Outsider

In early 2012, my childhood friend Fernando asked me to keep a digital data card in my condo. He told me to never look at its contents, unless he died or disappeared. I was spooked by such an odd request, but compiled. On January 19th 2015, a small airplane carrying Fernando didn’t arrive at its destination in Angra dos Reis, Brazil. Neither Fernando nor the plane were ever found.

I examined the card according to his instructions. It stored gigabytes of data including computer code, pictures, miscellaneous files and an extensive collection of chat logs.

One of the files contained a message asking me to immediately start working on making the chat logs public. Now, almost 4 months later, I finished compiling a readable version of these logs translated from our native Portuguese.

I also adapted them to a format suitable for Internet distribution and faithful to what my friend experienced during his chat sessions.

What you are about to read is nothing short of the greatest discovery in the history of mankind.

What if humanity’s first contact with an extraterrestrial was through a computer?