Slaughter Beach, DE - I ain’t sayin’, I’m just sayin’.
Name’s Mikey “Fat Albert” Mangiano, your regular guy’s astrophysicist — the only reporter on the coast who takes complicated space stuff and breaks it down so youse can understand that jawn without a PhD or a telescope subscription.
So apparently, the sky people spotted somethin’ called 3-I slash ATLAS. Third “interstellar object,” which means it ain’t from around here — like an out-of-state plate flyin’ through the turnpike. They say it’s haulin’ through space at about 130 thousand miles an hour. Buddy, that’s faster than my cousin Tony on the Schuylkill when the Birds are playin’.
Anyway, NASA swears it’s just a comet — real chill, totally natural, definitely not spyin’ on us. Yeah, okay. And the IRS just wants to “chat.” They claim it’s made of nickel, carbon dioxide, and cyanide. Cyanide, pal. That ain’t “space dust.” That’s malice.
Now the eggheads over at Hubble and Webb — sounds like a law firm that sues seagulls — say this rock’s about three miles wide. Three miles! That’s half the freakin’ boardwalk. It’s got what they call a “coma,” which I guess means it’s leakin’ gas all over creation. If somethin’ that big’s passin’ gas in our direction, I’m movin’ inland to Millsboro.
Then you got that Harvard guy, Avi Loeb, sayin’ maybe it’s alien tech. At first I thought he was a nut job. Now I’m thinkin’ he’s the only one payin’ attention. I mean, you don’t gotta be Einstein — or even that kid from Good Will Hunting — to figure maybe we’re bein’ scoped out.
Of course NASA says, “We’re in no danger.” Yeah, right. That’s what they said about the hornets, the ozone, and Zuckerberg. They say it’ll stay “hundreds of millions of miles away.” Pal, that’s what I said about my ex, and she still showed up.
So what’s the takeaway? Youse got a three-mile-wide, cyanide-soaked iron potato blastin’ through the neighborhood at Mach God-Knows-What, and the experts are like, “No worries.” Forget it. I’m loadin’ up the trunk with Chef Boy-Ar-Dee and Poland Spring. Laugh now, but when 3-I ATLAS turns around for another pass, remember who tried to warn ya.
Mikey “Fat Albert” Mangiano — for Boardwalk Barker, the only news smart enough to panic early.