It was a basic 2 person TV crew, a cameraman and a reporter. They introduced themselves and said they had watched the live broadcast, which was going viral, with over a million views in the 2+ hours it had been online so far.
Mark just thought, "Wow, this is going to be crazy by tomorrow!"
Mark then stepped away and left Joe, Liyana and the 4 guards standing by the arena as the TV crew were asking where to set up.
Kat had finally come out to meet the TV crew, the phone had been ringing off the hook with people wanting to book rooms at the lodge. It might have had something to do with aliens, but she jokingly said she wasn't sure.
Fortunately, the reporters and TV stations had been quick to the phones and had booked all the rooms for their crews. Professional crews like that would likely be easier to control than the general public.
Kat informed everyone, that she had changed the voicemail message to say that the lodge was booked solid and to visit the website for more information. She then suggested they come sit in the lobby or on the porch for the interview, but then Mark got an idea and radioed Solara to tell her to ready the barn upgrade Joe and her had been talking about, he was going to get the TV crew to film it being created.
Kind of a final nail in the coffin for the nay-sayers, that will inevitably think this was somehow all being faked, plus it got Joe's barn upgraded without having to do the whole staging and stuff they were doing with the house, in fact they could remove the cloak on the house now.
Mark told everyone about his idea and suggested the TV crew have the interview over by the barn looking toward the loop feature and lodge. That would give them a scenic backdrop for the interview and they could easily turn around and have the best view to watch the barn getting upgraded.
Liyana agreed saying, "That is a great idea. They'll get to see a new technology they've never seen before."
The TV crew were almost giddy as they were the first to arrive on the scene, they were going to get an exclusive first interview and they were going to be the first to witness some new technology.
Mark radioed, "Solara, do you have the barn upgrade ready to go?"
Solara replied, "All set to go, just make sure there are no horses in there. I'm also going to upgrade the road right through the ranch and give us a driveway to the house."
Mark gave them a thumbs up saying everything was ready to go.
The camera guy called in and said, "We're ready on this end" as everyone got positioned and ready to broadcast. After a minute he then said, "Going live in..." and did the countdown from five on his fingers.
'This is Elisha Romanson with a Global News breaking story. I'm here at the Henderson Ranch, which today, as probably many of you have heard, will go down in history as the day we made first contact with beings from another planet. I'm here talking to Ambassador Liyana from the Atlantean Federation, who hails from the planet... Atlanterra, is it?'
'That is correct.'
'You speak English very well, is that the official language of the Atlantean Federation?'
'We call it the common language and it is the official language throughout the Federation.'
'Are there any other languages in the Federation?'
'Oh yes many! But all education, signage, technology and commerce is done using the common language only.'
'I'm not going to re-state everything you said in your original social media broadcast, so we'll have the link to it on our website. How far did you travel to come here?'
'I'm not exactly sure of the distance, I just know Earth is a little over 4 days in light drive.'
'How often do you come to Earth?'
'There is no schedule for coming to our ancestral world, we just stop by if it happens to be in the right part of its orbit when we are passing through this part of the galaxy.'
'Why have you never made contact before this?'
'We have tried a few times in the past, unfortunately we were met with hostility and conflict, so we decided long ago to just observe this planet. In the past 10 years we have stopped by Earth no less than 20 times, looking for our crashed ship, but we never detected it until today.'
'So the reason you've made contact today is because you came to rescue some extraterrestrial travellers that got stranded, only to find out they had made friends here?'
'Yes, the family of Henderson Ranch took them in and gave them food, shelter and protection. They looked past their differences and demonstrated the Federation way of life, where beings of all kinds can in fact live in peace and harmony... even on this planet.'
'You said in the original broadcast that you will be setting up an embassy. How long will it be before the embassy will be open to the public and where will it be located?'
'We should have the embassy built within a few days. It will be located in orbit around the planet.'
'So it won't be open to the public?'
'It will be open to the public, we just have to work out some sort of shuttle service to get people up there. As that develops, Mark says he will be creating a website that will relay information about the Federation as well as how to visit the embassy.'
'So why haven't you left the surface yet?'
'To thank our friends, we've taken some research he had been doing for a new barn, and we're going to use some of our construction technology to build it for him. If you want, you could take a quick look at the old barn and then we will rebuild the new one in its place.'
The TV crew walked to the barn and stepped inside as the cameraman panned around, then returned to their previous position.
Suddenly there was a collective gasp as the barn in front of them transformed from the old wooden barn into the large white and green fabric barn that Joe had been wanting. The new barn was more than double the width of the old one and slightly longer. A couple of trees that were in the way even got moved out of the way.
'Wow!' was all Elisha said, 'Too bad all construction couldn't be done like that! Quick, safe and environmentally friendly, did you see the trees get moved out of the way? Will you be sharing your technology with us?'
'Unfortunately no, technology is only shared with federated planets. Many of our technologies would cause mass chaos on this planet, with the current way it is being managed.
You will get to see most of our technology though, as the people of this planet will soon be able to visit our planets, and some of our people will likely want to visit this planet as well.
The embassy is just the first step in creating ties with the Atlantean Federation. Even if your planet does not join, some of your citizens may elect to move to one of the federated planets for a better quality of life.'
'Is there a catch to visit or even move to one of the federated planets?'
'No bigger catch than moving or visiting between countries here. We have laws and they must be followed. There is a short test people must pass before visiting a federated planet and we offer educational courses to help people get familiarized with our society before becoming citizens.'
'What kinds of laws?'
'Laws that are very similar to many you have on this planet I would imagine. As this is my first visit to Earth, I am not familiar with all of the laws of this country or any countries to be able to make a comparison.'
'How does the legal system on your planet work?'
'That would take quite a bit of explaining, so maybe we will leave that to be explained on the website, along with the answers to many of these questions. Although I do not know how soon it will be available.'
'What about religion? What is the primary religion in the Atlantean Federation?'
'The Federation has no primary or official religion. Religions as a whole are not recognized in the Federation. When we were on Earth, we worshipped the sun, for it is the true giver of life, but any religion or faith is a choice and something that almost every species we have encountered has in some form or other. Citizens are free to believe whatever they want, on their own time, as long as it does not violate any laws and they do not try to impose their beliefs on others.'
'What other technologies do you have that could improve our way of life?'
'There is energy, construction, food, water, transportation, medical, education, waste management, communications, security and legal systems... and there's probably others too.'
'What about military technology?'
'The Federation is a peaceful society, while we do have a few offensive technologies, almost everything we have is defensive in nature. Our society doesn't even have a military as you call it, any conflicts are handled by our everyday security forces. The Atlantean Federation will never fire the first shot to start a conflict, but we can definitely end one!'
'You said in your original broadcast that you update information about this planet that you use your education system. What do you teach about Earth?'
'It is our ancestral world, so we obviously use it in our history programs, but it is also referenced for social, political, environmental and economic programs.'
'So what's it going to take for Earth to join the federation?'
'That is where the problem lies with this planet and why we have been skeptical of setting up an embassy here. This planet is unusually hostile and very poorly managed.