Ufo farmers, p.1
UFO Farmers, page 1
UFO Farmers
Dan McGrath
DanMcGrath.net
Copyright © 2025 Dan McGrath
Copyright © 2025 Dan McGrath All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review.
This is a work of fiction. All the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious and satirical manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Where it’s intentional, the author hopes you can take a joke!
KINDLE EDITION
Published by Dan McGrath in
Minneapolis, Minnesota,
United States of America
DanMcGrath.net
Cover Art by Dan McGrath
Library of Congress Control Number: 2025902595
ISBN: 979-8-9876169-3-2
Dedicated to my fellow space freak,
Bergt Bieler
“I saw a wheel on the earth beside the living creatures, one for each of the four of them. Their appearance was like the gleaming of beryl. And the four had the same likeness, their appearance and construction being as it were a wheel within a wheel.
When they went, they went in any of their four directions without turning as they went. And their rims were tall and awesome, and the rims of all four were full of eyes all around. And when the living creatures went, the wheels went beside them; and when the living creatures rose from the earth, the wheels rose. Wherever the spirit wanted to go, they went, and the wheels rose along with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.
Over the heads of the living creatures there was the likeness of an expanse, shining like awe-inspiring crystal, spread out above their heads.”
Ezekiel 1:15-22
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
The Big Dig
The Entry Code
Making an Entrance
Making an Exit
Derelict
Encounter
Orbit
Descent
Xen
The Bazaar
Pablo’s Misadventure
Princess
Escape
Draconians
Respite
Homecoming
Caged
Life
Mission: Improbable
The General
Nibiru is Near
Appendix 1: Spanish to English Translations
What's Next for Donny and Pablo?
About The Author
Books By This Author
The Big Dig
Pablo pulled up to Donny’s place in his beat-up Chevy pickup, the kind of truck that smelled like stale fast food and looked like it had been through more scrapes than a rodeo bull. He hopped out, stretching his arms and yawning as his cowboy boots scuffed along the dirt driveway. The morning sun was just starting to peek over the horizon, casting long shadows across the dew-kissed fields. He pulled his long black hair back into a pony tail and walked toward the backyard of the old farm house.
Pablo rubbed his eyes, still tired from a particularly trying work day and he wasn’t looking forward to what his boss had in store for him on his day off. Donny was his friend, besides being his employer, though and Pablo had, against his better judgment, agreed to help him dig a swimming pool.
Donny was already out there, pacing around a giant marked-off area in his backyard, checking angles, scribbling in a little note book and looking more like a general plotting a battle than a farmer about to dig a hole. He was wearing overalls that looked like they’d been passed down through generations, and his John Deere cap was pulled low to his eyes. He was lanky, with sandy hair and sunburned skin.
A pretty impressive-looking yellow backhoe excavator was perched at the perimeter of the future swimming pool. Wheel barrows and shovels also stood at the ready.
“Morning, Dee,” Pablo greeted, his voice still rough from sleep. He eyed the expansive marked-off area skeptically. “You sure about this, man? This looks more like you’re about to dig a mass grave than a pool.” The project looked like it was going to be a lot more work than Pablo had imagined.
Donny grinned, a look of pure determination in his eyes. “Trust me, Pablo. This is gonna be legendary. We’ll have the biggest, baddest pool in the county. People will come from miles around just to see it.” He opened a blue cooler and fished a couple beers out of the ice water.
Pablo raised an eyebrow. “Or they’ll come to see the crazy gringo who made a hole so big he found China.”
Donny ignored the jab. “Gotta be big! This is Texas. Wait until they see the swim-up bar in the middle! I’m fixin’ to start with the backhoe. I reckon this baby can dig most of it out, then we can finish by hand.” he extended a beer to Pablo.
“You even have breakfast, yet?” Pablo asked, accepting the beer in a well-tanned hand.
“Just imagine the bathing beauties,” Donny enthused, waving the other beer at his project site. “Bikini babes sunning themselves on the tiled pool deck… It’s gonna be beautiful.”
Pablo sat on a lawn chair and cracked the beer, taking a long pull on the brown bottle and closing his eyes against the morning sun. Donny, on the other hand, was pacing like a caged tiger, his eyes darting from side to side. Donny had been talking about digging the pool for months. He said the notion had come to him in a dream and he’d been obsessed about it ever since, but Donny was prone to obsessions. His ex, UFOs, JFK, bigfoot… Any conspiracy theory, really.
“I’m down for some hot bikini babes,” Pablo said, nodding, imagining. “I guess it’ll be pretty cool.” Though he wasn’t a bad-looking man, in his eligible thirties, Pablo hadn’t had much luck in relationships with women. Donny’s luck had been arguably worse, though – just in a different way.
“So, Pablo,” Donny began, his voice filled with excitement, “I got something to tell you.” He twisted the cap off his own beer.
Pablo opened one eye, then the other. “Don’t tell me you joined a cult. Just don’t drink any Kool-Aid. Listen, man. I gotta talk to you about the crew…” He closed his eyes again for a moment, as if to ward off a headache at the thought.
