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A rough rendering of the Coast Guard’s Feb. 26 encounter off Southern California.
We are not alone in the universe!
On February 26, a USCG/Department of Homeland Security press release read: Coast Guard encounters over a dozen aliens off the coast of southern California.
How was this not bigger news?
After centuries of speculation and generations of fiction imagining other worlds and new beings, suddenly — on a Tuesday morning — the Coast Guard made first contact somewhere off SoCal.
Will the world ever be the same? Surely, something of this magnitude would forever change humanity.
Star Trek posited that after making first contact with an alien species, the nagging problems plaguing humanity vanished, or rather, humanity abandoned war and strife and instead sought to embrace what was beyond Earth. Aliens opened the door to a utopia.
Or maybe an alien encounter would be more like Star Wars, where war and strife were taken to the stars. (Not to worry, the bad guys have terrible aim.) Or maybe the alien encounter would be more like Watchman, where a false-flag attack from an extraterrestrial brought the US and Russia (still the USSR) back from the brink of nuclear war — uniting two foes against a common external threat.
Juxtaposing the Coast Guard’s previous press release, on January 21, a USCG headline read: Coast Guard interdicts 26 migrants near Oceanside Harbor. “Coast Guard crews interdicted a panga-style vessel. A boarding team safely embarked the 26 individuals who represented multiple nationalities, including those from Mexico, China and Vietnam,” a press release said.
The alien event on February 26 was, of course, a near-identical situation: The Coast Guard said that three assets “participated in the encounter … [Coast Guard] crewmembers turned over custody of the aliens, including Mexican, Chinese, and Indian nationals, to Customs and Border Protection for further processing.”
The Coast Guard added in the February release that they “work closely with federal and international partners to disrupt human smuggling operations and ensure the safety of those at sea.”
Latitude considered asking the Coast Guard about the language change, but decided against it. That would have been inappropriate. The Coast Guard is just following orders … and they have better things to do, like saving lives.
Clearly, the language change came from high above.
The day after the new administration was sworn in, the acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a memo directing ICE to use “alien” instead of “noncitizen” in all communications, rescinding previous guidance from 2021. “Alien” had long been the legal term in federal law but had fallen out of favor in some agencies due to its negative connotations. This is only natural — language is dynamic and has always evolved with time.
Being the starving writers that we are, we here at Latitude believe in the importance of words. We are open to words changing our minds, and we hope that our own words might give people who don’t agree with us something to ponder. Believing in language is a little like believing in life outside Planet Earth, though — it requires faith and hope, and it’s a little scary. Who knows if the message will be received?
Language can be manipulated (both sides do it) and set-in-the-stone morals can be flip-flopped. (Liberals now hate Teslas and conservatives love them.) Who is the enemy? (Those fu@king Canadians?) Whom are we afraid of? And where does that fear come from? From the words we read, or from what’s happening in our everyday lives?
We thank the Coast Guard for watching after migrants, aliens, extraterrestrials, individuals, commercial mariners and pleasure boaters with equal care and skill.
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