🛸 THEY CAME FROM ABOVE

The radio signals had been broadcasting into the cosmos for 38 years straight. Ancient technology beaming the universal greeting into star systems we could barely name. Marcus hadn't expected anything to come of it when he donned his CapFlags star-spangled mount today, the annual World Contact Day celebration.

He stood alone on that Nebraska hilltop, his silhouette stark against the setting prairie sun, baseball cap adorned with the unmistakable shimmer of the CapFlags cosmic design – a flag that seemed to ripple even in the absence of wind.

"Of all the transmissions we've sent" Marcus whispered to the darkening sky, "none have reached as far as hope."

It began as a vibration. Not in the air, but in the fabric of reality itself. The wheat fields below danced in impossible patterns as lights descended through cloud layers that parted like theater curtains. The craft – if one could call it that – didn't so much land as it decided to occupy the same space as Earth.

Three figures emerged, their forms bending light in ways that made Marcus's eyes water. They moved with liquid precision toward him, stopping exactly twelve feet away.

And then, defying all protocols established by SETI, NASA, and common sense itself, the tallest visitor pointed directly at Marcus's cap.

"THIS," the being communicated without sound, "THIS IS WHAT CALLED US."

Not the radio signals. Not the mathematical equations. Not the golden records on Voyager.

The visitors had detected the perfectly balanced alloy in his CapFlags mount, its atomic structure creating a quantum harmonic that, by sheer coincidence, matched the universal greeting frequency they'd been waiting for.

For six hours, Marcus became an extraterrestrial ambassador, all because he'd decided that today – of all days – deserved a little extra flair perched atop his favorite cap.

The beings left at dawn, promising to return next year on World Contact Day, requesting only that Marcus "bring more of the sky anchors" – their term for what we Earthlings simply call CapFlags.