of few words,” as Mom would say, and this night was no exception. I could tell by his body language, though, that he was much more engaged in this conversation than he typically was in our mother-son chatter.
I had been panicked all afternoon that Mom and Dad would pretend The Culling was not happening; that I had wandered into some crazy, disreputable information I was foolish enough to believe. I was pretty sure that I could not even have this conversation if Ruth had stayed downstairs. Also, I was reluctant to experience the anger and disappointment I knew Mom would share with me when she learned I had disobeyed her orders. I had no idea how Dad would react, though I was hopeful he might be able to dampen Mom’s fury.
“Am I going … going to get … to get culled?”
Dad looked up from his phone and stared at Mom. Mom gasped and looked down into the sink. When she looked up and out the kitchen window, there was a pained expression on her face and angry tears building in her eyes. Dad looked like he might want to say something, but Mom took charge of the conversation and said, “Wait. I think we should pray again before we even think about getting into this.”
Standing next to the table, we bowed our heads and held each other’s hands. After a moment and several sighs, Mom offered the following. “Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble by the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”
“Corinthians,” is all Dad said, staring at his blank phone and looking bewildered.
“Tell me why you’re asking this?” Mom was adopting her ‘Guidance Counselor tone’ that she employed at the public high school. She had the dish towel in her hands and was rocking on her feet, as if she were preparing to flee the conversation if it got too uncomfortable. “Have you been talking with that Connors girl?”
Stunned by her question, I looked away and murmured, “Yes. How … how did you know?”
“Let’s just say the Aletheia Moms talk. Gwen Esposito told me how Stacey mentioned you’ve been seen on more than one occasion talking one-on-one with Meredith.” I wanted to object, but I did not want to get distracted from my question. I was also very uncomfortable lying to her. Mom continued, “How much do you think you know about this so-called ‘Culling?’” She used air quotes and hissed the word ‘Culling.’
Somewhat encouraged that I had not been sent immediately to my room, I stuttered, “Well, I … I suppose I’ve been reading pages from … from the Wikipedia posting.”
“Did Meredith give you those pages?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I had learned early in my life to be as respectful as you can if you think you’re about to get into trouble with an adult. I had also learned that telling the truth was way easier than trying to remember the details of the lies you’ve previously told.
“OK.” Mom did start moving around the room at this point and began to slowly circle the kitchen table. “Ignoring for the moment that you disobeyed our demand to only visit certain websites, tell us what you think you know about the ‘Culling’ and what your reaction is to these so-called events?” She indicated with her hands she wanted me to sit back down.
Reactions to Culling events – 2015
By the end of the Third Culling, it was generally understood that Departure Events (as they were originally called) occurred at both the full and new moon. Anticipating the Fourth Culling on April 18th, many people actively planned to avoid leaving Earth by sheltering in a place with limited access to the outdoors.
By the end of the Fifth Culling, reliable statistics were being kept regarding the number of victims worldwide. It was estimated that an average of 3,200 people experienced a Departure Event roughly twice per month. Given a world population of over 7 billion, it was estimated that each individual human has a one in 100,000 chance per year of leaving our planet.
In April of 2015, members of the media, social scientists and many others began to catalog the qualities and characteristics of those who were lost. These evaluations of those who had been lost, in an attempt to assess why they were lost, intensified significantly when it was learned that extra-terrestrial travelers were involved.
In December of 2015, social and traditional media outlets reported heavily on “Departure Parties” or “Departure Gatherings” (later called “Culling Parties”). Groups of people, large and small, gathered to celebrate their camaraderie, shared interests, and their “shared humanity.” Culling Parties have since become a bi-monthly, worldwide tradition for people to spend time with friends and family (in one location or connected digitally), engaged in activities seen as significant, life-defining, and/or worthy of “My Last Act.”
“Well,” I said, not really knowing what I would tell them, “I’ve read eight pages of the Wikipedia article. I don’t … don’t know if I should believe it and … and I’m worried God will want to cull … cull me next.” It felt good to admit that fear, though I now could not look at my parents.
I heard my mother sigh again. “Oh, Harry,” she murmured. “Don’t believe everything you read on the internet.” She had come around to stand behind me and put her hand on my shoulder to give it a squeeze. “Even if this ‘Culling’ was really happening, it would be as God intended and only the pure and righteous would be taken.”
I looked up at that moment and saw Dad was wiping a tear from his eye. I don’t think I had ever seen Dad cry like that. Not wanting to embarrass him, I quickly looked back down at my hands in my lap.
Pulling her chair over next to mine and sitting down to face me, Mom continued, “Look, your dad and I are hearing all kinds of confusing stories these past couple of years, and it’s hard for any of us to know what is real and what is make-believe. I’ll admit we have heard about these so-called ‘Culling’ events.” Her look in Dad’s direction was unreturned. She, apparently, was on her own with this talk. “These are pretty upsetting stories if they are real, and … even if they aren’t. I can’t imagine why someone would make up these stories, but that doesn’t mean they are 100% true. I wouldn’t put it past our so-called federal government to stage some of what has been happening.”
Pausing, as if to find her focus, Mom continued, “All I know is that no one from our family, from our church, or from our town has been taken. If and when that happens, then maybe I’ll believe ‘The Culling’ is real and that the kids at Aletheia need to be told about it.” Apparently, my own mother was one of the people attending those PTA meetings and arguing against allowing the teachers to talk with us about The Culling. “Besides, I cannot believe what Minister Evans has been saying about the Rapture. I’ve been hearing about too many non-Christians floating away for this to be the Rapture. The signs just are not there!”
By the time I was sent to my room to do homework at 7:30, I had learned that my parents did know about The Culling, though they weren’t sure it was a real phenomenon. I also learned they were very confused about how and why The Culling might be occurring. Mom said both that The Culling “must be caused by aliens” and she could not “imagine that aliens are doing this.” She also contradicted herself at different times, talking about those left behind as “the lucky ones” and about those taken as “the chosen ones.” I also learned that I was being grounded all day on Saturday for “disobeying direct orders” from my mom. That last bit of news was certainly not a surprise to me.
As I lay awake in bed that night, listening to the muffled sounds of my parents talking in the next room, I realized that they had never addressed my primary concern, whether I would soon be culled. For a fleeting moment, I wished I were as oblivious to The Culling as my sister seemed to be.
