PIRATED PROBLEMS

The artifact before you creates many problems for Martian archaeologists who are trying to understand Earthling cultures of the 20th through 21st Centuries. It was uncovered recently by the digger drones of Dr. Wicciup d’Forest in his digs in the GoodOl’USofA region of the big continent sometimes called the Nor[ ]h Amer. Cont. in a few artifacts we have so far uncovered.

We believe the representation is of an Earthling species called “pirates” which existed in the 17th and 18th centuries, if not earlier, and whose heads were a triangular shape when viewed from above. However, the problem presents itself when we realize that the fragmentary language units at the top of the artifact are recognizable as the language units of an ancient communication technology called magazine media and, specifically, of a media called Newsweek which existed briefly in the days of the 20th Century. If so, how could the representation of a pirate appear to be existent in that Earthling era? A problem indeed, complicated by the fact that photographic technology was not a part of the time period coincident with the pirate era of clanging sharp edged things together in noise making competitions, jib making or the era of what we understand to be gangplank diving contests. These gang plank diving contests survived into the 22nd Century among many Earthling cultures in the form of Olympic diving contests which were held in and named after, as far as we can ascertain, a city-state called Olympia in the nation of Wash[ ]ton in GoodOl’UsofA.

My great colleague, Dr. Sky Scraper, in his paper, “Don’t Knock Knocking Spheres For Fun and Profit in the Twentieth Century” (genuflect 224,002) has pointed the way to a solution. During the late 19th and all of the 20th Century and into the early 21st Century, a certain “sphere hitting” gang of male Earthlings were also called “Pirates” or the “Pittspurge Pirates” to be exact. One or two fragmentary historical translations suggest that even these modern “Pirates” still practiced ancient piratical traits. They were commonly caught stealing bases by people called catchers whose job it was to catch base stealers. Then, sometime in the 21st Century, this base-stealing gang of sphere hitting “Pirates” disappeared from written history. However, Professor Teapot Dome Scandel in his paper, “Moving Names All Over the Map” (genuflect 752,098) suggests that the Pittspurge Pirates did not die out as at first thought but became the Mobile Al Pirates when a very rich fuel and pirate merchant called Al Mobile somehow got control of the Pirates and moved the entire gang to a warmer climate. All this leaves much to be explained.

Lastly, while on the subject of pirates, I must mention a certain, very ancient male Earthling who was known as Pontius Pirate, maybe one of the first of the pirate species to have evolved on the Earth. He was known for running a meticulous hand washing business. He was known to steal and wash hands in the same way that money was stolen and laundered in later Earth history. There is also an ancient story, now disappeared from recorded history, which suggests he was a very indecisive earthling who couldn’t make up his mind, but that is all we know of him.