The Prank

Heavens, I didn't think it would get this far. I'm sorry, I guess. Everyone has been so uptight, scared, angry, and burned out. I thought a little fun would give everyone a break.

Hindsight is 20/20, of course. I thought it would just lead to a good chuckle and some incredible memes, but I was very wrong. I'll tell you, I thought it was way too silly for any reasonable person to believe. Maybe I could have toned it down a bit, sure.

Don't look at me like that, please. You've never been tempted to just be a silly little goose here and there?

Wait, I didn't hack anything, sir. The marketing and communications teams are all in cubicles, and half of them never lock their computers when they leave their desks. Heaven knows they're supposed to. All I did was walk over when they were at lunch, pull up the post scheduling app they use and do a quick little blurb. Took about 3 minutes, and most of that was just navigating Gloria's disastrous desk.

Yes, that's the message. Read it for the record? Sure. "Emergency alert: unknown aerial object of an extraterrestrial origin has entered Earth's atmosphere. The object appears to be self-propelled. Please seek shelter immediately. More details to follow." So, who would fall for this? It's so goofy. Yes, I made that image of the trajectory and a pretty decent-looking craft, if I do say so myself. None of this is AI; that's just good, old-fashioned Adobe Photoshop. Thanks to the United States taxpayers for the license.

I'm telling you, I figured no one would believe it. Heck, communications should have seen the scheduled post. Gloria didn't even notice I'd been at her desk, I reckon because it's always a dang catastrophe. The next thing I know, the office went into chaos as everyone tried to figure out what happened. I don't use social media myself, so I didn't know it travels that fast. Suddenly the President is on the phone, agents are swarming the building looking for confirmation, so I had to step up and just say, "It was a prank." You didn't need to tackle me to the ground.

Logged out? Of course, I logged out. What do you mean, which logout option? I clicked the first one I saw. Oh. So it logged out of all stations? No one knows what the password is? Well, that's a silly way of doing things. What does that have to do with me?

Oh. Oh no. They couldn't delete the post.

Operations? Yeah, I love the team up there. I told them about it before I did anything. We certainly didn't plan anything. I told 'em what my plans were, and they thought it was a hoot. You're telling me they did something? Pardon me, a deep fake?

Oh, Christ. Oh, heavens. Not the Administrator. They faked an official agency announcement? Pardon my language, but holy crap. Well, this wasn't my intention. I'm never sharing my blackberry cobbler with Operations again. They take things too far.

I've heard bits and pieces about what's happened. I saw pandemonium on your little TV outside. That's all from one message? What about the stock market? Oh, dear. My 401k will not look good right now. You said riots? How many people are on this social media thingy?

Three billion? That's impossible!

Well, gentlemen, it appears I've blundered this one, eh? Is it too much to hope that NASA will have me back? What do you think? I can bake a few more cobblers if it'll make folks feel better.

Prison? Yikes. I guess everyone is more uptight than I thought. Sorry, folks.