Beyond the Horizons Chapter 7:

I will say this; NASA sending so many missions so close to each other was not a good idea. Although they couldn’t have really known that the Venusians and the Mara would both send a second ship to orbit the Moon. What happened next was kind of inevitable, after that.
The public, and conspiracy theorists in particular, began to question why both NASA and AEB were sending so many unscheduled missions to the Moon. The conspiracy theorists began shouting, “ALIENS!” even harder once amateur astronomers began noticing unexplained bright dots orbiting the Moon. (Boy were they surprised when NASA confirmed this.) A week after this started, two days after Diana 3 had launched, NASA announced that they would be holding a press conference in eight days, which would be two days after Diana 1 returned to Earth.
Houston failed to mention this to any of the Diana missions, so I was shocked when they told me to be a part of this press conference. Sensing that I didn’t have much choice, I agreed.
Two days later, I was on the panel at the press conference. I assumed the NASA director, Albert Smith, would be giving the initial speech, but he said he wasn’t. I was initially surprised to see the president walk in, but then I understood why he was giving the speech. If you’re going to tell the world that aliens were real, you’d need a figure with that kind of authority. At exactly 10:00, Albert introduced President Alejandro M. Rodriguez. President Rodriguez then delivered the following speech, which I believe will go down in history as one of the best speeches of all time:
“People of the world,
“I stand before you today, not as President of the United States, but as President of a country known for its scientific achievements. It was an American, Richard Gatling, who first created the Gatling gun, a precursor to the machine gun, a weapon so powerful, that he feared it would end war. It was a pair of American brothers, Orville and Wilbur Wright, who created the first airplane. It was an American project that created the first atomic bomb. And it was NASA who first put a man on the moon. But these are not purely American achievements. No achievement has been purely American, not even the one I’m about to tell you.
“Neil Armstrong would never have taken his ‘one small step’ if not for Werner von Braun, a former Nazi rocket scientist, who had developed the V2 rockets. The Manhattan Project would not have been created, had it not been for German-born physicist Albert Einstein. The Wright brothers would never have built the airplane, had the French Montgolfier brothers never built the hot air balloon. And had the ancient Chinese never invented gunpowder, the Gatling Gun would just be an ugly piece of modern art. No achievement has ever been truly American. And this achievement is one for all humanity.
“Three weeks ago, on April 23, 2025, astronaut Philip Tomassi here,” he said, gesturing at me, “was constructing our lunar base for future missions to Mars. At 15:43, UTC, Phil contacted Houston, saying, ‘you know that object you were worried about impacting here? It’s not a rock. It’s a spaceship, and it’s not human.’
“Ladies and gentlemen, humanity has finally proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we are not alone in the universe. We have found intelligent life, and it’s right in our backyard. I present to the world: our neighbors;”
As he said each species names, their image appeared on one of the four giant screens behind us.
“The Venusians,
“The Alquira,
“The Mara,
“and The Titans.
“As president of the United States, I give these beings full diplomatic immunity within the nation. As long as they are not a threat, they shall be treated as any human being would, within America’s sovereign borders.
“Seventy years ago, my precursor, John F. Kennedy, challenged NASA to go to the moon before the end of the 1960’s, saying ‘We choose to go to the moon, and do the other things. Not because they are easy, but because they are hard.’ I ask every country in the world to accept these extraterrestrials, and do the other things. Not because it is easy, but because it is hard. If we do this, if the Earth gives them peace, perhaps we can make the universe a better place. Thank you.”
He sat down, and the whole room broke into genuine applause, including those of us on the panel. Then the press were allowed to ask questions, and all hell broke loose. If you want to hear all the questions that were asked, just find a transcript for it. I will only share the ones that stuck with me.
When one reporter asked why the president was giving the aliens these rights, he replied by saying, “They are just as, and possibly even more intelligent than we are. Why should they be discriminated against just because they’re different?”
There were only three questions asked that I could answer,although I’ve forgotten the third one. The first question was, “Where do they come from?”
I replied by saying that the Venusians were obviously from Venus, the Alquira were from Jupiter’s moon Europa, the Mara were from Saturn’s moon Enceladus, and the Titans were from Saturn’s moon Titan. When someone else asked why we called them Venusians and Titans, I replied, “Because their name for themselves is unpronounceable to us. Seriously, listen to this. This is the Venusians’ name,” I said, playing the audio. “And here is the Titans’ name.” As I expected, the whole room burst out laughing when they heard that, even the president’s secret service.
The rest of the press conference is a blur, but I remember what happened next quite clearly:
Since I was the one who “discovered” aliens, I became famous almost overnight.
Almost immediately after the conference, the space agencies who were the closest to launching, mainly the Russians and Israeli, launched and began building their own bases.
A year after “First Contact”, as it was soon called, the Venusians created a “universal translator”, which allows you to understand any species. Don’t ask me how, I have no clue. They recalled it a month later after some people went deaf, but they soon fixed the problem.
The five species all agreed that the others could set up colonies on the other planets, although the Titans and Mara wouldn’t allow each other due to the fact that they don’t like each other. The only colonies that were set up over the next five years, however, were on Earth.
All in all, though, those five years were pretty great. It would all change, however, when my friend’s evil brother attacked Washington.