I Went to the Bank to Close an Account and Ended Up in a Four-Person Argument About Aliens

The teller said "we're not alone" and it escalated into conspiracy, crying, and someone who looked like a Carl yelling about weather balloons.

There's something unsettling about the fluorescent-lit purgatory that is a bank. It's where time goes to die a slow, bureaucratic death while you wait in line behind someone who's trying to exchange Confederate currency for Bitcoin or whatever financial nightmare is happening at window three.

I went in with one simple mission: close a checking account that had been hemorrhaging five-dollar monthly fees like a punctured wallet. Should have taken ten minutes, max. Instead, I somehow became an unwilling participant in what can only be described as the most unhinged debate about extraterrestrial life I've ever witnessed outside of a Reddit comment section.

It started innocently enough. The teller, a woman in her fifties with the kind of cheerful demeanor that suggested she'd either found inner peace or was three espresso shots away from a complete breakdown, pulled up my account information and made some casual comment about how my savings balance looked lonely.

That's when she dropped it. Just casually mentioned that scientists had recently confirmed we're probably not alone in the universe, like she was commenting on the weather or asking if I wanted a lollipop.

Now, I should have just nodded politely and redirected the conversation back to closing my account. But my brain, clearly operating on the same chaotic frequency that once convinced me to dye my hair purple, decided this was the perfect moment to mention that I'd recently watched some documentary about UFO sightings.

Big mistake. Massive, catastrophic, universe-altering mistake.

Because apparently, mentioning UFOs in a bank is like yelling "fire" in a crowded theater, except instead of people running for the exits, they all gravitate toward you like moths to a conspiracy-theory-shaped flame.

First to join our impromptu extraterrestrial symposium was the guy behind me in line. Let's call him Carl because he looked exactly like every Carl I've ever met. Balding, wearing a polo shirt tucked into khakis with the dedication of someone who'd never questioned authority in his life, and sporting the kind of confident ignorance that comes with getting all your news from Facebook posts.

Carl had Opinions with a capital O about weather balloons. Apparently, every single UFO sighting in the history of human existence could be explained by weather balloons, swamp gas, or what he kept referring to as "atmospheric anomalies." He said this with the kind of smug certainty typically reserved for people who correct your pronunciation at dinner parties.

But Carl had picked the wrong bank lobby for his weather balloon evangelism, because teller lady, whose name tag read "Brenda" but who I'd mentally nicknamed "UFO Brenda" was not having it. She started pulling up articles on her phone about declassified Pentagon videos and government acknowledgments of "unidentified aerial phenomena."

That's when the woman at the next window over pivoted her entire body toward our growing circle of cosmic chaos. She was maybe thirty, wearing scrubs that suggested she worked in healthcare, and had the slightly manic energy of someone who'd been dealing with difficult patients all day and was ready to take it out on the first person who disagreed with her worldview.

Scrubs Lady was a full-blown believer. Not just in aliens, but in alien abductions, government cover-ups, and what she kept calling "the truth they don't want us to know." She started rattling off statistics about missing time experiences and unexplained medical procedures with the rapid-fire delivery of someone who'd watched way too many History Channel documentaries.

Meanwhile, I'm standing there clutching my account closure paperwork like it's a life preserver, watching this situation spiral into complete madness while a line of increasingly irritated customers forms behind us. The security guard kept glancing over with the expression of someone trying to decide if this constituted a disturbance worth addressing or just another day in retail banking hell.

Carl kept interjecting with assertions about the scientific impossibility of interstellar travel, throwing around terms like "light-speed limitations" and "Fermi Paradox" with the confidence of someone who'd definitely Googled these concepts approximately once. UFO Brenda countered with Pentagon statements and pilot testimonies, while Scrubs Lady got emotional about what she clearly believed was a massive conspiracy to hide humanity's cosmic heritage.

The whole thing reached peak absurdity when Carl started demonstrating how weather balloons move through the atmosphere using exaggerated hand gestures, while Scrubs Lady pulled up grainy videos on her phone of alleged spacecraft, and UFO Brenda pointed out government documents from her phone like she was assembling evidence for an intergalactic tribunal.

I found myself in the bizarre position of being the moderator for a debate I never wanted to join, occasionally making noncommittal sounds that could be interpreted as agreement by whichever person was currently making their case. Mostly I stood there marveling at how a simple banking transaction had transformed into something that felt like a deleted scene from The X-Files crossed with a community college philosophy class.

The argument escalated when Carl accused Scrubs Lady of being "exactly the kind of person who falls for government disinformation campaigns," which prompted her to get teary-eyed about how close-minded people prevent humanity from evolving spiritually. UFO Brenda jumped in to defend Scrubs Lady's emotional investment in the truth, which somehow led to Carl lecturing all of us about the importance of scientific skepticism and critical thinking.

By this point, we'd attracted an audience of other customers who were either entertained by the show or plotting our collective demise for holding up the line. The manager emerged from his office with the weary expression of someone who'd clearly dealt with this exact scenario before, probably more times than any reasonable person should have to.

The whole thing finally deflated when Carl's phone rang and he stepped away to take what sounded like a work call, leaving the rest of us standing around like actors who'd forgotten their lines. UFO Brenda suddenly remembered she had actual banking to do, Scrubs Lady collected her phone and shuffled toward the exit saying something about closed minds, and I was left holding my account closure forms wondering what the hell had just happened to my afternoon. I’m on my lunch break mind you.

Twenty minutes later, I walked out of that bank with my account officially closed and my faith in humanity's ability to argue about literally anything completely intact. I still don't know if we're alone in the universe, but I'm pretty certain that Carl is wrong about weather balloons, UFO Brenda deserves a raise for her research skills, and Scrubs Lady needs a hug and maybe a vacation.

Sometimes you go to the bank to handle your finances. Sometimes you accidentally become a witness to the beautiful, chaotic mess that is human curiosity about our place in the cosmos. And sometimes the most mundane errands turn into the kind of experiences that make you question whether reality is actually just a simulation run by bored aliens who enjoy watching humans argue about their existence in fluorescent-lit financial institutions.

I'll definitely stick to online banking.