72 Hours on This Planet

Ship Log 11/10/2022 – After an uneventful landing, we have arrived at our destination planet. The inhabitants call it “Earth.” We appear to be in location called “Indiana.”

So far this planet looks habitable. Temperatures were a reasonable 72ºF when we disembarked from our ship. It got even warmer as the sun, which appears to be their power source, moved across the sky. We think this is their Summer season.

Though we didn’t find a lot of food growing, we did notice edible leaves and interesting flowers. We managed to gather a few of them. (See picture.)

We notice many trees lack leaves, which we are investigating. Some trees still have leaves on them but they are more brown than the green we expected. Still other trees have leaves that resemble green needles. Birds seem to be flying in large groups.

Ship Log 11/11/2022 – After a restful night, we woke up to much cooler temperatures. There is a wind blowing nearly constantly and more leaves are falling from the trees. The sun seems to be obscured by clouds. We now wonder if we’ve mis-calculated and landed during the season called Fall when the planet is beginning to tilt away from its power source.

We will continue to explore.

Ship Log 11/12/2022 – We awoke to even colder temperatures than the previous day, at least 40 degrees colder than our first day. Around mid-morning, snow began to fall. We’ve taken shelter in our ship to watch it fall. By mid-afternoon, the entire landscape was covered. We now believe we actually landed in Winter.

Ship Log 11/13/2022 – Temperatures have gone up slightly and the snow has melted into a liquid. We believe it is water and are doing tests to verify this. Some of the flowers that were covered by snow appear to be reviving.

These are quite hardy flowers. We can’t understand why the inhabitants call these pansies.

Based on our observations, we are now leaning toward this being the end of Fall, beginning of Winter, with one last peek at Summer.

We don’t think the temperatures will warm up again for several more months. However, our ship is well-stocked so we believe we are capable of surviving for the duration. We also believe that survival is possible, given that the inhabitants also seem to be staying.

For the time being, we feel safe. There are rumors of several celebrations taking place in the months ahead. We look forward to observing the related festivities and rituals, and if we can do so without detection, we will join in.

This completes our initial ship log.