TO THE HILLS!

MANY alleged alarmists, such, as Charles Fort, have insisted that Earth has been visited by aliens from space. If their evidence weren't so unremittingly spectacular, they would have seen the truth:

Earth is being invaded now!

No giant ships are raining death-rays from the sky, no land ironclads flattening our cities and laying waste the countryside.

That's the truly devilish part of the invasion—it's a sneak attack, utterly silent and unnoticeable. While the stormy petrels of science are pointing out vast footsteps and the craters of crashed ships, the weapons of conquest are in your home.

The clues are outwardly so insignificant that only a squinting eye and a suspicious mind can detect them, let alone guess their sinister meaning.

Let's piece the data together calmly, without panic. It may not be as evil as it seems, but I doubt that.

As a child, did you or did you not have more marbles, jacks, tops and checkers than you ever bought?

Of course you did, and so did every other child you knew.

That doesn't sound like much to get excited about, which is exactly why the plot is more deadly than outright assault:

The invasion weapons are purposely ordinary to keep us from becoming aware of the danger.

Use this checklist. It is admittedly incomplete. No doubt you can add many more.

•     When GALAXY was born, we purchased a box of 100 paper clips. We have not bought a single one since. A special case, you may say—they're sent in with manuscripts. Well, then, answer this: Whenever you needed a paper clip, have you ever failed to find one somewhere or other?

•     If you can't locate a rubber band, yours is an exceptional home—and yet when, if ever, did you buy any?

•     Is it or is it not a fact that you can always haul out a piece of string from drawer or toolbox? Did you buy it at a store or just accumulate it?

•     Do you or do you not have a collection of pencils, of which you bought none or very few?

•     How many clothes hangers did you yourself buy?

•     Wrapping and tissue paper?

•     Mucilage, glue, paste?

•     Nails, screws, toothpicks?

These are the deceptively innocent ingredients of the plot to take over Earth. Even when they are pointed out, they arouse skepticism. But don't you see? They're meant to!

Paper clips, rubber bands, strings, pencils, glue, all the deliberately trivial rest ...

Huge industries, employing thousands of people, turning out countless clips, hangers, pencils, miles of string ...

Paying wages and taxes ...

And nobody buys the products!

But somebody must. We all have them and they aren't gifts of the manufacturers, or there would be no wages and taxes.

The Russians? No, they have them, too, and so must also be potential—what? Victims?

There is but one answer:

Extraterrestrials!

They—or their human agents or dupes—are cleverly supplying us all with these safe-seeming tools of conquest.

How will the plan work? See for yourself.

•     The items are all genuine; many of them even carry the Good Housekeeping seal of approval.

•     They may or may not have been invented by aliens, but that's not the point now—the industries are kept going by alien funds.

•     Step by step, we have been made increasingly dependent on these products, so dependent that even the most skeptical must blanch at this prospect:

What would happen if everyone who needed a paper dip, rubber band, pencil, string or mucilage suddenly could not find any?

Documents strewn around for lack of clips or rubber bands; parcels unwrapped because there is no paper or string; nothing pasted or glued together; orders and notes left unwritten            …

Now do you see the brilliant simplicity of the scheme?

Withdraw these items abruptly and the armies of the world cannot march, the governments will fall apart, civilian populations will be unable to pack up and escape.

Disintegration rays, atomic bombs, suicide ships from space with hydrogen warheads—

There are defenses against such overt weapons.

But what defense is there for a world suddenly deprived of pencils and nails, string and glue and wrapping paper?

We could buy our own and smash the conspiracy.

As a solution, it's too drastic —it violates the human instinct of collecting junk for possible emergency.

I hope somebody has a better answer.

—H. L. GOLD