Faculty members and students out behind COA's Thorndike Library catch a glimpse of an unidentified flying object April 1, 2016.Faculty members and students out behind COA's Thorndike Library catch a glimpse of an unidentified flying object April 1, 2016.

With gasps, shouts, fear and excitement, a number of COA students and faculty working outside the morning of April 1 fell enraptured by a disc-shaped UFO that hovered over Kaelber Hall for several minutes. 

Some pointed, some stared, and some began running around in tight circles when the craft suddenly appeared. The silent UFO hovered over the building, motionless, for a short time before zipping away at an incredible rate of speed.

“This is just…I’ve never seen anything like this before,” said student J.R. “Bob” Dobbs ’17. “We’d be fools not to think that they must have a message for us or something.”

Deciphering what, exactly, the meaning of the brief visitation is became a heated topic of conversation among those who saw the craft. Some proposed that the obviously advanced energetic propulsion system of the ship should serve as a new model for COA’s energy programs, while others argued that the school needs to begin questioning whether its degree in human ecology is, in fact, much too narrow.

A UFO on COA campus the morning of April 1, 2016 hovered for just a short time before zipping off.A UFO on COA campus the morning of April 1, 2016 hovered for just a short time before zipping off.“We don’t know what kind of creatures may have been on that ship. How are we ever going to find out if we just keep focusing on humans’ relationships with their environments? What about the aliens?” asked Charles Fort ’18.

The work of ancient aliens

Sensing the need to talk further about this clearly groundbreaking event, several dozen COA students and faculty gathered for a hastily arranged April 1 All College Meeting (ACM). President Collin Darrons was the first to speak.

“Clearly, the implications of this morning’s visitation could be gigantic for the COA community. I really feel that this just may be the beginning of a long and fruitful partnership between COA and our brethren from outer space. We would be fools not to explore the potentials,” Darrons said. “There is now no question that the creation of this college may have been the work of ancient aliens.”

Several immediately protested, however, that there was no evidence that the craft was from outer space. 

“This ship could have come from deep under the ocean, from far across the universe, or from another dimension,” history professor John Keel said. “We just have no way of knowing until we study it further.”

The ACM was concluded with a 41-2 vote that a committee of students, staff, and faculty be formed to assess the implications of the UFO visit and make further recommendations. Their work is expected to conclude next fall.

ACM participants also firmly backed an initiative to revise COA’s anti-discrimination policies to include protections for “extraterrestrial entities, earthbound ‘alien types,’ trans-dimensional entities from the 5th, 6th, and 7th dimensions, and inner-space archetypes manifesting in 3-D space for any length of time.”