What I think is that a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, some alien leaders were looking at their star charts, cross-referencing with their "history of the universe" books, and trying to come up with a way to expand their current society onto other planets, but not look like bad guys in the process. Well, they found a bunch of possible planets, so they packed up a bunch of testing equipment into their starships and took off to do a bit of exploring. They visited planets all over the universe, and they basically treated them all in manner. When they would arrive at a planet, they just dropped down through the atmosphere to the surface of the planet and landed. They'd get out, stretch their legs, see some sights, talk to the local natives, do some tests, take some samples, then pack it back up and move to a different location on the planet and do it all over again. They make a stop in all the major areas that held largish concentrations of the population, do their thing, then be one their way.
So, as they were scanning over their charts, they came to a small, out-of-the-way blue-green planet, which had a small, and quite primitive population. They started studying this planet, and the make-up of it's inhabitants, and decided "hey, that looks pretty good." what caused them to decide this was because, compared to the universe-standard, those inhabitants were, well, stupid. It was only an accident that they were there anyway. So, the alien leaders started to form a plan.
This all occurred, I should think, in what we idiotically call "pre-historic times." when the aliens visited earth, all the people went nuts-o, worshiping these "heavenly fireballs" and "divine figures from the stars." the earth people started to build temples to them, carve their likeness into hillsides, and do all sorts of other things that has the scientists and archeologists puzzled. When the aliens saw this, they thought smugly to themselves, "gee, this planet is just ripe. But these people are so... stupid. if this is going to be a worthwhile project, these primates are going to have to be brought up to speed on a few things." so the aliens showed the earth people the principles of the wheel, fire, levers, pulleys, astronomical calendars, metallurgy, mathematic, geometry, and other such topics that humans would surely not have stumbled upon until much later, if at all. as the aliens visited each concentration of peoples, there mark was left all over the planet, and their impact on human development is easily seen.
During their study of the earth people, the alien leaders also noticed that they were very social, and influencable, creatures. They thought that the best way to silently muscle in onto the earth people's planet was to get the people to invite them. This is how they did it.
The plan they came up with was that, in about 3 or 2 b.c. (earth time), one of these aliens (who looked markedly like the person we all know as Jesus Christ today, and who was, incidentally, named Jesus Christ) arrived on earth. As his starship plummeted through earth's atmosphere, the friction caused it to resemble a meteor, or falling star, which some locals mistook as a sign from god and thus followed it to where it landed. Before anyone got to the impact point (which, by the way, was a little stable were a carpenter and his wife were hold up for the night), Jesus popped the hatch on his starship (thus causing the ship to look a hell of a lot like a manger) and using his alien powers, brain-washed the carpenter and his wife to think that he was their child, and that he was the son of god. (He was, by the way. His dad back on his home planet was named Hezzikrr God Llllumrrzrroo. During the early recon missions, it was this guy [who went by God for short {and back on his planet, the word god only meant the same thing a Rick or Skip does here}] that explored and surveyed earth and it's inhabitants.) So, when the local rubbernecks finally got there, well, most of us know what happened from there.
What the aliens were planning was this: their agent Jesus would start up a religion which, after his death, would be spread by it's followers all over the earth until such time that it was the only religion on the planet, and every last child was a die-hard parishioner. This complete take over was scheduled for the year 1900 ad. By that time, they figured, everyone would do whatever the leaders of this religion said, and the earth would be ripe for the picking. After that, all the leaders of the religion had to do was one day come out and announce that the long-awaited third coming of Christ was going to take place this weekend, and that everyone should turn out to greet their savior. With that, all the people would be so happy that Jesus returned, they would more than welcome all the "angels" he brought with him. Jesus and his "angels" (who were actually the alien leaders in disguise) would then set up shop on earth and simply take over.
