THE LORD GAGGED, MIFFED, TRIES TO COMMUNCIATE

By Juan Montoya
It started out through small, innocuous things like furtive messages in a bottle.
"Have Benedict get in touch with me," signed The Big Guy.
Then, as time went by without a response, things got a little more heated. A lengthy string of binary-code
 emissions from beyond the Horseshoe Nebula and into the farthest reaches of Deep Space were received by the IBM Watson super computer.
But unlike the messages from "Vicher" (Voyager) to its maker, these proved undecipherable even to Watson. It crashed.
And so, scientists at the various computer research centers have been mystified over the persistence of radio emissions from space and  have concluded that the source of the messages are of celestial origin not meant for mere mortals.
"Twelve messages in a bottle asking for someone named Benedict appeared off Easter Island over the weekend," said a researcher best known for attributing ancient architecture to visits from extra-terrestials in prehistoric times. "Someone out there is trying to communicate with us."
Sources in the Vatican say that the College of Cardinals have been advised of the sudden cluster of messages from the celestial heavens and have as a result started their deliberations to elect a new Pope of the Catholic Church and put it on the fast track.
Researchers say that the abdication by Pope Benedict may have muzzled the Almighty and left him without anyone to channel his Holy Word.
"The Pope is God's Messenger," said a Vatican source who wished to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak for the Holy See. "When Benedict resigned, God was left without the proper channels to communicate His message to Man. Now he's miffed and looking for a way to get in touch with his creation."
Vatican sources say that they have been in contact with the godless Russians to discover the exact nature of the asteroid that struck northern Russia. That meteor is estimated to have been about 50 feet wide and weighed 7,700 tons, entering the atmosphere at about 40,000 mph.
“People started to panic. Somebody screamed ‘the end of the earth!” said one man in Russian, interviewed by a television crew.
Most injuries, at least according to reports today, happened when the fragments of the meteor exploded in midair, sending shock waves through the air and shattering windows for miles around.
“There was panic. People had no idea what was happening,” said Sergey Hametov, a resident of Chelyabinsk, reached by The Associated Press. The city has a population of 1 million.
“We saw a big burst of light, then went outside to see what it was and we heard a really loud, thundering sound,” he said.
ABC News’ Kirit Radia, based in Moscow, reports that 20,000 Russian soldiers have been sent to the area to help residents recover.
The meteor had the force of a 300-kiloton bomb, and exploded 12 to 15 miles above the ground.
Bill Cooke, who runs the Meteoroid Environments Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., said some calculations indicate it is probably an interloper from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, deflected our way, probably by a close pass with another object sometime in its past.
"Think of it as a suitor trying to catch the attention of a damsel in medieval times," said the Vatican source. "It's like trying to throw a pebble at the window to catch her attention but not enough to break it. In this case, it appears that the Lord didn't realize his own strength. As you know, the Church is the Mother of of our faith, so if God's messenger quits, He has to find a way to communicate with us. Those cardinals better hurry before the Big Guy gets dangerously impatient."