"Disclosure Day" for Dummies

Kleeg Speaks! with help from Rick.

Take me to your leader.

Ha ha! Just kidding. We’ve been watching from up here, and frankly, we don’t think that Doofus—our little nickname for him—is worth our time. Rick agrees.

Speaking of Rick. You’ve probably wondered what happened to him. Haven’t heard from him in awhile, right?

Did you really think he decided to stop writing posts for Substack? You can’t believe everything you hear, or read. I’ve gotten to know the guy, and he never stops yapping about one thing or another. So take this “last post” idea with a grain of NaCl.

Some readers thought that Doofus’ cronies kidnapped Rick and carted him off to sub-Saharan Africa. But don’t worry, he’s safe up here, with us, about 20 miles above the surface of your planet. Though sometimes we come lower to check stuff out and chuckle, especially at your military machines, so funny to watch them scramble whenever they catch sight of one of us. They try to keep track of us, but their ships are so slow, like the schtirpias we have on our planet, like little turtles that you have in your ponds and gardens.

Like they’d ever catch us.

Rick’s ready to come home. He’s been enjoying his time with us, especially after we explained that we don’t do those “anal probes.” I mean, who came up with that stupid notion? We tried it on some cave men about twenty thousand of your planetary years ago, but we didn’t learn anything we didn’t already know.

Rick’s a great teacher, very entertaining. He’s been helping us improve our language skills; in fact, he’s the one who taught us the word “doofus” along with other words we’re not supposed to repeat “in polite company,” which translates to any other humans, which isn’t happening anytime soon.

We stick to English, mostly because so many humans already speak it. We love how illogical English is; I mean, “i before e except after c” is one of our favorite jokes around the dinner table. And the way you use the letter “K”? We get a big chuckle trying to figure out how you can use the same word for different things, even with different pronunciations. “Lead” or “lead,” “read” or “read,” “tear” or “tear?” And don’t get me started on “two,” “too” and “to.”

FYI: “Every cloud has a silver lining?” just isn’t true. We’ve checked out clouds close up, and that’s just what your Doofus likes to call “fake news.” No silver in clouds. Ammonia, nitrates and sulfates, but no silver.

We’ve been debating whether or not we should announce ourselves to you, like a “gender-reveal party” but for our life form. And by the way, please don’t call us “aliens.” You’re the aliens, from our POV.

We’ve read those posts that Rick calls “Notes From the Borderlands.” Many of us subscribed, even back on our home planet. What a hoot! Some were a little repetitive, and one or two could use a little tweaking, but mostly he did okay. Anyway, we’re what you call his “fans.” Which is why we chose him as our guest, to learn from him and ask some questions about the very strange customs you Terrians have.

He even agreed to collaborate on this post, with me! Kleeg! I’m going to be famous, at least on my planet.

This is our take—Rick’s and mine—on how things have panned out over the past few years, where we see room for improvement, even optimism. Rick likes to call it “the whole enchilada.” He had me try one from a taco truck, but it didn’t do wonders for my digestive system, so “no mas” on the enchiladas.

First, what’s with that Doofus you decided to make your leader? You know who I’m talking about, fat guy, dyed orange hair, not too bright, falls asleep a lot, old, real old. We can smell his diapers from up here. Cheats at golf, cheats on his taxes. Tries to cheat on elections when he loses.

Why do you let him run the most powerful country on the planet! He mostly complains that he was cheated in an election six years ago; he tears down beautiful old buildings, puts up new ugly ones with his name on them.

And does he love gold! Puts gold on everything he sees. Which is weird, cause back on our planet, it grows on trees. We just use the stuff to clean our toilets.

Who put this guy in charge? We thought maybe he figured out a mind-control technique, but he’s not smart enough for that. Maybe he got those supporters to drink some drug that makes them obey him. We don’t get it.

But enough on Doofus. Let’s discuss the stuff you’re doing to your planet.

You humans keep drilling into the Earth to find your rocket fuel, the stuff you call oil. Which seems pretty dumb, like cave-man dumb, to us. You have solar, wind, wave power, but you pay money to dig thousands of feet into the ground to take out black stuff that gets sent thousands of miles away to “refine” it before you can use it to fuel your cars and trucks. Then those vehicles emit particles that pollute your planet and give you cancer.