Beginning in late 2015, Departure Grief Support Groups (later called “Culling Grief Support Groups”) were formed by relatives and friends of victims. Loved ones were/are mourned and remembered in these groups, many of which meet at every full or new moon (depending on when the person was lost). A number of bereavement publications and websites have been created focusing on the unique emotional and community needs of victim families/loved ones.
During 2015, Culling/Departure events had little significant effect on international politics or business. While most national leaders openly acknowledged the uncertainty surrounding these events, discussed their concerns, and prayed for the victims and their families; small numbers of other officials 1) disavowed that their citizens were affected (e.g., North Korea), 2) claimed that God had chosen their citizens only (e.g., Pakistan and Indonesia), or 3) argued that their citizens were being victimized by United States and/or Israeli forces (e.g. Iran, Yemen and Syria). Other than bi-monthly closures of international stock markets (beginning December 2015), voluntary bans on travel, and increases in spending on both entertainment (e.g., movies, music concerts and “high-end dining” prior to full and new moons) and “My Last Act” activities/related-merchandise, international commerce was largely unaffected.
Between March 2015 and January 2016, as over 65,000 total people were being carried into the atmosphere, much of the world’s attention focused on the notion of the Rapture. Rapture is a term in Christian eschatology which refers to the “being caught up” discussed in 1 Thessalonians 4:16, when the “dead in Christ” and “we who are alive and remain” will be “caught up in the clouds” to meet “the Lord in the air”. Those who argued that the Christian Rapture was occurring struggled to explain why the leadership of various Protestant denominations, the Pope, and all Catholic Bishops did not “ascend to the heavens.”
At breakfast on Friday, Mom didn’t have much to say to me. Instead of making me get my own breakfast, like she usually did, she actually set the milk, bowl, and cereal out for me. Dad had already been up and out the door, but he had made me my favorite sandwich, peanut butter with bananas. Surprisingly, Ruth seemed unaware of the special treatment I was receiving. I took these actions as signs my parents weren’t too, too mad at me. Before we headed outside, Mom to her car and me to the bus stop, she said quietly, so Ruth would not hear, “God willing, we will figure this out as a family. We’re a team, don’t you forget that.” I nodded my head dutifully.
Sitting silently with Tommy in our usual spots at the back of the bus to school, I couldn’t decide what I should say later to Meredith. I didn’t want to admit that my parents seemed pretty confused about what was happening, and I hadn’t really learned anything new from them. The Wikipedia article was so definitive, so clinical, and my parents’ comments were so full of emotion, contradictions, and conjecture, with no real facts. I felt disappointed that I had failed in my mission to learn something valuable from them. I hoped Meredith would not be too disappointed in me.
When I saw Meredith at recess that day, it was clear she had few expectations of me. Her focus during our conversation, standing just past the never-ending game of Four Square, was on the next full moon that would be occurring on Saturday. “My dad says the next Culling will be tomorrow!” Meredith spoke quickly, with her eyes darting across the playground. She was acting as if she were an American spy, from some movie, who was on the lookout for the Russian mafia thugs who had been chasing her.
Ignoring the potential significance of her comment, I blurted, “I talked to my parents last night. Now I’m grounded tomorrow because I disobeyed their orders to stay away from certain websites.”
“Bummer.”
“Yup. Although they basically admitted … admitted they knew about The Culling, the Wikipedia article has … has way more facts than they do. I learned nothing … nothing new from them.”
Meredith was staring at our classmates playing nearby. “I can’t believe all these kids have no clue about what is happening.” She glanced at me, “I told Stacey, you know.”
“Stacey? Oh my God! What … what did she say? Did she believe you?”
“No, but she said her parents had been acting pretty odd. They’ve been stopping their conversations whenever Stacey enters the room. And remember when you first asked me about The Culling? Stacey heard you say something about ‘floating humans’ and she mentioned it to her mom, who got all weird and quickly changed the subject. I think her mom told her that you must have been making up a science fiction story.”
“Had she … she known anything about The Culling?”
“Not really. I told her during our walk to school. She kept trying to get me to admit I was joking, playing some sort of prank on her. She was getting kind of mad. When I said that I swore on the Bible that aliens really were taking humans up into space, she was kind of shocked, but I think she believed me then.”
As if on cue, I saw Stacey marching towards us, directly through the Four-Square game. Tommy was several paces behind her, though he walked around the game. “Harry Bates, are you and Meredith making up these stories together?” She looked as if she might wrestle me to the ground if I did not answer her correctly.
Taking a half step towards Meredith in case I needed some protection, I said, “Well, no. I wish … wish that I was.”
Tommy had arrived by this point, rather out of breath. “You are so full of it, Harry. I can’t believe you and Meredith would try to scare us with these crazy stories.”
Grabbing on to my wrist, as close to holding hands as we would ever come, Meredith said, “Tomorrow! The next Culling is tomorrow afternoon. Find a way to watch the television news tomorrow night and see if you still think these are crazy stories!”
As the recess bell rang and we began to head into class, I saw Stacey glance towards the sky. I could tell she was starting to freak out about the potential arrival of aliens. I knew that I was, too.
Identifying alien objects
On January 13, 2016, Richard Farnsworth, then President of California Institute of Technology, called a press conference intending to “further mankind’s knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the mass human departures” that had been occurring. Joined by a team of eight scientists and six technicians from the Palomar Observatory, Farnsworth provided an overview of the data they had collected since April of 2015 “proving” that “multiple non-Earth-based objects” had been arriving just outside of Earth’s atmosphere at times that coincided with both the full and new moons, and with the instances when humans were levitating in the direction of outer space. Although no objects were visible to the scientists, stars and distant galaxies were lost from sight of the Hale and Samuel Oschin Telescopes in a manner indicating that objects were blocking the incoming light. Data collected indicated that at least four of these unknown objects were arriving at “Earth’s doorstep” directly above temporary positions.
Data later collected by other observatories around the world indicated that the number of unknown objects was actually eight and that they were positioned at just over 78 miles above the equator’s sea level. The positioning of the craft relative to the Earth changed from one culling to the next. The size of these objects as they face the Earth is estimated to be approximately 100 feet by 50 feet – roughly the size of a basketball court. It was also learned that the eight objects were not spaced evenly into octants, as first assumed. Instead, as observed by MIT Human Geographer Arnold Spitz, the objects were spaced such that equal numbers of humans lived underneath each of them.
