Fun_People Archive
15 Sep
We Come In Peace?

Date: Fri, 15 Sep 95 02:33:37 -0700
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: We Come In Peace?

Forwarded-by: larryy@apple.com (Larry Yaeger)
Forwarded-by: "Gordon Garb*" <gordon_garb*@bbcomm.apple.com>


About 1966 or so, a NASA team doing work for the Apollo moon mission
took the astronauts near Tuba City where the terrain of the Navajo
Reservation looks very much like the Lunar surface.  With all the
trucks and large vehicles were two large figures that were dressed in
full Lunar spacesuits.

Near by, a Navajo sheep herder and his son were watching the strange
creatures walk about occasionally being tended by personnel.    The
two Navajo people were noticed and approached by the NASA personnel.
Since the man did not know English, his son asked for him what the
strange creatures were and the NASA people told them that they are
just men that are getting ready to go to the moon.  The man became
very excited and asked if he could send a message to the moon with the
astronauts.

The NASA personnel thought this was a great idea so they rustled up
a tape recorder.  After the man gave them his message they asked his
son to translate.  His son would not.

Later, they tried a few more people on the reservation to translate
and every person they asked would chuckle and then refuse to
translate.  Finally, with cash in hand, someone translated the message,
"Watch out for these guys, they come to take your land."

 --Charles Phillip Whitedog, Ojibway and Network Manager Multimission Ground
 Systems Office (Mission Control), Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA

© 1995 Peter Langston