Under the Big Top

All eyes are fixed on the Big Barker as he doffs his top hat and points with his silver eagle-handled cane.  And then, as directed, they shift hard left, to an intensely spot-lit mound of sawdust that marks the portal from whence the elephants will come, if ever they should choose to come.

The skeptics demand clear visual evidence, and the people, wary of misinformation, follow them in this.  They demand radar and infrared.  They demand metallurgical analysis of the bits that have fallen from the sky.  They demand eyewitness, not second-hand, testimony, from credible witnesses.  They demand admissions from senior government officials that other senior government officials have been gaslighting them "until the memory of man knows not to the contrary."

All of these boxes have been checked.  No one gives a flying fuck.  No one has really wanted any evidence.  They just wanted the lights to go down, and the calliope to steam up, so that they could stare in peace and wonder at the sawdust.