At this first press conference, Farnsworth refused to “venture a guess” whether the light-blocking objects contained or were controlled by “alien beings.” He did, however, offer his conclusion that humans were being taken away from Earth by “some force within these objects, as if in some kind of Culling.” He offered no explanation for why humans were being taken or what happened to them once they left this planet. He ended his comments by saying, “I’m not sure we will ever understand the reasons behind The Culling.”
After the January 2016 recognition that “non-Earth-based objects” were involved in The Culling events, international politics and business were impacted significantly. Over a series of five months, 193 United Nations member states agreed unanimously 1) to convene an ongoing special session and to keep their delegations in New York until the “threat has been averted” – February 2016, 2) to cooperate fully with a “Communications Committee” tasked with messaging the alien beings and attempting to discern their motives (see below) – March 2016, 3) to “apply all available resources” towards the goal of understanding The Culling events – March 2016, and 4) to share both rocket engine and guided weapon systems knowledge, along with launch pads and airspace, to prepare for the possibility that missiles might need to be sent to “attack Earth’s invaders” – June 2016.
I slept very little that Friday night. Our family’s weekly game night had been unusually subdued. With my father’s parents spending the evening with us, we said nothing about The Culling. As usual, my Nana dominated the conversation by telling us about her best friend’s “rabble-rousing” daughter with her dual sins of “drinking and cavorting.” It almost seemed like she enjoyed knowing that her friend was shamed by the behavior of this daughter. As I lay awake that night, I wondered if my parents and my grandparents had an agreement, they would not discuss The Culling in front of me and Ruth. Luckily, I was distracted enough by our game of dominoes that I forgot, at least for parts of the evening, that I would be grounded all day Saturday.
As was usually the case, being “grounded” also meant that I had chores I needed to complete. On several prior occasions, I was convinced I was being grounded only because the bathroom needed to be cleaned. This time, I knew what I had done to deserve my punishment. Visiting secular websites, against the wishes of my parents, ended up taking away my Saturday freedom.
When the bathroom was clean and my room was mostly organized, Mom told me I should come down for lunch. Seeing by the kitchen clock that it was 12:02, my slow boil of fear that had been simmering all morning now began to bubble over. Would I have had advanced warning if I were about to be culled? Would I feel anything, or would everything go black instantaneously? Would I see the white light at the end of a long tunnel I kept hearing about? I fervently wished I had learned from Meredith what time in the afternoon The Culling would occur.
I did not know what to do with my anxiety, and I was not very hungry for the bologna and grilled cheese sandwiches Mom made for both me and Ruth. As I nibbled the insides of my sandwich, I tried to concentrate on how I would find a way to watch the evening news on television. I tried to think positively that I would still be on the Earth’s surface, so I could watch TV. Dad was usually the only one in our family who watched the six o’clock Fox News broadcast on channel 13, and I was trying to figure out where Mom might be so I could watch from the hallway without either of them noticing. I had no way of knowing whether Ruth might be around to interrupt those plans. I hoped she would be in her room reading, as was often the case.
“What are you thinking?” Mom interrupted my reverie, glaring at me from across the table. I guess I had been staring off into space with my sandwich in my hands, only partially nibbled.
“Oh, nothing,” I mumbled, conscious that Ruth was in the room with us. I wondered if Mom felt comfortable asking about my thoughts only because Ruth’s presence protected her from my discussing The Culling. “Being … being grounded, I guess.”
Ruth gave a half-snort, as if she would never behave in a way that would lead to her being grounded.
At almost the same time, we heard a solid thud from the garage. Looking at each other to confirm we had all heard something, Mom yelled, “You OK out there, Michael?” Dad had been working in the garage, tinkering on his old Ford Thunderbird that was only rarely seen in the light of day. When Dad did not respond, Mom got a worried look on her face and said, “Let me go check on him.”
I looked at Ruth, who was pulling one of her beloved chapter books from under her chair to read while Mom quickly walked out of the kitchen. Not yet concerned about what might be happening, I contemplated whether I should attempt another bite of my sandwich when we heard another thud. Mom’s panicked screaming “NO, NO, NO!” brought me to my feet, and I headed towards the kitchen door leading into the garage.
Gripping the frame of the doorway, I first focused my attention on Mom’s back as she frantically tried to grab hold and get on top of Dad. She was yelling, “No, Michael, No!” She was kissing him. She was slapping him. She was wrapping her arms around his neck. In a high-pitched voice I did not recognize, she wailed, “Wake up!”
At first, I did not understand why the level at which my Mom was moving seemed a bit off. When Dad squirted out of Mom’s arms and crashed into the garage door a few feet away, I understood that Dad was floating a couple of inches off the garage floor with his feet pointed towards the garage door. When he floated back to where Mom was kneeling, I could see that Dad’s lower legs were at odd angles and one of his dirty work boots had fallen off. Dad’s face seemed improbably calm, as if he were still trying to figure out what was wrong with the Thunderbird’s starter.
Not knowing when she had appeared by my side, Ruth moved haltingly past me, towards Mom and Dad. She whined, “Mommy, what’s wrong with Daddy?”
“Stand back, Ruth!” Mom bellowed, and then whimpered, “Daddy’s in trouble.” Ruth froze, one hand out in front of her as if she had intended to pick up some dominoes.
When Mom looked towards Ruth, I could see that Mom’s lip was bleeding. I assumed that Dad’s movement towards the garage door had injured her. Mom was also moaning, her pitch rising and falling at random intervals, a frantic melody for the scene we were witnessing. She kept looking around the garage, searching for a tool that would remedy the terrible event that was occurring. Seeing me, she blurted, “Harry, call 911!”
As if to make sure we had not forgotten about him, Dad crashed into the garage door again. Ruth squealed and jumped back next to me, grabbing me by my shirt. Mom leapt on Dad, grabbing hold of her wrists as she wrapped her arms around Dad’s midsection. She was still kneeling, but her body and face were on top of Dad. Her eyes were closed, and her moaning had turned into praying. “Oh God, Oh God … Do not take this man! Do not take my man! Oh Jesus, please do not take him!!” I knew, in that moment, that Mom’s look of fierce determination would stay in my memory forever.
