The alien anthropologist admits he is still perplexed

by Rick Karhu and Mike McInnis

Listeners of Art Bell's late-night radio program were surprised, shocked and slightly confused when it was revealed recently on that very program that the lyrics to Roger Water's song "Amused To Death" were based on a real-life experience. Waters, it turns out, was the victim of alien abduction. Though many in the Pink Floyd fan community were skeptical enough to drop their bongs at first, Spare Bricks has uncovered secret, genuinely nonexistent documents that appear to be the actual alien reports of the abduction. It appears to be written by the very alien anthropologist mentioned in the song.

We can't guarantee how long this controversial information will be here so read it now... while you can.

SUBJECT: Humanoid abduction

PLANET: Sol 3, local name "Earth"

HUMANOID IDENTIFICATION: Roger Waters

FULL REPORT OF ABDUCTION FOLLOWS

PHYSICAL: The physical tests to which we subjected the humanoid were interesting. Humans apparently have highly evolved saliva glands that can excrete liquid projectiles with startling speed. This humanoid was capable of striking any of us with such projectiles at virtually any distance and with surprising accuracy. There must be some quirk in the evolution of this ability however as the humanoid became saddened and introspective after having performed such a feat, and on one or two instances, produced enough lyrical material for 3 full-length LPs. We can only reason that this is part of some survival mechanism not fully explained by our present research.

MENTAL: Humans seem to have difficulty maintaining concentration on given tasks. The subject was presented with a battery of mental tasks, including simple arithmetic, logic puzzles, and visuospatial exercises. The humanoid showed great aptitude for all areas, but appeared to become distracted by extraneous sounds within the testing facility. At random intervals, and with no significant provocation, the subject flew into a rage, shouting, "Oh for fuck's sake, keep it down! Stop shouting and whistling and making so much noise! I'm trying to work out this puzzle! Some people want an answer... I want an answer."

PROBES: The humanoid refused to allow us to implant him with the special homing device that we tag all abductees with. He kept saying: "Please don't put your wires in my brain."

In contrast, the subject seemed highly interested in the genital and rectal probes, and upon examination began to comment: "Thank you very much for rekindling the magic I felt in my younger days. I haven't experienced this much magic since the '70s. It's a palpable thing, this magic. You can feel it, you can hold it in the palm of your hand and squeeze it like Silly Putty. You can even make copies of your favorite Sunday funnies with this magic. It's very moving. It's been extraordinary."

BEHAVIOR: Humans appear to have a need to control things. After fifteen minutes on the ship, this 'Waters' humanoid had convinced us to release him from the table. Shortly afterward, he'd kicked a few of the crew members out of the ship and had assumed full control. The first thing he did was send a crew out to remove the lasers as he kept saying things like "All these lights and lasers just bogged us down in the '70s." Quite frankly, the humanoid has a point.

DEVELOPMENT: Humanoid showed a remarkable skill with our advanced technology. Within minutes, he had mastered our monitoring systems and had zoomed our viewers in on the surface of Earth. He seemed particularly interested in locking in on three humanoid domiciles in the part of the world these humans call 'England.' Though he tried, he was unsuccessful in activating our weapons systems.

RETURN: We delivered the humanoid back to his home using the antigravity beam to let him descend from the sky. Due to miscalculation, we accidentally brought him down in a remote, jungle region of his home planet where native humanoids saw him descend. They immediately bowed down to him and began worshipping him as a god. When we tried to correct this mistake, the Waters humanoid refused to cooperate, saying, "No! Bloody hell! I'm staying right here. These people have the right idea. Now if the rest of the planet would get this concept down."

SUMMARY: Still quite perplexed--not about the humanoid, but rather I'm having difficulty understanding why we, an alien race, would have a highly developed branch of anthropology given that this particular study centers on human beings and... well dammit, the lack of logic is giving me a headache again (which itself is odd as we really don't have a 'head' per se.)

Mike McInnis and Rick Karhu are regular contributors to Spare Bricks. Their award-winning work has been featured in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, People, The New Yorker, Newsweek, GQ, Playboy, Rosie, PC World, Town and Country, Martha Stewart's Living, Sports Illustrated, MacWorld, Home and Garden, Redbook, Style, Guns and Ammo, Bon Appetite, and Donut! The Bi-Weekly Zine for Pastry Fetishists. Rick writes a regular unpublished column in Braille called "My Life: Angry, Relentless, Venomous Spew of Filth and Perversion and Other Fun Bits of Chilean Folklore." Mike frequently appears on public access television doing live flute interpretations of old episodes of "Friends" during which he is usually fully-clothed.