by John Colvin

More of them were sighted on both coasts of the U.S. Adding to the paranoia was that no other country appeared to be affected, not even Canada or Mexico. The tips of horns were seen to rise above the rippling waves at various beaches along the east and west coast, and in the Gulf of Mexico.

All of them were moving inland. A geographer at the University of Duluth charted their path and confirmed her suspicion that the giants were all making their way toward a common point--a cornfield 50 miles southwest of
Desmoines, Iowa. That area now became a hotbed of paranormal activity, including crop circles and UFO sightings, as well as such timeless favorites as Bigfoot and the Chupacabra, or Goatsucker. This was a veritable golden age for the UFO community, which surmised that the giants were visitors from another time-space continuum, and were making their way to a predetermined gathering place where they would be picked up by the mother ship.

Numerous attempts were made to communicate with them. It was thought by some that we were so rapid-moving to the tidal giants' eyes that we were invisible, much like beings in a certain episode of the classic Star Trek series. An eccentric billionaire invested a good deal of money in recording a video message and slowing it down to what was estimated to be the tidal giants' speed, then projecting it on a huge screen mounted on an offshore platform built especially for this purpose. It was set at eye-level (if indeed they had any eyes) for the vanguard of the giants, who now stood with their entire heads above the waves near Daytona. It took more than a week for the message to be shown, but no reaction was detected. They only continued their slow relentless advance.
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Eventually things calmed down and we came to fear them less and even to accept them as part of the landscape. Early on, the government secretly sent a navy submarine to destroy several. They shattered easily, yielding a huge explosion of air bubbles. From this it was determined that the giants were in fact hollow, and a hollow threat. It is now thought that our military forces could easily wipe out the whole known mass of them in a day.

Several more were carefully dismantled and studied in government laboratories by experts ranging from Geologists to Archeologists to Xenobiologists, with baffling results. There were no known biological or technological mechanisms within the giants, and their ability to walk was inexplicable. Careful analysis of their bodies, or perhaps we should say
of their exoskeletons since there is, in fact, nothing within, determined that they were composed mostly of volcanic tuff. This has given rise to at least one holistic new age religion with an entire mythology centered around underwater volcano gods producing a progeny of stone warriors.

At some point, the government's experiments were leaked to the news media. Several human rights organizations protested the treatment of the tidal giants, and after weeks of protest and debate, our nation's lawmakers agreed
that so long as they did no serious damage to personal or public property, they should be left alone. By this time they were drawing tourists and were beginning to be viewed as national treasures. The only problem was that no one was sure whether they should be protected as national monuments, endangered species, or natural phenomena. It was decided to create a new category for them, and the National Semi-Organic Species of Indeterminate Origin Protection Act (NASSINORPA) was passed.
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As is always the case with new immigrants, they were first treated with suspicion and dislike, then with something like tolerance, and finally acceptance. Despite their large size, it is thought there will be room for them, and they may even be an asset. For the most part, they have been accepted as a part of our landscape and our national character.