Ruth was sobbing, barely able to catch her breath between her heaves. She kept tugging at my shirt, glancing up at me with a look of tear-streaked terror. “Harry, do something,” she blurted.
I was frozen, not fully sure if I had been breathing or how I was still standing. I felt so stupid and selfish for praying that only I would avoid being culled. I apologized in my head to Dad for not praying for him, too, and offered a ‘Hail Mary’ prayer to Jesus, asking that he allow Dad to stay with us. I thought briefly of Meredith and wished I could send her a telepathic message to say, “IT IS REAL!” Mom’s demand that I call 911 was forgotten quickly … I couldn’t see how an emergency response team could get here in time to help. Dad’s Culling was happening too quickly.
Proving that point, Dad’s body again slammed into the garage door, this time with Mom taking great pains to hold on to him, with mixed success. While Dad gave no outward indication he was in pain, despite having blood dripping off his feet and ankles, Mom had clearly been hurt in this fifth attempt to exit the garage. Mom held her right arm away from herself and from Dad’s body and grimaced in pain. A desperate-sounding “Jesus” was all she kept saying.
I turned and pushed the button for the garage door opener at this point because I knew what Dad’s body was trying to do. I somehow thought Dad might be proud of me for taking some amount of control of the situation and for allowing him to head in the direction he clearly needed to go. Dad rarely articulated to his children what he wanted to have happen, and I was eager to take advantage of this opportunity to be of assistance. Also, an image had come to me of Wikipedia’s description of Aleksei Yesipov’s body turning into “cellular pulp,” and I did not want that happening to my dad, if I had any say in the matter.
When she saw and heard the garage door lumbering up, Mom seemed confused at first. Then, glancing through her tears over at me, she understood what I had done and let out a cry that sounded like the start of Aletheia School’s ancient but still shrill fire alarm. She sounded like she was about to lose her husband and intended to blame me for allowing it to happen. “NOOOOOOOO!”
With Mom working to stay on top of Dad’s body as it moved into our driveway, I took Ruth’s arm and led her outside. Ruth kept saying “What’s happening,” but she followed me into the afternoon sun. Ignoring for the moment Mom’s balancing act on the carnival ride that was my father, I reached down to grab Dad’s left arm and quietly said, “I love you.” I tried to get Ruth to touch Dad in the moment before he began moving upwards, but she refused.
As soon as Dad’s body began to rise, it was clear Mom would not be able to hang on. Her elbow, it turned out, had been broken in the earlier collision with the garage door, and her one healthy arm was not strong enough to hold on. After getting about five feet in the air, Mom tumbled sideways, knocking over Ruth, who had wandered underneath trying to understand what was happening to her parents. Rushing over to help the two of them get untangled, I briefly lost track of Dad’s body as it accelerated into the atmosphere. When I looked back up, all I could find in the sky was the silhouette of a bird and a shrinking speck that I assumed must be my humble, quiet father, hurtling up into space.
Falling to my knees at the end of our short driveway in our nondescript cul-de-sac, feeling utterly shattered by what I had just witnessed, I looked up and whispered feebly, “Bring … bring him back, please … please!” I’m not sure if I was talking to God or the aliens.
Attempts to interact with objects
In February of 2016, NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency, and the China National Space Administration, supported by the Union of Concerned Scientists, began making both navigational and tasking adjustments to 23 of the 1,100 active satellites orbiting the Earth. Satellites were selected based on their proximity to previously known orbital locations for the unidentified objects and on their ability to collect electromagnetic (or any other signaling) data coming from the objects. Other than confirming that “non-Earth-based objects” were temporarily positioned above the planet, authorities have indicated that “no currently understandable data” has yet been gathered. Without offering any explanation as to the cause, authorities have also reported that five of the satellites used for this purpose have ceased functioning.
In March of 2016, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the United States, the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) of the Government of the People’s Republic of China, and the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media in Russia, and an additional 78 governments agreed that “every organization broadcasting audio or video content via any electronic mass communication medium must allot “every minute of the 60 minute time overlapping full and new moons” to a series of Welcome to our planet messages.” These messages, in the language of the sending country, attempted to introduce the human race and also describe humanity’s “peaceful intent.” In the 16 weeks that these messages ran, they became increasingly desperate and hostile, ending in August of 2016 with some version of the following: “Because you have not responded to mankind’s repeated attempts to communicate with you, we are left with no choice but to assume that you represent an invading force. We intend to respond accordingly.” (See “Final Message.”)
In May 2016 through June of 2017, NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency, and the China National Space Administration combined forces with the commercial firms Virgin Galactic and SpaceX to send a series of probes to the region just below low Earth orbit (LEO) in an attempt to gather more information than had been gathered by existing satellites. These probes were specially designed to gather any and all signals that might be coming into or out of, and to transmit visual images of, the unknown objects, and to transmit them back to Earth in real time. They were also tasked with assessing the direction from which and the speed at which the objects arrived and departed. Because the unidentified objects are located at an altitude that has proven to be impossible for man-made satellites to establish sustaining orbits (Sputnik orbited at an altitude 55 miles higher), scientists found that locating their probes at the proper altitude was problematic. As occurred with the satellites, the probes (named Culling One through 14) confirmed that “non-Earth-based objects” were temporarily positioned above the planet but did not provide any “currently understandable data” for scientists. Reports that three probes were destroyed “by external forces” (see Miami Herald and Houston Chronicle) have neither been confirmed nor denied by the authorities.
As one of our neighborhood Mockingbirds sang its borrowed song on the telephone wire above our driveway, my tears and sobbing finally began in earnest. I had witnessed my father’s Culling wrapped in incredulity, unwilling or unable to believe what was occurring. Coming to grips with my new reality, I was overwhelmed with grief and with guilt. Losing my father, my family’s strong, silent center, felt like a knife in my stomach. Aware that I was complicit in his being taken, because I had pushed the garage door button and because I had ignored him in my prayers, I felt like that knife was twitching through my pre-adolescent guts.
