Caller: Greetings and salutations, Ret! It’s good to hear that there are people out there with their eyes and ears open. Indeed, we’ve lost several probes at Mars and it’s only a matter of time before we start losing all of them there. Have you observed Mars lately, Ret?

Ret Ball: Why I guess I haven’t, Megiddo. Why? Tell us what is going on, old friend.

Caller: Well, I have been watching since the first European probe was lost and something about the little red planet looks… different.

Ret Ball: Different? How so?

Caller: The albedo is shifting, Ret, shifting in a way that is clearly the result of intelligent design. I’m telling you, Ret, the CIA knows about this and they’re covering it up, spending all their time trying to track me down instead of facing this critical threat to our very lives! Our solar system is under an invasion from an extraterrestrial intelligence as we speak. The government is never going to warn us in time to take action; it’s all up to you, Ret. This is your hour! You must spread the Truth, Ret!

Ret Ball: I see. So the government is behind a cover-up of an ET invasion. Typical of them, Megiddo my old friend. Well, I’ll have to get my telescope out and go take a look at the red planet for myself! We will speak the Truth! No matter what forces come against us! You’re on the air…

“Well, Tom, you work for NASA, you tell us,” Roger said with a sly grin. “Alan and I are just lowly space defense contractors and wouldn’t know anything ’bout no NASA rocket science.”

Dr. Roger P. Reynolds was born, raised, and educated in his home state of Alabama. Although he was well known in the space reconnaissance community as somewhat of a space systems engineering genius, outside of those classified rooms you would never know it. In his late thirties with a runner’s build, a more seemingly stereotypical educated Southern redneck you could never find — right down to his slow Southern drawl and his Roll Tide necktie and ball cap.