Letter Ummo 205

U M M O A E L E W E A FERNANDO SESMA MANZANO Sir: my name is (expressed in terrestrial characters and Spanish pronunciation) IEREE 86 engendered by IEREE 82. I have not been in Madrid for very long, and this beautiful Iberian city is not yet very familiar to me. Sir: before my coming to your Capital, my brothers spoke of you in glowing terms. Moreover, our Director, to whom I am subject, very explicitly recommended me, asking you not to interpret it as a mere formula of courtesy, but as an authentic expression of our sincere positive affectionate reactions; she therefore recommended that I symbolically touch your chest as an interpretation of our spiritual alliance with your brain. I was read a beautiful poem that you kindly dedicated to us. You are the only Earthling among the many with whom we have been in contact for a decade, whose feelings towards us have inclined towards an unexpected spiritual tuning for beings like us, whose sole objective at first was to conduct a methodical and scientific study of the Civilization of Planet Earth. Your extraordinary sensitivity, your irrepressible love for the UAAAM (we call the universe UAAAM) has surprised and moved us above all. A few days ago, all the brothers of UMMO <who are on Earth>, we were gathered in the City of ADELAIDE in South Australia. I was being given instructions for my journey to Spain as I had never been in this country. When my brother DEII 98, engendered by DEII 97, before our Superior IUU 1 engendered by AINM 368, was dictating to me the list of Spaniards in contact with us, I asked him about you, Sir. What scientific or philosophical specialty does he possess? (you are aware that our UMMOAAELEUE gave us very precise instructions to limit our contacts to only terrestrial men specialized in the field of Pure Science, Thought, Technique, and Art). My young superior to whom I am subject answered me: (S50-A) OEMMII OIAGAA GAEOAO AIOOIAOOEMII UIAA OEMII EABAYO UAAM.... This man is noble. This man loves the Universe: That is enough! You can be sure that in these words she expressed many ideas that you cannot guess <even if you claim to judge their laconicism>. Immediately, they offered me a long series of references about you. I had known your poem for a few days before it was delivered to UMMO. For us, a gesture like this contains a rich emotional content. I knew that the poem was the work of a Spaniard named SESMA but I was unaware of his personality. Never has any Earthling, among those with whom we have established verbal or postal relations, tried to listen to us in a spiritual manner. Your beautiful attempt to establish a spiritual bridge through poetic images will never be forgotten by us. The translation we made for our brothers of UMMO might perhaps not be to your liking. In truth, we would like that if you manage to acquire some linguistic knowledge of our language, you could make the relevant corrections yourself. You will understand that this poetry is a very dear document for the History of the relations between the two Planets. We do not want to make a critique of its literary value. On the other hand, it is very difficult for us to coordinate our aesthetic feelings, our literary dimension with those of the man from Earth. If your strophes were vulgar, they would not lose their value for us because your gesture would be the same. My brother DEII 98, begotten by DEII 97, spoke of you with sadness thinking about what you could have been with a rational education, with a comprehensive religious training, with didactic means oriented towards the field of Thought corresponding to your psyche, similar to those we have. He did not want to hurt your modesty as a man-child (and you will understand that the qualifier child is absolutely not pejorative) and for this reason I prefer to keep silent about my own feelings. As an Earthling who does not know our mentality, you could judge them as flattery or on the contrary: a joke. I would like to hear your voice, to speak with you. But my superior has forbidden me to establish verbal telephone contact with anyone until my return to UMMO and the brother who accompanies me does not know Spanish. My brothers who are outside Spain will soon return to the Iberian Peninsula. My current trip, after having spent years in South America, obeys my next return to UMMO. Nevertheless, it is possible that my brother currently in Spain communicates with you even if his language will be unintelligible to you. I have precise orders to suspend all communications we had with various men from Spain. It is only to you, out of special deference, that we write these paragraphs today. But immediately after the arrival of our brothers (I ignore if we will have already left by that time), the different men of Science of this Country, you and other people, would continue to receive periodic reports made before the departure of my brothers. Currently, I am getting acquainted with this Capital of which I only had literary and graphic references without ever having set foot there. The only Spaniard I have been able to meet here is a young man with whom my brothers were in contact and with whom I am now. Nothing would have made me more pleasure to see you and to place my hand on your chest. But we cannot satisfy all our desires and I accepted when my superior refused for reasons too long to explain. (S50-B) (Ed: The signature is that of IEREE 86 (numbers 7 and 2 in base 12) the second part of the ideogram seems to have another meaning)