After blubbering for what felt like an hour, but was probably only 90 seconds, Ruth touched me on the shoulder. With her eyes red and snot flowing, she squeaked, “Where did Dad go?” She was looking back at Mom, who was lying just outside the garage, hands over her eyes and softly moaning. I couldn’t tell if the sounds Mom was making were prayer or simply the random sounds of a wife’s despair. Turning, Ruth looked me in the eye and whispered “Harry,” though, to me, it sounded like she was loudly pleading for me to explain and to undo what had just happened.
Looking at my hands and wondering why they had taken it upon themselves to open the garage door, I did not see Mom get up and make her way towards me and Ruth. The next thing I knew, Mom was pushing past Ruth with a fierce look on her face and her right arm folded protectively against her chest. With her one good arm, she began to flail at my head and shoulders, sputtering both grunts and groans of physical exertion and occasional words.
“Why? Harry! No! Can’t!”
“Michael,” she wailed plaintively, slowing her ineffectual beating of me. It was at this point that our next-door neighbor, Mrs. Horvath, wrapped her arms around Mom.
“Mary, I think that’s enough now.” Mrs. Horvath’s tone was both firm and considerate. She was the first female Manager ever over at the electric company, so she knew how to command respect from folks who might otherwise not be inclined to listen. A big woman, Mrs. Horvath, pulled Mom back a couple of steps and shimmied her way between Mom and me. “Phillip has called 911, and the police should be on their way.”
As if on cue, the garage door next door started to groan upwards, and Mr. Horvath ducked his way underneath to make his way over to us. “Sergeant Cooper is coming over himself. Should be here in three minutes.” Looking at Mom like she might start hitting someone again, Mr. Horvath stayed in their driveway with his cellphone to his ear. “I saw what happened, Mary. Terrible.” As if he needed to explain why he had been outside in the first place, he added sheepishly, “I was checking on my pumpkins.”
At Mom’s request, Mrs. Horvath released her to sit cross-legged at the edge of the driveway, her head back in her hands. Ruth was standing next to me, glancing from me to Mom, then up at the sky. As Sergeant Cooper’s siren turned off at the end of our street, I heard Mrs. Horvath say to her husband, “Never thought The Culling would happen to someone we know.”
Taking in our tableau of sorrow as he got out of his cruiser, Sergeant Cooper said, “Good Lord, why can’t we just shoot those God-damn ships out of the sky?”
Attempts to destroy objects
In February through July 2017, several attempts were made to destroy the unidentified objects. The Laser Weapon System or LaWS (a directed-energy weapon developed by the United States Navy in 2014) was reportedly deployed first from a specially-designed platform at the rear of two different Antonov An-225s. The US Navy and US Air Force reported that in the firings from the An-225, the targets were further away than LaWS was designed to strike, and that the power of the beam was weakened by the distance it had to travel. It is not known if the laser beams had any noticeable effect on the objects.
According to leaked reports, at least seven attempts have been made to date to destroy the unidentified objects with Tomahawk Missiles, Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM), or similar non-nuclear weaponry. Although the United States, British, Israeli, Russian and Chinese governments are not responding to requests from citizen groups and the media for further information, officials from Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Raytheon have indicated that the directional precision of each of their respective systems was not built anticipating strikes on small objects (roughly 5,000 square feet in area) located miles outside of Earth’s atmosphere.
To date, no nuclear warheads have been used against the unidentified objects. Political and military leaders, members of the media, and bloggers across multiple nations have engaged in fierce debate regarding both the efficacy of and the dangers involved in using nuclear weaponry. Until recently, most arguments against “going nuclear” have included concerns regarding the potential for worldwide radioactive fallout and the fear of retaliatory strikes from aliens. As of late, more people have argued against attacking the objects by putting forward what some have called “fatalistic” claims that the alleged alien beings are unstoppable in their pursuit of human victims and/or are taking “sustainable” numbers of victims. Groups such as “Supporting The Culling” compare the 75,000 to 80,000 people who become annual Culling victims to a yearly net world population gain of 70,000,000 and argue that The Culling phenomenon is helping to mitigate this planet’s significant overpopulation challenges. Other groups, such as “Avenge The Victims,” have argued that “every possible military option” should be applied in order to “destroy the evil beings who have perpetrated these crimes against our species.” (See Victim group vs. supporters debate, below.)
The next five weeks, before Ruth and I felt strong enough to return to school, felt like a blur to me. Mom did not say more than a dozen words to me during that first week, only demanding that I eat one of the meals brought over by members of the church’s Ladies’ Auxiliary Group or responding with a blunt “No” if I asked to look at Dad’s high school yearbook. When one of them began to cry, Mom and Ruth comforted each other with hugs and consoling words, but Mom would not allow me to embrace her, at least at first. It was only when Ruth noticed the hugging imbalance and said something in front of Nana and Papa that Mom again let me crawl weepily into her lap as she sat on the sofa in the living room.
When Mom finally did begin to speak with me again, she never openly blamed me for the loss of her husband, but I could tell by the withering looks she occasionally gave me that I was partially culpable in her eyes. She began speaking with me about the wisdom and beauty behind God’s will. She explained how we don’t need to fully understand His ways in order for us to celebrate their divine nature. She admitted she could not comprehend why her husband was taken from her, but she had to accept that it was “as God had intended it,” and that it would eventually be revealed how our family’s emotional suffering would “serve some higher purpose.” She did not mention the small part I had played in Dad’s Culling, unless she was thinking about me and the garage door opener when she told the Horvaths that “God’s hand was intimately involved” in Dad’s departure.
Meredith visited me only once during that month and a half. She and her parents knocked on our door the Monday evening after Dad’s Culling. Still in her school clothes, she handed me a tuna and noodle casserole just like the ones brought to our house by three other families. It was clear Meredith did not know what to say to me. While Mr. and Mrs. Connors sat at the kitchen table and quietly offered sympathetic words to Mom, Nana, and Papa, Meredith and I stood awkwardly by the door to the garage. We mostly stood in silence, staring at the kitchen floor. She kept looking towards her mom, as if hoping for a reprieve from the purgatory of standing next to the weird kid with the Culled father. Other than asking when I would be back at school, the only other words Meredith said to me were, “Was it awful?” Glancing at her kindly face, I nodded affirmatively and looked away before she could see me tearing up.