We asked Rick to explain the logic of this. He said it’s about greed and power, which sounds like it works for the guys in charge but sucks big time for everyone else. We asked why people keep letting them do it, but he shrugged his shoulders. Stumped, he said.

He wasn’t of much help with your other bizarre customs: wigs, plastic surgery, porn, robots. Social media. Weird sports like cage-fighting, wife-carrying, cheese-rolling and ferret-legging. Also badminton. Weed killers. Cheerios. Pie-eating contests. A lot of TV shows and all of those Marvel movies. That island of plastic in the Pacific Ocean which could be put to much better use. If you refine it with a mix of cadmium and phosphorus it makes a great fertilizer. We also use it as a skin cream.

Suicide, and sadness in general. Shopping. Which we think would make us sad and suicidal if we had to do it every day.

I kinda understand the thing with pets. They’re cute, though humans go to extremes with it. A bit over the top, as Rick would say. Especially when you humans spend thousands of your money for pet hotels, clothing, food and even pet therapy; then you put other ones in pens and have them slaughtered for food. We’re once again, stumped.

Don’t get me started on your wars and weapons. One group of people, a country they call it, starts throwing weapons at another. Puny stuff, but since the bodies on you humans are so weak, it’s easy to die, which is what keeps happening, mostly to ones who aren’t even doing the fighting, “civilians.”

Dying does not sound fun.

A lot of your wars are about religion, or some ridiculous disagreement that, with a little effort, you could work out in a week or two down at one of your resorts in the Bahamas, sipping umbrella drinks (tried those, delish!) and just talking it out.

Maybe you humans are just mean, cruel life forms. I was pretty hesitant about meeting one. Don’t get me wrong. Rick’s a great guy. Wild temper on him (he calls it “Mediterranean”), but it goes away after two minutes. And he mostly just gets mad at himself. But some of those other people we’ve observed? Mean, cruel. Putting kittens in plastic bags and drowning them. Killing animals for food. Abandoning or abusing children. Hurting other humans on purpose. Whew.

That’s why we’re not sure we should introduce ourselves; who knows what you might try to do to us? Not that you could hurt us, but then we’d have to distify you with our weapons. Things could get messy.

What’s up with your bartering system, the money thing? You have a few super rich people who keep hoarding all the resources of your planet. Billionaires and even trillionaires who don’t see where it leads if no one else has any money. Just so nuts.

Just to take one example that Rick is very familiar with: the people who run movie and TV studios got a 51% pay raise in 2025 at the same time that they laid off 17,000 jobs, mostly people who actually do the work of making those shows. Makes no sense, unless you’re one of the execs. Then of course it makes tons of sense. 746 million dollars for 18 people. And that’s just one year.

My first reaction to hearing all this was, “Wait, what??!” I couldn’t believe the way you guys live on your planet. You have this expression, to shoot yourself in the foot. Sure looks like that’s what you’re doing. With a bazooka. Over and over.

But Rick insists that there are enough good, rational people on the planet who can make things better, if they don’t succumb to passive acceptance of what Doofus and his servants are trying to do.

If the good ones stick together, stay organized and don’t give up, they can get the super rich people to help the ones who don’t have enough; they can educate their children so that they don’t keep choosing clowns like Doofus to run things; they can clean up the air and the water so that they don’t keep poisoning themselves; they can stop fighting wars, which Rick says are like going to Las Vegas—the house always wins, and everyone else loses.

Rick has a lot of “sayings,” which can sometimes be annoying but usually make good points. One of our favorites is “Don’t sweat the small stuff. Everything is small stuff.”

He’s convinced us that you humans are better than what we’ve observed recently, that maybe you’re a race worth saving. We weren’t convinced when Rick first said it, but then he got us to listen to some classic rock, and some jazz, and then some classical music, and we even snuck into the Met and the Modern down in New York one night, and wow, some cool art there.

He showed us doctors, firemen, scientists, teachers, judges, even some politicians, everyday people devoted to making the world a better place.

He had us look in on so many homes where there’s love, and laughter, and hope.

So we’re leaning toward letting you keep your planet. But don’t fuck it up, or else we’re coming down to pay a little visit.

And you won’t like it if we do.