[ WP ] It turns out that everyone 's imaginary friends were actually extraterrestrials that were trying to contact Earth through children .

Andrew felt as though his head could rip apart. The science team was torn between looking at the young boys writhing body or glaring down at their screens to absorb as much information as they could as the scans continued. Andrew's jaw had dropped so low and his body arched against the canvas straps with such force that he looked as though he was at the apex of a terminal seizure. Thin veins rose up along his neck, reaching out along the edge of his forehead and vanishing into his hairline. Inside his mind was a thundering chorus of information. It was as if he were strapped in and forced to watch one billion TV's at the same time, the sounds overlapping and skipping past him in chirps and scattered blips. 
 
 Victor leaned on the railing, looking down at the young volunteer. The theories had been around for a few years but there had simply been no way to test them, quantify them, prove or even touch any part of the ideas. Victor had sunk his life into trying to understand the life long concept of imagination, of silly or trivial idea mixed to form real concepts. Why did children always have such an endless amount of it, were there adults with wide ranging imaginations? Were they successful? He'd had to develop simple questionnaires that later evolved into full scans of brains during the questions. Later the tests became scans while playing problem solving games or by straining how children could understand their realities. 
 
 And then one day the idea sort of just appeared in Victor's mind. What if the brain were like a satellite and imagination was a sort of network humans simply did n't fully comprehend and eventually trained themselves not to use? Who would be the best *receivers* and could anyone be a transmitter into this network? Who produced it? The concept bred more questions than it answered, but it profoundly struck Victor and his team. They buried money and time, spending everything they could find into trying to prove if such theories of an `` imaginary internet'' could be true. 
 
 When Andrew came around, it was like finding a key to an unknown door. The boy was barely 9 and he could draw out pictures of nuclear reactors. More amazingly, he was able to design the closest thing physicists believed could function as a *fusion* core. It was as if the child was always attached to an information source. Every problem presented to him was quickly handled and pushed away, solved again and again. The only problem was that Andrew was non-verbal. He was wildly crippled, devastatingly autistic. And others like Andrew seemed to display similar qualities. Victory theorized that the stronger the link to this otherworldly network, the weaker the human would be able to link to this place's network. 
 
 After two years of brutal trial and error on computer simulations and a few devious bribes to law makers, Victor was going to risk everything. He wanted to know if it was possible to break the receiver from this extraterrestrial network, severing a human from its interference. If the plan worked, it would give Andrew a new lease on life, if it did n't, then it simply was a bad theory and it would be back to the drawing boards. As Andrew's fragile body continued to flop against his straps, an engineer called out. 
 
 `` We've got it! We've got the frequency that's feeding him. His brain his trying to follow this sine wave here!'' 
 
 Victor turn and leaned over the other worker, both of them glaring intently at the lone wave form that had dozens of others trailing after it. Victor pointed at the screen and then spoke out so that everyone could hear. 
 
 `` Block it. Jam the signal.'' 
 
 A moment later, the signal blipped and flat lined. All eyes turned from their stations to look down at Andrew. His thin body held still and his eyes swirled around the room. His expression twisted into a grimace and then a cry, a loud, guttural cry. He'd never made a sound before. And then the child shouted, shouted out words. 
 
 `` I want to go home! I *want to go home! *'' 
 
 Victor nodded to some of the medical assistance on staff, letting them hurry to the boy and give him some comfort. Everyone was stunned, perhaps rightly so. But no one expected what Victor did next. He strode back to the first engineer and leaned forward, pointing at the screen. 
 
 `` Transmit a message along that frequency. Send it out on maximum amplification.'' 
 
 Lightyears away, in a far off and advanced civilization, a sudden message chirped and signaled across the screen. Heads craned around to look as the computer auto-translated the incoming transmission. Large font marching across the screen from one side to another. 
 
 **WE KNOW**
