The Announcement

The Announcement - that's the name with which it would have gone down in history eventually, and to be honest that's a pretty bland name, they could have called it The Awesomesauce Day or The Final Revelations From The Sky but hey, that's how they called it, let me tell the story, as we're actually at the point of it when The Announcement was about to be revealed and broadcasted by all the major news channels, and also some of the minor ones which had the money to send live journalists to the Vatican, and I want to say in advance that all journalists survived the event and actually no journalists were harmed during The Announcement.

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To give perspective of the humongous expectation behind it, I'll have you know that the square - we're talking the big square in Rome, or Vatican City to be precise, the one with the big Church, St Peter's Square it's the name - was filled up with people cramped like sardines in a sardine can solar compactor, if that was a thing.

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They were doing what people do while waiting for the Pope to speak; some were chanting, some praying, some selling hats, pizza slices, and if you were that kind of faithful you could score some blow from a Nigerian guy just off the main streets. But let's not digress here.

The Announcement was indeed announced, sorry for the pun, as a pretty big thing, so people naturally started spreading rumours like unaware teenagers spread STDs, something that should preoccupy the majority of Catholic Priests, for the religious reasons of pre-marital sex and not the ones you're thinking about.

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But the rumours were heavy and hard not unlike a Church's marble altar, and varied on the scale of Priests finally be able to marry but not with themselves or with someone of the same sex - good enough, anyway - or a church-approved brand of condoms, or actually starting to pay taxes on the Real Estate the church owned all around Italy and the world, really.

The murmurs and the chanting and the people who put make-up on the journalists all came to a halt when the white-dressed Pope finally appeared at the window, a worried look on his face like he was keeping a bad wind in.

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Hundreds of real-time translators were adjusting their earpiece in that exact moment, ready to start deciphering the Pope's words into their language. And the Pope started, E' con cuore sollevato, let's tune into English, It's with relieved heart, my dear brothers and sisters, that I have been called to share with you the truth of the very soul of the Church, something that it's been kept secret since the beginning, and that finally it's ready to be made public domain.

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Claps and shouts thundered from the square. Was it Jesus back? Was it that they found the Ark? Tell us, tells us! shouted the square, and the murmurs began filling the air again so much that the Pontifex, that's latin for Pope, had to raise his hand to stop the crowd, then he took a white handkerchief and tapped it on his sweaty forehead. Then he continued his speech, Per centinaia d'anni, in English, For hundreds of years we've been the radio you tuned in to listen to the word of God and Jesus Christ our Savior, and well there's something rather important that we've held from you all this time, please don't be upset as we did it to preserve the sanctity of the message, but really, there's no easy way to say it so let's just say it, we've actually been worshipping Superior Alien beings all along.

And the Pope paused.

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So I guess you would expect a bigger reaction but there were only few and far Ooooh and gasp! and What?, of course in different languages, and some laughs all around, but when the crowd noticed that the Pope was silent and didn't say anything like Ah! Gotcha, silly joke!, but instead kept staring into the thousand faces of the people there plus the hundreds of camera-eyes that represented the entirety of the world, then some high-pitched Aaaah! and Oh My God! could be heard, together with a few thumps from people fainting down.

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Journalists were making faces and throwing hands at their translators which were babbling to each other, Did he say Alien? I heard airline, Maybe he did say airline, No, airline doesn't make any sense, Well so does alien, Maybe he said allievi, which means students, instead of alieni, which means alien, But then why did he pause? No I'm pretty sure he said alien.

The square now buzzed like a beehive ready to unleash hell because a blindfolded kid smashed part of it, led to think it was a piñata by his very cruel friends, so the Pope tried to bring order again by raising his hand, trying to calm down the spirits, and then spoke again into the microphone, Finalmente l'ho detto, Finally I said it, I never thought I'd be the one to share this, and actually that's the reason why my other colleague had to resign a while ago, he couldn't bear to share this news with you, but don't worry, really, let me tell you that's good news, some of you might have already guessed it, so let's address the worst kept secrets.

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He paused and a hand behind him conjured a black book, so the Pontifex opened it and wore his eyeglasses, then looking down to the book said, Let's start with the obvious things, oh yes, the 1470 painting Madonna con Gesù Bambino e San Giovannino attributed to Sebastiano Mainardi indeed depicts what you would call a flying saucer in the top right corner, an older model for sure but pretty swag back then, and also, if you recall what I said earlier, that thing that you tune in to us to listen to the word of God, well I was being quite literal.

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His handkerchief, which fulfilled his duty of sweat-collector the whole time, was now as wet as the conspiracy theory enthusiast next to you. The Pope had to grab another handkerchief, this time it was a red one, to clean his forehead again, which was being devoured by the hot sun and the pressure of the historical moment.