Tommy visited me pretty much every day during those five weeks. At first, he and I barely spoke, which was fine by me. After exchanging “heys,” we would sit across from each other in my living room, Tommy doodling in his ever-present sketchbook while I stared at our ratty beige carpet, replaying Dad’s horrifying departure over and over in my mind. Slowly, we began to talk. He began by telling me how he had survived to become the last player on his dodgeball team in gym class, before being pummeled by his three opposing players. Then, he told me how Stacey wouldn’t stop talking about the Bachelorette television show, which held absolutely no interest for him.
Though he never asked me any questions about Dad’s Culling, I began to tell Tommy about that dreadful afternoon. I told him how I was “an idiot” for not finding out what time exactly The Culling was supposed to occur that day. I told him how, when I first entered the garage, I had briefly thought Dad might be playing a prank on me, so I wouldn’t be so uptight about The Culling. I told him how Sargent Cooper kept complaining to Mr. Horvath about our “pussy President” who was “scared of some little green men” and who “probably couldn’t fight his way out of a paper sack.” I told him how Ruth kept asking when Dad would be returning, even several days later. Eventually, I even showed Tommy the damage my father’s legs did to our garage door. My best friend Tommy was my one and only emotional outlet during those horrible days.
Having skipped attending Sunday service the day after the Culling, for the first time in my memory, I was surprisingly uneasy walking through the parking lot of Christ the Redeemer Church the next weekend. This church was my home away from home; I was a member of the extended family here, and yet I was keenly aware of the other parishioners watching me make my way past Minister Evans’ beat-up Dodge Caravan and up the front sidewalk. They would have barely noticed me two weeks prior. Dressed in my one and only button-down, white-collared shirt, I was aware that conversations stopped as Mom, Ruth, and I approached. In our wake, I caught phrases that were spoken in tones of either awe or pity.
“Blessed man was chosen.”
“How horrible.”
“Against the garage door.”
“Damn aliens.”
Wallowing in my grief, sitting in our usual spot in the middle-back of the pews, I wasn’t really listening to Minister Evans that morning until Ruth elbowed me in the ribs. Up in the pulpit, Minister Evans was gazing directly at us, and a significant percentage of the congregation had turned to stare solemnly in our direction. He was describing Dad as a “humble servant” who had been “carefully selected to travel on the most direct route possible, straight up to Heaven.” He talked about “God’s mysterious ways” and the “incomparable joy” Dad must have experienced when first meeting the Lord. When Minister Evans stepped down from the dais and began making his way in our direction, I could feel my face starting to flush. Neither my family nor I had ever been singled out during our weekly family services, and I certainly did not want to have that happen today. When Minister Evans ended his sermon with his hands on Ruth’s and my shoulders, booming that our “family had been chosen by God” and that we should feel “supremely blessed,” something inside me snapped. How could he honestly think we had been “blessed” by God when it felt to me, we had received the ultimate punishment? Conversely, I wondered for the first time in that moment, maybe there is no God up above taking care of us … only aliens intent on capturing us.
Impact on life attitudes
It is generally agreed that mankind’s perspective towards life has been altered significantly by The Culling. After the collective initial experience of confused, fearful and angry reactions, the American Psychological Association (APA) and the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP) recently reported on studies that fully one-third of Americans and Europeans have both “accepted” the ongoing nature of The Culling and are either supportive or neutral towards its occurrence. After spiking dramatically in 2015 and 2016, instances of panic attacks and a broad category of Culling-related anxiety disorders have now been reportedly decreasing.
In the two-plus years since The Culling first occurred, participation in religious life has increased at the same time that the acknowledgement of secular/humanist worldviews has increased. In the United States, for example, social scientists (see Dr. Jane Ebel) have documented how the 70% of Americans who had previously described themselves as belonging to or being raised within one specific religious denomination (e.g., Catholicism or Methodism) were more likely to attend church/synagogue/mosque on at least a weekly basis than was the case prior to March 2015. In the same studies, Ebel found that the 30% of Americans who would have previously described themselves as being atheist, agnostic, a religious skeptic, or religiously unaffiliated were more likely to openly share their beliefs with friends and relatives.
At first, The Culling was not being discussed in most of the world’s elementary and middle schools. Educators indicated that they did not want to frighten the children and that they wanted to respect each family’s right to present the facts and discuss the theories within the context of their unique values. Now, the National Education Association (NEA) and World Education Research Association (WERA) have each issued statements arguing that young children should be taught about The Culling, that they should not fear it, and that they should “endeavor to live a life rich with knowledge, connections and experiences” on the chance they may fall victim.
Despite “Supporting The Culling” claims that human losses due to The Culling have mitigated population increases, birthrates have begun to increase within the past year, especially within western societies, due to concerns regarding the potential loss of “only children.”
When Mom first received the invitation from the Horvaths for all of us to attend what was described as a “Culling Memorial Gathering,” scheduled in three days’ time at the next occurrence of The Culling, she explained to Nana and Papa that she would be declining. She supported her decision by saying that she was “not interested in attending a gathering where the focus will be on pitying me.” No one in our family liked to be the center of attention, especially Mom.
Mom called the Horvaths to thank them for their “kind invitation” and asked for their “understanding” for our absence on Sunday evening. It was a “school night,” she explained. Of course, Mom was not going to work, and Ruth and I were not going to school on that Monday. At 9:10 pm, past my usual bedtime, I found myself staring out the window of my bedroom into the neighbor’s yard. The sight of the Horvaths on their back porch, along with several other couples, including two kids from Aletheia, was captivating to me. They were all standing in a circle and holding hands, and it sounded like Mr. Horvath was praying. While the adults never looked in the direction of our house, the two kids, both fourth graders, did multiple times.
I, of course, had learned the exact time for the next Culling, and I made sure my window was wide open at 9:10 pm. I suggested to Ruth that she do the same thing, and I wondered if she was watching our neighbors from her room. Glancing down at our back porch, I could see that Mom had snuck out and was sitting in our old Adirondack chair, facing away from the Horvaths, with a Bible by her side and with her head in her hands.
Hearing the lyrics of the Blessings song being sung on the Horvaths’ CD player, by Laura Story, shattered the tension that had been building up inside me all day and brought me to the floor, weeping uncontrollably.
