Next stop for the Wyoming Chemtrail Caucus: The Twilight Zone

“Didja see that?” Powder River Pete asked, with his neck craned to stare into a night sky darker than the inside of a cow. “There’s another ‘un. Them’s UFOs!” There was fear in his voice.

“Naw, Pete,” Little Joe the Wrangler said soothingly, “them’s just shootin’ stars. Nothin’ to worry ‘bout, pard.”

Around the ol’ campfire, Stetsons tilted back as the circle of cowboys tried to see what had Pete so spooked.

Pete was still nervous when he answered, “Don’t be so sure. Y’all know Buck Rogers, foreman over at the Bar ET dude ranch? One o’ them flyin’ saucers sucked him outa his bedroll one night, an’ he woke up with li’l green men pokin’ and proddin’ at ‘im. He don’t remember what they done to him, but he used to have red hair an’ could yodel. Nowadays, his hair’s pure white an’ when he tries to sing, he gets hiccups that last all day. But he can speak nine different languages now.”

“Buck’s always been as full o’ bullshit as a Christmas goose,” offered Panhandle, stirring the embers with a stick.

“Y’all might not believe in that stuff,” cautioned Sweetwater Slim, “but my uncle found a dozen o’ his cows dead in a circle a couple years back. Them poor critters had been molested somethin’ terrible. Had their assholes an’ eyeballs cut out slicker’n hell, like with a straight razor.”

“Souvenirs!” snickered a voice from the smoke.

“Grass all ‘round ‘em was scorched,” continued Slim. “And he said the whole shebang smelled o’ fried stinkbugs. Go ‘head an’ laugh if ya want.”

“Some things,” exhorted Deacon from Dayton, “jest cain’t be explained. Ya simply gotta believe.” Sweaty Stetsons nodded in agreement.

“Maybe they ain’t all evil, them flyin’ saucer fellers,” suggested Sourdough. “There was this ol’ boy had a booger farm outside Lusk, an’ his well dried up. He got beamed up into one o’ them space ships, an’ them aliens showed him on a map where to drill — even told him how deep. Next day, he drilled where they told him, an’ he hit artesian water. Now, he grows the finest crop o’ Ivermectin vines ya ever laid eyes on.”

Rawhide Ricky from Rawlins recollected, “Back a few years ago, some sheepherders found a mummy o’ one o’ them aliens in a cave in the Pedro Mountains. It was ‘bout a foot an’ a half tall an’ looked meaner’n hell, like a li’l cannibal. They didn’t find no spaceship, though.”

“Yessir,” Ricky said, “I read about it in Casper Planet when I was a kid, an’ I couldn’t sleep fer a week.”

Sourdough added, “There’s an Indian rock paintin o’ them bastids up on Difficulty Creek. They got heads like buzzards an’ arms an’ legs like rattlesnakes. Ya get the heebie-jeebies when ya look at ‘em.”

“Signs an’ wonders,” preached Deacon.

The Trail Boss strode up to the campfire and chuckled, “Y’all sound like a buncha shoolkids frettiin’ ‘bout the boogieman. Dontcha know that the Chemtrail Caucus in the Legislature is gonna protect ya?”

“The who?” came the puzzled question from the encircled trail hands.

Trail Boss answered, “They used to call themselves the Freedom Caucus, but when they solved the Great Chemtrail Conundrum of 2025, they changed their name to the Chemtrail Caucus. An’ they just announced that they’s gonna tackle the UFO threat next.”

The sigh of relief around the campfire sounded like a stiff breeze.

“Iff’n ya see one o’ them flyin’ saucers full o’ aliens nowadays, them gomers in the Chemtrail Caucus has authorized ya to shoot ‘em on sight. No questions asked,” Trail Boss told the crew.

Noggins were scratched around the ol’ campfire, and questions arose through the smoke: “Is it an open season?” “Will there be a bag limit?” “Do ya think they taste like chicken?”

Just then, Cookie banged on a skillet with the butt of his suxgun and bellowed, “Come an’ git it. I cooked y’all somethin’ special fer supper. See iff’n ya can guess what it is!”