This isn't the way it turned out, though. The glitch in the plan was that the alien leaders simply assumed that once the religion started spreading it would continue to do so unabated, and that it was just a matter of time before all of earth was a follower. What they didn't plan on, or notice from across the galaxy, was the industrial revolution. When the industrial revolution happened, it pulled a large portion of the population of earth out of the dark ages that the spread of Christianity started and perpetuated, and shed some light on the true nature of religion. True, no one really grasped the full magnitude of its driving force, but they did realize that they didn't like the idea of being helpless subjects to a rather oppressive idea. A small group of people refused to become followers, which eventually spread and spread. Also, this little bit of resistance gave other religions a much needed boost in order to not be squashed out of existence by Christianity. Therefore, when the appointed year of 1900 came, Christianity did not have complete control of the hearts and minds of the earth people like it was supposed to.
However, the aliens didn't come that year like they were supposed to, either. Everything on their planet was going according to plan up until about 1880 (earth time), when funding for the project was abruptly cut. After having spent nearly two millenniums in anticipation, the alien leaders were not about to give up so easily. Without going into all the gory details of their "fundraising drive", let it be said that the alien leaders mounted a campaign which broke into and robbed nearly every house on their planet repeatedly over the course of three earth decades. After all the spoils were liquidated and counted and amounted to the sufficient funds required, a new starship was ordered to be built for the glorious "third coming of Christ." The construction of this ship took a few more decades, so by 1950 (earth time), the show was back on the intergalactic road.
As Jesus and his angels (i.e.- the aliens) sped back towards earth wrapped in a very un-divine metallic shell, the feelings of being fifty earth years off schedule began to fade as they reminisced about the state the earth people we in when they first arrived. They joked among each other that "those people probably wouldn't be ready for us if we were delayed fifty thousand of their years" and "an earth man wouldn't know technology if it came up and bit him in the ass." (A dry lot, to be sure, but what can you do? They were expansionists, after all, much like the British and the rest of Europe was in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries here on earth.) At the moment, they were feeling very superior, feeling like they could take on the world (so to speak), and feeling like they were in for a good laugh when they got to earth.
Well, when they got there, they were, needless to say, quite surprised. The earth people weren't all wearing crosses and loving thy enemies and stuff like that. The aliens couldn't believe their eyes. After their first initial blazing entry, they high-tailed it back out of our atmosphere to a safe distance where they could wait and observe. During the next few years, (the decade of the fifties), the aliens visited earth many times, checking and rechecking their plans, initial readings, and soil samples. When they were sure they were right (or at least, sure they should have been right), they started grabbing random earth people who were out by themselves and away from large centers of population. They did this because the first few times they visited earth again, which was in the larger concentrations of people, the people did not react the way the aliens expected them to. Sometimes, in fact, the earth people were downright hostile. So the aliens thought it best to stay away from the densely populated areas and just snatch a few people from rural, out of the way places do that they could bring them back to their starship for testing.
The testing they employed was fairly simple. To begin with, they would just sit the earth people down and talk to them. They would ask a lot of questions about Jesus and religion, and why they weren't all followers. They would then knock the people out and search their memories as to what happened in earth history that caused their plans to be foil. Eventually, the aliens learned what happened, and what the current situation on earth was. They realized that there was no way they could succeed now, but they were not going to give up. They saw that the people of earth were very divided, and that, for them to become united under Jesus, they were all going to have to start to like and love each other. (You see, this was the aliens big mistake- the decision to stick with the same plan, instead of coming up with a new one. but they figured that they had put so much time and money into this one, that it must be made to work.)
In order to make everyone love each other, the aliens took steps that resulted in ushering in the era we know as the sixties. In a panic, they just thought, "get them to love each other, get them to love each other", so they sent down a few long-haired spies to start a love-revolution. This secondary corrective plan was not very well planned out, though, and, as we know, everyone did not end up loving each other. The aliens were able to get a good number of mild-minded followers, but it just wasn't enough. In fact, that seemed to screw things up more, as it cause numerous fights between the people who wanted to love everyone and everyone else.
That is the last time the aliens were seen on earth... or so we think. Who knows where they are now, or what they're up to. So, the next time someone says, "follow me" or "do as I say" or "vote for me", be suspicious of a little alien intervention. That's what I think.