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
What if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are your mercies in disguise
By the date of the next Culling, two weeks later, the “Culling Memorial Gathering” was being held on our back porch. Because the full moon would be occurring at 4:53 am, Mom had a full pot of coffee along with several sheets of coffee cake to offer Nana and Papa, the Horvaths, Tommy, and his parents. It was a brisk morning as we watched our breaths form and then dissipate in front of our faces. Even Sargent Cooper stopped by just in time for all of us to hold hands and offer up a prayer for both “understanding” and “shelter from those who would cause us harm.”
Although much of our talk that morning focused on our collective outrage over what those aliens did to Dad, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sympathy for the beings who now held him. Although I wasn’t bold enough to say it to anyone at the time, I admired the beings who had both selected him and could transport my father from inside our garage up into a spaceship beyond our atmosphere.
Victims group vs. supporters debate
Media and Culling bloggers have focused much attention on the debate between Lucy Lawson, Spokesperson for “Avenge The Victims,” and Thomas Ortega, spokesperson for “Supporting The Culling.” Lucy Lawson is a Pasadena, CA (USA) lawyer who lost her daughter, Rebecca, to The Culling in April of 2015. Thomas Ortega is a sociologist at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM – National Autonomous University of Mexico). Contentious and overtly personal at times, this debate between these two individuals can be summarized by the position statements of each group.
From avengethevictims.com. “It is with horror that we regularly witness our loved ones being taken. Mankind must fight back to both avoid further loss of life and avenge the innocent lives that have ended so abruptly. We urge our political and military leaders to use every possible military option to destroy the evil beings who have perpetrated these crimes against our species.”
From supportingtheculling.org/english. “While the loss of human life that has occurred during The Culling is tragic, it is clear that the alien beings are taking sustainable numbers of victims, are utilizing technologies far advanced than what mankind possesses, and are capable of causing much greater damage than what has already been witnessed. We believe that aggressive military action against the aliens will not prevail and will, instead, create incentives for them to kill more of us or even destroy our planet entirely. We believe that a peaceful human response will be more likely to lead to benevolent alien behavior.”
Ms. Lawson has argued that she would rather see all of humanity die in a battle with the aliens than see them continue to “steal away with victim after victim after victim.” Mr. Ortega has maintained that human life has been “shocked but also enhanced” by the steady loss of victims, given that “the threat of random, imminent death has motivated people to live life more fully, seeking stronger connections with each other and aggressively pursuing meaningful and memorable activities.”
With one heartbreaking exception, nothing out of the ordinary has happened to me during the 14 years since Dad was taken. I’ve grown up and earned a couple of college degrees. My stutter is mostly gone, except when I get excited or angry. Tommy and I are still best friends and talk on the phone every couple of days. While Tommy has been dating Stacey off and on for almost a decade, I have never had a relationship with a woman that lasted for more than several months. I can’t seem to get comfortable opening up to my “girlfriends” about my religious beliefs, my family history, or my past.
After years of heated internal dialogue, I’ve finally come to accept The Culling as a natural part of human existence. Culling events keep occurring, and I don’t think the aliens could hurt me more than they already have. Except for that one time in college when I had the stomach bug, I’ve attended a Culling Party at every single full and new moon. During senior year, with Tommy’s encouragement, I was supposed to participate in a panel discussion focused on the impact of The Culling. Instead, I backed out at the last minute because I did not want to experience the well-intentioned but misguided comments from strangers. I told Tommy that I resented feeling obliged to respond graciously when someone said, “Sorry for your loss,” unless I happened to encounter someone who had also seen an immediate family member floating up into the sky.
Since moving away from home, I’ve only admitted once to having witnessed my father being culled. Late one night during sophomore year, after a couple of beers and some rather intense lovemaking, I told Yvette, my girlfriend at the time. She had just teared up telling me about her parents’ divorce, and I was moved to share the story of my darkest moment. Although she said little and hugged me intensely at the time, by the next morning, I felt as if our relationship had changed. When I saw her in the cafeteria at dinner, I regretted what I had told her and felt she had some sort of emotional advantage over me. Even though Tommy has since mocked me for my discomfort sharing with others, I was ill at ease knowing that Yvette had learned the secret of my life’s most gut-wrenching moment.
It was soon after sharing my news with Yvette that my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I completed my spring semester, somehow, but then went home to take care of Mom. I drove her to specialist visits, radiation, and chemo treatments. Ruth and I cleaned her toilet when she threw up and cooked her favorite foods when she felt up to eating. We watched baseball games on TV, even when the Tigers weren’t playing, and we went with her to Sunday services. By early March, Mom was gone. She died peacefully in her sleep only because the Hospice facility had dulled her nonstop pain by loading her up on morphine.
Late on the day of Mom’s funeral, after friends and family had left our childhood house on the cul-de-sac, Ruth and I got to talking about how losing Mom compared to losing Dad. We agreed that caring for Mom during her dying days was an incredible gift. Unlike with Dad, we were allowed to tell Mom over and over again how much we loved her. We looked through photo albums together and reminisced about our family trips to Michigan. We felt a special pride knowing that Mom witnessed how we had grown into kind and responsible people. When Dad left us, we did not have the luxury of enjoying an extended farewell, we hadn’t known that our time together would be coming to an end. Ruth still feels remorse over not having touched Dad’s arm as I had urged her to do. But our extended farewell for Mom also felt like nine months of torture. Every day, we woke up with heartache and went to bed with sorrow. In between, despite occasional periods of normalcy and some special moments of shared gladness, we mostly felt unrelenting sadness. Even though we cannot imagine why The Culling might be happening, we at least have learned that loved ones can be taken, both quickly and slowly, and that it is imperative we always live our lives fully aware that the next Culling is coming in less than two weeks. Before heading off to bed, we both agreed that we were going to be living our lives as if the next Culling would be our own.
Views on rationale
Many scientists, writers, political, and religious leaders believe that human bodies are being taken by alien beings to be used in some unknown fashion. Given our inability to communicate with these aliens, it is impossible to understand why this has been occurring. Theories offered have included 1) food for the aliens, 2) test subjects for alien medicines, 3) the harvesting of specific bodily parts, 4) bodily incubators for alien babies, 5) an attempt to save the human species from an impending galactic-level disaster (given the rarity of intelligent life), and many other hypotheses.
