Delayed Contact (No Touching)

The Challenge of Contact: A mainstream journalist’s report on interplanetary diplomacy—revised post-9/11 edition, by Phillip H. Krapf (Origin Press, 2003, ISBN: 1-57983-009-9)

This book was written by: Phillip H. Krapf, a journalist with 25 years of experience including work for the L.A. Times. Mr. Krapf is also “an abductee with a story to tell”(p.190), and “was actually recruited to write and speak on behalf of this alien species, to act as their designated reporter and spokesman regarding their efforts to establish diplomatic relations with the human race”(p.xi)

What is in this book: Updated information. Mr. Krapf was contacted by a group of aliens called the Verdants and wrote about it in two books, The Contact Has Begun and The Challenge of Contact, issuing a press release on August 23, 2001, declaring that the Verdants would “proceed with efforts to attempt to establish Verdant-Human diplomatic relations”(p.156). SPOILER ALERT: They didn’t.
Although Mr. Krapf was able “to schedule a keynote talk at a major UFO conference” to give further details of the Verdants and their plan, “and this speech was to be delivered on September 16[, 2001]”(p.ix), Mr. Krapf was notified by the Verdants on September 11, 2001, that “They had been observing what they called ‘the regrettable scenes of carnage occurring on your planet’ and had come to the inescapable conclusion that ‘the human species is not yet ready’”(p.139). This was a profound disappointment for Mr. Krapf not only because humanity had missed out on an incredible opportunity, but also because “I was going to be vindicated, and all of my carping critics would have to eat crow after dumping on me for several years”(p.145).
This second edition of Mr. Krapf’s book reviews his past history with the Verdants and discusses his “latest contact with these extraterrestrials, and provides an update as of June 2002 regarding their roller-coaster attempts to link up with humankind”(p.xi).

What is not in this book: Sizzling hot alien porn. During his extraterrestrial encounters, Mr. Krapf encounters an alien who is exceedingly interested in matters of Earthly sexuality. Although Mr. Kraft demurely tried to change the subject, “she had persisted, and eventually exposed her naked body to me and suggested a sexual encounter, which I immediately spurned”(p.30).
However, the book does contain an alien probing, along with a discussion of “the effect of the probe as it penetrated and then transcended the memory banks of my current existence”(p.112).

Would you recommend this book to Marty McFly? Yes. He would contact the Verdants if I challenged him to do it and then called him a chicken.

Would you recommend this book to a terrorist? Absolutely. Maybe when they realize how much they’ve really cost us—all of us, not just the Americans—they’d think twice before embarking on a course of senseless violence.

What was interesting about this book? Although Mr. Krapf has voyaged beyond Earth’s atmosphere and come to terms with the alien Verdants and their culture, he still retains his strong sense of justice and his rapier-sharp wit. As an example, he recounts his reaction to “a joke with racial overtones,” on p.184-185:

He grinned at me after finishing his story, and I simply stared stone-faced at him in astonishment.
“My God,” I said, “Do they still tell that story in Bakersfield?”