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What’s the rational response to an irrational threat?

I think the movie “Tremors” is instructive here. It involves a small town with an infestation of giant, man-eating worms.

These worms are big – many meters long with giant toothed mouths that have tentacles inside them. The worms can tunnel through dirt and sand very quickly, and if you’re caught on land when one appears, you get eaten up.

I mention Tremors cause most of the folks in the movie respond rationally to this bizarre threat. They get up on the tops of buildings. They use pole vaulting to minimize contact with the ground. They amass weapons and bottleneck the worms to maximize their worm-killing effectiveness.

I suppose I’d like to think real people would respond rationally as well. But I’m standing outside in the blazing Arizona summer watching my 64 year old dad try to dig a whole straight to hell with a CAT excavator more than half his age.

He’s got his slug-loaded double barrel in the cage with him, just in case they “get the jump” on him – where “they” refers to giants larger than skyscrapers living miles below the surface of the Earth.

And he’s not alone. There are similar reports every day, a majority from the United States, but also from every other country on the planet. Some people, faced with the spector of an irrational, unseen and unavoidable danger revert to even more irrational aggression.

Perhaps it gives them a sense of agency. I’ve noticed that in my dad. He’ll go out, dig for twenty minutes, scan the new depth with satisfaction and then head back inside and talk about his progress over dinner. He’s definitely been less afraid.

Initial reports of exploratory civilian digging popped up after the first transmission – everybody calls it S1. But things really kicked into gear when the Unit 6 encounter leaked online.

It was Sergeant Mallory’s footage that really sparked the civilian downward assault. The four still frames showing Mallory’s drill bit piercing the underground giant’s thick skin. The unmistakable crimson sheen of blood. Whatever this thing was, it could be hurt, that was the takeaway. Never mind that the drill bit was the strongest on Earth and barely made a scratch.

Turns out the vague possibility that the Boogie Man can be harmed is all the motivation some people need to brazenly seek it out.

My father’s actually a light weight as far as the civilian offensive is concerned. He can’t make a good pace with just the CAT, and he gets tired pretty quick nowadays. Mostly I just check in once in a while to make sure he hasn’t toppled into his hole.

But some people take things a lot farther. They rent commercial drills and borers and go down hundreds of feet. Two brothers in Ukraine “repurposed” an old soviet oil drill and made it nearly 2 kilometers before hitting an explosive methane pocket. A spark set it off and the shock wave up the tube turned their organs to mush. Or so I’ve heard.

And it’s not like all these people are armed to the teeth. Most start digging woefully unprepared to deal with the sort of behemoth that fucked up the Navy Seals in Unit 6. Civilians are arrested with nail guns and knives, even screwdrivers and hammers inside their holes – anything that might make the giant bleed a little.

I check my watch. 1PM and the sun looms large in the center of the sky. “Dad, I think that’s enough for today.”

My dad ignores me and stabs the CAT’s shovel into the dirt.

Of course no civilian has ever encountered any underground monsters. They aren’t digging anywhere near deep enough. But they’re still dying in droves from more banal causes: oxygen deprivation; tunnel collapses; heat stroke.

No more mister nice guy. I walk up to the hole and hop down to the CAT. “Dad, time’s up.”

“Goddamn it Christopher, I’ve only been at it for a few minutes.”

His old man voice sounds petulant. It’s weird, like I’m the dad and he the precocious son and avid digger of holes. “Lets go. Helen’s got lemonade.” I reach over and open the cage.

Visibly annoyed, secretly relieved, my father storms clumsily away, up and out of the two meter deep ditch he’s dug. He forgets his shotgun, the Excalibur with which he intended to combat the greatest threat humanity has ever encountered.

Standing alone in the small hole, it’s ridiculousness is as palpable to me as the moist, sticky grime coating the back of my neck.

Yet, I understand. I sometimes have similar impulses myself. Every classified brief that ends up on my desk is a blow to my resolve.

It’s been six months since Unit 6. 9 months since S1. Total radio silence since. I haven’t told my dad – I couldn’t, even if I wanted to, which I don’t – but the truth is, no one knows what to do. Humanity is clueless how to fight this, thing. I’m clueless.

So we wait, and scan, and point half the nuclear weapons on Earth at Borehole 7.248B in the Siberian tundra on the off chance the monster peaks his head out.

My name is Christopher Pell, Commander of the Joint Strategic Armed Forces, and I am doing my best to Tremor our way the fuck out of this mess.

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