While the majority of people polled indicate that they do not want to become a victim of The Culling, roughly 12% of survey respondents in the U.S. and European Union indicated their hope that they will “be chosen.” Instead of considering them as Culling “victims,” these “Chosen Activists” believe that those who leave Earth have been chosen for some “higher” though unknown purpose. Given this perspective, people lost during previous Cullings are revered, studied, and imitated. Instead of using protective charms, amulets, and concoctions to not being selected, these people pursue techniques and make lifestyle decisions that they believe will lead to their being taken.
Many Culling commentators ask questions that are driven by philosophical and spiritual disagreements, uncertainty, and/or a search for an unambiguous “meaning of life.” These questions seek to explain how The Culling fits into or alters an individual’s or a group’s previously held beliefs on the topic. For those who have concentrated their discussions on the individually-focused question of “What is the meaning of my life?” The Culling has invigorated attention on personal fulfillment, consciousness, and “doing your own thing.” For those who have concentrated on the collective question of “What is the meaning of human life?” (e.g., a “higher meaning”) The Culling has raised many questions on which religious and spiritual leaders have struggled to agree. While Secular Humanist group leaders have reported being emboldened by The Culling, several leaders of traditional religious groups have admitted to “significant struggles” trying to understand and explain The Culling within the framework of their beliefs.
Some theorists have likened The Culling to the human breeding, slaughter, and consumption of livestock. In these arguments, as is the case for farmed cattle, hogs, and turkeys; human beings (the “victims”) are unaware that their lives, the length of their lives, the circumstances that lead to death for some members of the group, and their actual deaths are dictated by “controlling beings.” In many of these discussions, human existence on Earth has been referred to as “free range.”
The goal of NASA’s reconstituted Humans Reaching Out In Peace (HROIP) program is straightforward: to communicate with the aliens. Sixty-four total HROIP Ambassadors, including myself, have been newly selected based on our scientific knowledge and our fitness. Having earned a Bachelor of Science in Math from MIT (thank you, Guidance Counselor mother) and a Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering from CalTech helped me qualify on the scientific knowledge side of the ledger. Having spent far more time in the gym than I ever did socializing, helped me to meet NASA’s rigorous fitness standards. I’m pretty sure that my lack of living parents and children was also a factor in NASA and the United Nations’ HROIP Ambassador selection process.
HROIP was originally constituted seven years ago, though just in the United States and not actively involving the United Nations. A great deal of media attention was paid to the 16 volunteers who committed themselves to contacting the aliens and to sharing mankind’s “message of peace.” All plans were put on hold when the Washington Post reported that our President had never intended to send any HROIP Ambassadors into low-Earth orbit, but instead had been using HROIP as a distraction so that the US and China could launch nuclear bombs at the alien spacecraft. When the nuclear bombs had no impact on the bi-monthly alien visits, but instead caused low-level but widespread radiation poisoning that affected over 2 million people, the bombing stopped. Without pretending to care about HROIP anymore, the US and Chinese governments then utilized the much-discussed Enhanced Laser Systems (ELS) for several months in an attempt to blast holes in the visiting craft. Satellite and telescopic video documented repeatedly that “mankind’s strongest laser system ever” had no apparent impact on the alien craft.
Reconstituted by the United Nations three years ago, the current and public plan for HROIP is to train us Ambassadors for four months and then to house us in two different low-Earth orbit craft positioned on opposite sides of the planet. Prior to each bi-monthly Culling Time, four of the HROIP Ambassadors will be suited up for solo spacewalks and will be ready to travel, by shuttles, to within ten miles of the nearest one or two (if time allows), varying locations for the aliens. During the 18-minute window of opportunity, when the aliens are “visible” to us, we hope that one or more HROIP Ambassadors will be taken in, so we’ll have the chance to establish contact and, hopefully, begin an interplanetary dialogue. It’s been made very clear to all of us that once we begin our space walks, we may not return to Earth alive and may be taken away to some unknown location. It’s also been made clear to us that we’ll be carrying only a 90-minute supply of oxygen in our spacesuits. If we are dropped off and something happens to our shuttle, then we won’t be able to breathe for too long. There are some who are saying we will be more likely to be taken in by the aliens if they are our only chance for survival.
When word got out that I had been selected to become an HROIP Ambassador, I got a surprise and long email from Meredith. She had my email address from her mother, who had quietly been in touch with my mother after I had left for college. Meredith told me about how she had delayed attending college for two years so she could work in the Peace Corps. During her time in Bolivia, she explained to local villagers that The Culling was a real phenomenon, contrary to what was being reported by their civic leaders, and that she had “a dear friend” in elementary school whose father had been culled. Then, at the University of Oregon, she joined and eventually led a student chapter of the Supporting the Culling group. She wanted to let me know that she thought of me often and hoped we could stay in touch.
Meredith also told me she had stopped going to church. She described how her spiritual doubts had begun the evening she visited my house after Dad was taken. She was so upset at the grief my family and I were enduring that she repeatedly asked her parents how God could be allowing such sorrow. She was not satisfied with her parents’ responses, which led her to ask more and more questions about God’s capabilities and God’s intentions. She attended church up through high school, mostly to appease her mom, but then surreptitiously left her Bible at home when she joined the Peace Corps. I responded that I, too, had lost my faith when my dad was culled. I resented praying to a God who would allow our father, and then our mother, to be taken from me and Ruth without any indication as to why. But I told Meredith rather sheepishly, I have begun reading the Bible again and finding comfort in those words. In fact, my final decision to apply to become an HROIP Ambassador was reached after reading Mark 10:45 – “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” I read that passage and realized I was willing, eager even, to risk giving my life to the aliens if it might help save the lives of others.
My secret and admittedly irrational wish, once I get past the HROIP training and up into space, is that I will be able to see Dad again. I want for him to see that I’ve grown into a “fine young man,” just like he always said I would. I also want to share with him some of Mom’s last words. “If you ever happen to see your father, tell him I forgive him for leaving me so soon, and that both God and I will always love him.”
Maybe he can also tell me if those taken or those left behind should be considered “The Cull.”
ABOUT
A college administrator by day, Bob Gielow (he/him) spins tales in formats we all use when communicating with each other: text messages, diary entries, and fictional Wikipedia posts all allow him to be clinical and thorough in describing his characters, their thinking and actions … without diminishing his ability to explore the resulting human emotions. Bob utilizes these epistolary styles, and others, to tell tales that frequently explore the most common of human experiences, death.
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