The Other

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I was packing to leave when a Breaking News story came on the TV. The CIA had launched an investigation into reports of UFOs and outer space aliens that seemed to occur every day now. That’s how serious this had become.

As a Psychology professor investigating the same thing, I liked to keep a cool head, remain rational. The focus of my research: this is nothing more than mass hysteria. Although “nothing more” doesn’t adequately explain the situation. Mass hysteria can lead to a whole lot of destruction. Just ask those considered witches in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Europe, or later in the Salem Witch Trials. Yeah, you didn’t want people thinking you were a witch back then.

The next Breaking News story was about North Korea testing another missile, followed by graphic video of a terrorist attack in Europe and interviews with investigators looking into a computer hack in which the Russians were the prime suspects. Yup, the world was melting down. People carried on as though none of this affected them personally, but deep down in their brains in the almond-shaped amygdalae, fear responses were going off like fireworks. Rather than shake with terror over a relentless barrage of frightening stories, everything had been crystallized into one bogeyman: a green alien from outer space with monstrously large black eyes. Yup, we’d found our witch.

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