March 6, 2007

By Sunday, March 4th 2007, a team of superhumans was ready on the Space Station, because they and the U.S. Government knew the aliens were coming.

They called themselves the Earth Redeemers. Some of them had fought aliens ever since the World Journal Monthly first reported Jellyfish from Outer Space. (See Related Story) Now they had evidence the aliens were coming to find a gorilla - a Warrior Gorilla who got an action figure in 1992!

"Me the Gorilla" is the ape who knows sign language and had his own video game, the Gorilla Sheriff Mormon Quest. (See Related Story) On Monday, March 5, 2007, he was the San Diego Zoo's guest star on the Tonight Show.

So was his blonde pretty lead handler, Judith Brower. Judith and "Me" were two-thirds of the Gorilla Sheriff Mormon Quest, and Judith wasn't the sheriff. Her Mormon elders gave her dispensation to work with the San Diego Zoo. It was great publicity for their church.

The show started filming at 8 pm Los Angeles time. People on the U.S. east coast would start watching it in half an hour.

Partway into the show, the studio walls started humming. And the gorilla started growing! By the time he stopped, he barely fit crouched between the floor and the ceiling.

But "Me" was not a rampaging warrior gorilla; he was a docile gorilla who liked living in the zoo. When grown to 60 feet, he sat quietly and still talked to his interpreter Judith.

But then the aliens zapped him again from space, with a shock ray! The giant gorilla flailed, and the audience started to flee. To keep the humans safe, "Me" knew he had to flee instead.

Unlike in most "Giant Gorilla Grabs a Starlet" movies, "Me" and Judith are colleagues who talk by sign languange. They agreed to flee together. And Judith said so - in front of the cameras of the Tonight Show.

Many giant gorillas would have climbed a skyscraper to bellow their defiance. But "Me the Gorilla" was not one of those. He found a cage! Or the nearest thing, which was a Los Angeles/Burbank atrium hotel with a big window to face the sunsets. He had to break the glass to get in, but he did that as gently as he could.

Meanwhile, the Earth Redeemers were so well organized, they called up volunteers from throughout metro Los Angeles, and set up observation posts to track the giant gorilla attack. When the gorilla went inside the hotel, they followed him in.

They found the gorilla sitting calmly in the atrium. Even seated, he was four stories tall. His handler was talking with the staff, ordering dinner for herself and every banana the hotel could find for the gorilla. There are people who hate aliens and giant gorillas, but even they weren't going to bomb one who was sitting peacefully and had an interpreter and had come straight from the Tonight Show - which had broken into nationwide TV to lead the news coverage of the incident.

The authorities started calling hunters to capture the giant gorilla. One who got the call was Yon Schmidt the famous Scheiss Hauptmann. (See Related Story) Yon responded, "He's already captured, you just need to decide how to get him where you want to put him."

So they called an animal trainer instead - sort of a gorilla psychoanalyst. And they called every other expert they could find. The experts had a grand time analyzing "Me the Gorilla"... for about an hour. But then the giant gorilla was shocked again!

After the shock, "Me" bolted. The atrium windows faces some forests, and he ran for those - with Judith. By then, police cars were scrambling, and he kept running.

Soon he got to the end of the forest, on the ocean shore. The forest is about 30 miles long, but the gorilla was ten times his former size and ran ten times faster than he used to.

Landward, there was a city. "Me" started wading past the city. But the waves surprised him, and knocked him off balance.

Judith was still in "Me's" hand. She suddenly realized: Mountain gorillas don't swim! She had to show him how! Judith knew how to swim, like most people who live near the beach in San Diego do.

Seaward, there were islands in the distance: the Los Angeles Channel Islands, a U.S. national park. "Me" started swimming there, while Judith clung to his fur. The islands were fifteen miles away, and the giant gorilla shouldn't have been able to swim ten times as fast as Judith, but he did.

On the shore of the first island, Judith fell to the ground... and had a nervous breakdown. "King Kong" movies to the contrary, it is not pleasant to be carried around by a giant ape. Especially not at 11 pm through cold ocean waters. They weren't freezing, but the surfers were all wearing wetsuits that day. And Judith wasn't.

"Me" tenderly covered Judith with brush, then stood guard. After living in the zoo, "Me" was not a nocturnal gorilla, but he still understood the need to stay up at night in times of danger.

Then, boats arrived. Militiamen were taking interest, as was the U.S. Coast Guard. The U.S. Navy wasn't far behind. "Me" started running and swimming further west, toward the end of the island chain.

As the dawn came, some park rangers and people from the San Diego Zoo came by boat and found Judith. They offered to take her home, but they admited they needed her help. Judith said Yes.

On the western tip of the westernmost island, "Me the Gorilla" was making his stand. Coast Guard boats were all around. Small private boats were in a ring outside them. And a U.S. Navy destroyer was approaching.

But the rangers had jurisdiction, so their boat made it past them all. And Judith came on shore. "Me" sat down when she approached. The confrontation was over.

The U.S. National Park Service says they can set up a Giant Gorilla Preserve on the Los Angeles Channel Islands. Food will have to be imported in, but the San Diego Zoo can handle that.

If the aliens don't destroy us in the Saucer War (See Related Story), they've given California a great new attraction.

Special to the World Journal Monthly by Bruce Klybourn.