Last Updated on January 5, 2016 by Jon Algie
Today I’m featuring a special guest writer; Disgraced (and possibly fictional) alienographer Ethan Taylor, whose claim to fame was his theory that aliens were in fact living among us as angst-filled teenagers. It turned out he’d fallen asleep while reruns of the TV show Roswell were playing, and his easy to influence mind came up with the theory that got him laughed out of mainstream science. He’s looking to jump back on the alien horse with a new theory; aliens are in fact much smaller than we first thought, and while crop circles are obviously fake, small circles found at the acropolis (the Acropolis circles) were in fact left by tiny space ships. He’ll take it from here…
Pushing through a mass of tourists, I finally arrived at the front of the line. The heavy set woman selling tickets had never heard of me, so my plea for free entrance (I was, after all, doing scientific research) went unfulfilled. I’m used to this kind of embarrassment; a once budding science career was dashed by one too many nights on magic mushrooms. Clean, sober and hungrier than ever, I had a feeling the Acropolis circles breakthrough would be the making of me. I’d seen rumours of this world changing discovery on the internet, and although I have no reason to doubt the integrity of the world wide web, I had to see the Acropolis circles for myself.
Map in hand, I shuffled up the hill towards the Theatre of Dionysus – a huge arena where ancient Greeks were once entertained, possibly by tiny aliens. I sat on the stone steps and couldn’t help feeling a little jealous of those who had been there before me – what wonderful and amazing things they must have seen. I quickly moved on from the theatre, as it looked like a terrible place for an alien ship to land – I needed to head to higher (and flatter) ground.
The sun was beating down on me like Mike Tyson’s fists, but I was there for a purpose, so I pushed through the pain (and the lines of tourists) and eventually made it to the top of the hill, where I stood atop the amazing acropolis of Athens. References to the Acropolis Circles online were vague, so I had no idea where to start my search. The massive columns of the Parthenon were covered in scaffolding – was the government trying to hide something? I tried to look casual as I slipped under a small fence, but just as I glimpsed a possible circle in the ground, a guard approached me with furious anger, so I waded back into the stream of tourists.
As any fan of realistic action movies knows, success usually lies in the gadgets that heroes possess. As I didn’t fancy taking on the security guards in hand to hand combat, I used my ultra zoom lens to focus in on what I thought was an Acropolis circle. It was actually the footprint of a small child – I was disappointed until I thought of a brilliant idea. I roamed the rest of the Acropolis looking for young children who I could hire to sneak into tiny, fenced off spaces for me. It turns out if there’s one thing security guards hate more than grown men sneaking into fenced off areas, it’s grown men approaching children they don’t know offering them money. I had to think of a better idea, as the sun was starting to set on my dream of being reintegrated into the scientific community.
I quickly moved over to the very edge of the Acropolis, where nothing of historical interest lay, in the hopes of having some space to search. Suddenly, I spotted a circle in the dirt that was a highly irregular shape. This could be it, I thought! I moved closer towards it and begun my analysis. I was almost finished documenting what could have been the biggest discovery of the modern era when a dog came over to me. It wanted attention, but since I was far too busy, I ignored it. The dog then proceeded to lie down right next to the circle I was analysing. I took a step back and realised the dog and the circle were the exact same shape – I hadn’t stumbled on an Acropolis circle at all!
In utter despair, I left the Acropolis and drowned my sorrows with a drink at the Temple of Olympian Zeus. The sunset was beautiful but my career lay in tatters. I still believed in aliens, but I was starting to have serious doubts as to whether I was a good scientist, when out of the corner of my eye I saw an object hovering in the sky. My super zoom lens camera was out of battery, so I have no way of verifying it, but I’m 90% sure it was a space ship – 90% might not be enough to go on for most scientists, but it’s enough for me.
This is Ethan Taylor signing off from a successful expedition to Athens. Keep believing!
Jon Algie
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