Introduction by Klaatu

I am Klaatu. 

Not so long ago, I was sent by the Planets to bring a message to the peoples of the planet called Earth. As has happened many times before, a planet’s people was about to make its first steps towards leaving its home and, following our protocols, a patrol ship and first contact agent was sent to meet those people. I was the agent, and was accompanied by patrol robot Gort.

Unlike most other planets at the time they begin their first extraterrestrial steps, the civilizations of Earth are socially more simple and violent. Once our ship landed in the capitol city of their major nuclear power, we allowed the residents several hours to adjust to our landing before we attempted to deliver our message. They mobilized a large and formidable group of military personnel and equipment that, I had supposed, would give them some sense of security in the presence of our technology. In that assumption I was quite wrong.

I departed the craft and made the announcement that we came to visit in peace and with good intentions. As I withdrew the gift I had brought for the nation’s president, a single soldier panicked and shot me with a bullet. Army seniors took me to the Walter Reed Hospital where I recovered and also had time to meet with the secretary to the president of the United States of America. I informed him that I had brought a message of vital concern to all living things on Earth, and that the message must be delivered to all peoples – or their representatives – simultaneously. Though the president agreed to issue invitations to such a meeting, the petty squabbles among the peoples and their nations prevented such a meeting from taking place. One government would not meet in Washington, another would not meet in Moscow, and yet others would not attend any meeting at with the others would be present. Incredible as it may seem now, human leaders were more repelled by their mutual dislike and distrust than they were intrigued to learn what message was behind the first contact between their planet and an intelligent extraterrestrial race.

In desperation I sought out Earth’s most prominent scientist, and got him to agree to gather a meeting of the leading minds from all nations. In order to convince people of the power and thereby the gravity of my message, that scientist asked that I arrange some sort of dramatic but non-destructive demonstration. In the event, I arranged to shut down all non-vital electrical power on Earth for a period of 30 minutes. As per our protocols, which strictly ban endangering any life, power was maintained for air vehicles in flight, hospitals, emergency equipment, and other such devices. The demonstration was extremely effective in suggesting to the Earth people just how much power a single ship could deliver, but in a socially aggressive culture such as seen on Earth a display is interpreted as a challenge to try to overcome that power. Earth officials decided I must be caught and executed, and they shot me dead an hour before the scheduled meeting with the scientists and other scholars.

Through the assistance of a brave and intellectually aware Earth woman, Gort was restrained from destroying Earth, but instead recovered and regenerated my body. So far, I am still quite functional. I was able to attend the scheduled meeting just as the people were starting to disburse, and at that time I gave them our message. Gort and I then returned to the ship and began the journey home.

As we left the Earth, I was pondering the conditions that would allow creatures capable of such wonderful achievements to behave as they do. Among the truly awe inspiring accomplishments have been the music of Mozart and Beethoven, the eclectic genius of Da Vinci, the depth of insight of Socrates, Rousseau, and Voltaire, and the ability to observe and critically evaluate humanity as demonstrated by Aristotle, Jefferson, and Wells. There is no doubt that people are aware of the vile and reprehensible acts of aggression and violence they routinely practice, and there is considerable objection to those actions. Why, then, do those actions continue and expand? This is a question that I feel cannot be answered in short and simple terms and still hold meaning. Indeed, the overarching power of short and pithy, if less than informative, “sound bites” has become the most widely accepted form of news and factual information for much of Earth’s population. Combine the limited value that comes from a one or two sentence statement with the ease with which such statements can be presented out of context such that they are totally distorted, and it becomes easier to understand why humanity has so little real grasp of either its mass power or the factors affecting them all. Any species that would so thoroughly fail to respond to the crisis of having its two frozen poles melting seems, to me, beyond the ability to effectively understand. Perhaps humanity is simply more prone to self-destruction than it is to survival and advancement. Only time will tell.

Still following protocol, I have continued to observe Earth activities to determine how the people would respond to our message. In this, I have acted in the capacity of a behavioral biologist, with elements of ecologist added. The species has been predictable, having achieved very rudimentary space flight capability and, as we feared, sent nuclear materials into space. So far, at least, the ability for humans to take a controlled, manned spacecraft effectively out of orbit does not yet exist, although robot probes have been launched with increasing frequency over the past several years. Not surprisingly, when one of our police ships destroyed one of their Martian probes, it was not reported as a warning but as a mistake in programming between their metric and imperial measurement systems. 

As required by our laws, I am now providing my detailed report on Earth, its people, and my judgment on their suitability – or lack thereof – to join the races and peoples of the other planets. What follows is my judgment and the evidence I have used in coming to that judgment.