Donny ignored the sarcasm. “What Kool-Aid? No, it’s bigger than that. Much bigger. The crew can wait.” He paused for dramatic effect. “They found evidence of extraterrestrial life, right here in Texas!”
Pablo snorted. “You’ve been watching too much History Channel, homes.”
Donny shook his head. “No, this is for real. Seriously. There was a sighting right outside of Houston. A gray alien! You know, the little ones with the big eyes… And the government is already going all Waco to cover it up… of course.”
Pablo raised an eyebrow. “And you believe all this because… why?”
“Because I saw it on the internet,” Donny replied, as if that was the most obvious explanation in the world. “It’s on UFOs Exposed Dot Com. There’s videos, pictures, everything. The Exposed guys have a ton of material they’re still investigating. It’s gonna blow everything wide open, dude. The government can’t hide this one for long.”
Pablo took another long swig of his beer. “You know, Dee, sometimes I wonder how you even managed to get a driver’s license.”
Donny ignored the insult. “I sent an email to the dude that posted the video and offered to help investigate. He said he’d be in touch as soon there’s something for me to do. I’m so in! And we’re gonna be famous, Pablo. Imagine the headlines: ‘Texans Prove Alien Life!’ We could be on the History Channel.”
Pablo chuckled. “Or we could be on the local news for making a hole so big, we dug up King Tut’s mother-in-law.”
“Nefertiti?”
“Never say never, homes.”
Donny furrowed his brow. “What?” Shaking his head, he continued. “This is serious business. They’re out there and I’m fixin’ to help them prove it.”
“Listen, Dee,” Pablo interrupted, already bored of Donny’s extraterrestrial ramblings. He’d caught earfuls of it before. “Speaking of business, I got real problems here on Earth. Right here on this farm. Those fucking guys, they’re more trouble than they’re worth.” He gestured vaguely toward the farm fields.
Donny reluctantly turned his attention away from the alien conspiracy. “What’s wrong, Pablo? Did Billy break another tractor?”
Pablo shook his head. “Worse. You know that new guy, Carlos? The one you said was an expert mechanic?”
Donny nodded. “Yeah, the one who tried to turn your truck into a submarine?”
Pablo groaned. “Yes! That puto. He decided to ‘fix’ the combine harvester on his own. At least it was working before. Now, it’s seized up and making noises like a dying cow.”
Donny gave a grimacing half shrug. “Well, I give him credit for trying.”
Pablo rolled his eyes. “Trying to make me lose my hair, more like. Are you getting some kind of government incentive for hiring the mentally challenged?”
“Yeah and so far I’ve made a fortune off of you,” Donny shot back.
“Ha.” Pablo replied humorlessly. “And then there’s Maria. She’s been complaining about the ghosts in the barn. Won’t go in there.”
Donny
Pablo nodded. “Oh, Jesus, Maria. Yeah, she says she hears them whispering and she says they steal her lunch. I told her it’s probably just raccoons, but she swears it’s ghosts.”
Donny adjusted his hat. “Who you gonna call?”
Pablo laughed. “I don’t even care about that. Let her believe in ghosts…”
“And you don’t? I thought you told me you’d seen a ghost. They’re no bullshit. Hell, my grandpa used to swear the farm was haunted. Who knows? There’s probably more going on in this universe than we can even imagine.”
“That’s not even half of it, though. These guys are gonna send me to an early grave. Maybe bury me under the orca tank you’re building here.”
“They’re not that bad.”
“You know, actually, Dee,” Pablo said, swigging his beer, “I think ghosts and aliens would be easier to deal with than these people. I’m going to need some more competent guys before we get into the harvest, or I’m going to quit.”
“You hired most of them…”
“No. No no no no no. I hired two of them. Dos.” he held up two fingers. “The only two good ones. The rest were your charity cases and Bigfoot nuts.”
“They’re not ‘nuts.’ Bigfoot is absolutely real and I’ll prove it to you.”
“Dee, if you can prove to me that Bigfoot is real, I’ll give you fifty bucks, but I won’t be working here anymore, unless…”
“Well, I can’t have you quitting on me,” Donny interrupted. “I need you, Pablo. Tell you what – you can hire two more guys. You pick ‘em. You handle it any way you want. I don’t even need to meet them. Just take care of it, okay?”
“But, can I fire…”
“No.” Donny cut him off emphatically.
Pablo shrugged, smiled and some twinkle of life returned to his sleepy brown eyes. “Alright, Dee. Sounds fair enough.”
Donny raised his beer in a salute.
As the sun climbed slowly up the sky, Donny continued to rant about alien conspiracies, while Pablo picked up a shovel. “I'm getting too old for this crap, Dee. I should be on the beach, drinking margaritas.”
Donny clapped him on the shoulder. “C’mon, Pablo. Think of the margaritas you’ll be able to drink when we’re lounging by this sweet in-ground pool.”
Pablo snorted. “Sure. If we’re not broke-backed and buried here by that big machine you rented. You know how to work that thing?”
“You trying to get romantic with me, ese?” Donny climbed into the backhoe, a grin spreading across his face. “Alright, Pablo, hold on to your hats!”