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He then continued, We do have indeed a device, let's call it that, that allows us to tune in and listen to what we've called God for a while, and you will understand it is in a secret location and we cannot really show it to you of course, you have got to trust our word on this, but it's indeed what some creative people around the world already identified as a sort of spherical radio and friendly called it Sputnik, which appears in the marvellous Glorification of the Eucharist painted by Bonaventura Salimbeni in 1600, with God himself as we like to depict him and Jesus fiddling with the antennas to catch a better signal, even a child would have seen it, he continued while the whole crowd was silent again of a eerie silence, the kind of silence you only hear when you put earplugs in, that uncomfortable silence that lets you hear your heartbeat and your thoughts.

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So the Pope kept talking and re-bunking, is that a word?, debunked facts anyone that watched any History Channel late at night would know, really, and the translators and journalists were very professional in keeping their faces straight while informing the population, and in that glass silence you could almost hear the orgasmic exclamations coming from weirdos around the world which were shouting, all at once, I told you so! to their wives, pets, friends, kids, or computer screens.

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The Announcement lasted two hours twenty minutes and change, trying to cover everything that the church hid, and concluded with the Pope changing forty-two different handkerchiefs, with dark sweat spots under his arms, saying Be good, my brothers and sisters, this doesn't really change things, does it? It actually makes things better, don't you think, now you have actual proof that God is here, well maybe there, a physical being nonetheless, a Space God if you want - he chuckled forcibly - so please be good Christians and don't worry, we'll issue more details in a statement later, which will possibly be a book because I'm sure there's still a lot to be said.

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He waved goodbye and blessed with the cross the incredulous population, before disappearing behind the window that was promptly closed, abandoning all the millions of people who just discovered they weren't exactly the special, chosen, unique form of life created by a long-bearded man thousands of years ago, possibly out of bore.

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In the space of thirteen minutes, the United States of America, Russia and China released hurried statements and, to anyone's lack of surprise, they announced something along the lines of Oh yeah we knew all along about flying saucers and aliens since, well, ever.

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The US, feeling guiltier due to their catholic upbringing, went on a truth spree and added that yes, Roswell was an alien incident, but not so grim as people would have thought, it was just what we would call today a recon drone, and an old model nonetheless, while the infamous autopsy was nothing but a crash dummy post-accident analysis.

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Russia doubled the game saying they were in possess of blueprints to build the God's Radio, but the attempts so far into building one were not the brightest, pointing out that Tunguska wasn't a natural event and actually that radio prototypes had something to do with Chernobyl as well, as they didn't know how much power that thing needed, but they all did it for the goodness of Mother Russia which wanted to beat the Western pigs into talking to the Galactic Overlord, even though the last part might be a mistranslation.

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China, being the new kid on the block, doubled the game and dared to say that Chinese people were actually a direct breed of descendants of the Cosmic Saviors, and that they had not one but three working prototypes of the Vatican Radio, copied thanks to stolen documents trafficked through the network of Chinese one-dollar shops all around the world, which were actually China's best-in-class safe houses for the MSS, the Ministry of State Security, no wonder they were all empty and shady places. No mention in their statement was given on what exactly was broadcasted on that prototype radios, and if the voice of God was actually broadcasted in English or Chinese.

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Finally, in the statement released by the Vatican, which was indeed one hundred and seventy-five thousand words long, humanity learned that Jesus was an alien, much like other prominent figures of human history, such as Buddha, Mohammed, but also Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, and - of course - David Bowie.

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No real explanation was given on where the hell, or heaven if you want, that device came from, and when did they realize that God was actually an Alien Civilization from a galaxy far, far away. This didn't change the fact that a God-like being was watching over us, trying to guide us to a better existence, and actually, this only reinforced the concept of good vs evil and Heaven and Hell, which now in the collective minds became very inhospitable planets or incredibly blessed ones.

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To be honest, the shock from the novelty wore off pretty quickly. Humans did what humans do best: they selfishly went on with their life. Some of them abandoned their catholic faith and joined cults to adore the aliens directly, some other made a fortune by becoming the biggest experts on UFOs on Earth - Take that mom for not having believed in me and my X-Files posters was the dedication on the fourth page of the best selling UFO: Ultimately Finding Order, the book that re-shaped the whole human history according to UFO sightings. All the unexplained magic and mystery in the world was indeed coming from an incredibly advanced technology.

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So mostly, people kept working, laughing, loving, and generally not caring about anything bigger than their life, like humans always do. Sure enough, moms would tell their kids to behave or the Aliens would see them, and Alien Santa would not bring presents, and to keep the tooth for the Alien fairy.

Things like that.

That was it.

Well, not all of it. Something did change indeed.

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Because even if The Announcement never really gave answers to the fundamental questions, but only created more of them, knowing that we weren't alone in this cold, vast space we're shooting through, and that someone - even a tiny green being we'll never meet with two antennas for eyes - knew we existed was a thought as cozy as an old shoe.

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Humanity never needed God; it only needed hope.

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Humans are an ever-changing, brilliantly simple mass of goo, would have said the alien that first broadcasted through the Radio, which name in earth-like language would sound much like Gloorp from the KIC 8462852 system.

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And life kept going, as it always does.