“I’m not wearing a…”
The machine roared to life, and with a jerky motion, the bucket raised and stabbed at the ground like a toddler trying to use a spoon for the first time.
Pablo watched, sipping his beer while mentally composing his own obituary to follow the slow-motion disaster he was about to become a part of.
The great hydraulic arm shuddered erratically. The clawed bucket spasmed to and fro. Dirt flew in all directions, coating Pablo in a fine layer of grime and bits of sod.
Pablo shielded his eyes with his forearm. “Watch it! You call this digging?” he shouted. “You are gonna bury me!”
Donny had to stifle a snicker.
Pablo wiped a handful of dirt from his face. “I hope you know how to fix an irrigation pipe when we hit one. Did you even call for a site survey?”
Donny’s lips curled inward as he wrestled with the controls. His focus was entirely on the hole growing beneath the backhoe.
“This farm’s been in my family for generations. I don’t need some bureaucrat to tell me what’s buried in my farm,” Donny shouted. “I know every inch of my land inside and out.” He tapped the side of his head.
The big metal scoop flicked another volley of dirt into the air that rained down on Pablo like a hail storm. “Didn’t that thing come with a book, or something?” he wailed as he beat a ducking retreat from the flailing machine and its determined operator.
“Sorry! I’m still getting the hang of this thing,” Donny shouted over the roaring engine.
They worked for hours, the relentless hum of the backhoe punctuated by Pablo’s colorful commentary. They uncovered old rusty cans, broken toys, and even a raccoon’s skeleton.
“There’s your ghost,” Donny quipped.
“Serves him right for stealing Maria’s lunch,” Pablo said as he heaved the bones aside with his shovel.
As the day wore on, the hole grew wider and deeper. The sun began its descent, casting long shadows over the excavation site. Pablo was covered in dirt from head to toe, and his back ached. Donny, on the other hand, was exhilarated, looking like an over-caffeinated ship’s captain exploring uncharted islands. He was getting better at working the controls and he was now the proud owner of a considerable pit.
Another sweaty hour of manual labor passed before Pablo’s shovel struck something hard, making a metallic clang. He had been working on evening out the edges of the pit that had grown to a depth of about five feet by then.
While Donny operated the rumbling excavator, Pablo worked on exposing whatever it was he had hit with his shovel. “Hey, Dee!” he shouted over the din once he’d identified the hard object in the dirt wall. “Donny!”
Donny couldn’t hear over the backhoe’s engine and carried on working.
Pablo positioned himself in front of the excavator, but kept what he judged to be a safe distance as he waved his arms until Donny noticed and the numbing drone of the excavator sputtered to a halt.
“What’s up, Pablo?” Donny called.
With a sidelong glance at the silent machine, and deeming it safe for the moment, he approached, pointing at what he’d unearthed. “I told you you needed a site survey, homes. Look at this. We almost hit an irrigation pipe. It’s lucky I found it first.”
Donny looked at the exposed pipe by the edge of the pit and bobbled his head indeterminately for a moment. “Eh. I might have been off by an inch or two, but that’s all part of the plan, Pablo,” he said. “This way, I can plumb into that, add a valve and use it to fill up the pool when it’s finished.” He tapped the side of his head.
“Looks like we just barely missed turning your swimming pool into a mud bath,” Pablo said, “but if you say so.”
“Trust me. I know what I’m doing,” Donny assured before restarting the excavator.
“Famous last words.”
The huge bucket clawed deeper into the earth. “Now, we’re making progress!” Donny shouted over the noise of the hulking yellow machine.
Pablo grunted in response as he used the shovel to clean up loose dirt left behind by the excavator. He was starting to think that just a cold beer and a hot shower sounded more appealing than a pool party with Donny’s imaginary bikini babes.
After another hour, Donny shut down the machine and hopped down. He stood at the edge of his hole – his swimming pool – his John Deere cap askew, assessing their progress.
It was supposed to be a swimming pool, not a crater. The yard was a disaster area, with huge, haphazard piles of dirt all around.
Pablo climbed out of the dusty pit and fished a beer out of the lukewarm water that was left in the cooler, his belly rumbling and his back protesting against the hard labor. He scanned the scene. “It looks like we got hit by an asteroid. You think this is deep enough, Dee?” Pablo asked, his voice thick with sarcasm.
“No, no,” Donny replied, his eyes sparkling with manic enthusiasm. “We gotta go deeper. I read that the best pools are at least ten feet deep.”
Pablo groaned.
“Maybe twelve feet would be even better.” Donny mused, idly kicking the ground.
“Dios mio,” Pablo uttered, rolling his eyes. “Are you digging a pool or building Sea World? It’s going to be dark soon. How about we call it a day?” He sat down and started chugging his beer.
“Yeah…” Donny looked up at the horizon. The low sun was casting a dimming amber light over the corn fields. “Tell you what… You just chill there. I’m gonna try something real quick.”
Before Pablo could formulate another sentence, the backhoe fired back up and the big clawed bucket swung around to plunge deeper into the brown earth.
