A Word From Our Distinguished Director

Dr. B. F. Smith PhD

My first encounter with a Nomadic Fungus was very typical of most first encounters, I simply didn't know what I was looking at. I assumed it was some sort of large plant, perhaps a cactus. It looked very strange growing from the rusted hulk of an old car, but given that I was hopelessly lost in the rock strewn desert of southern New Mexico, I had more pressing issues to contemplate....

It would be another twenty years before I discovered that what I had stumbled across was a Nomadic Fungus, a mutated mushroom from the cordyceps genus. Out of pure amusement I did a little more research, but strangely there wasn't much out there. No scientific papers. No government sanctioned research. No PBS specials.

Most of what I found were small town newspaper clippings about old geezers and hermits who claimed their junk cars were covered in large mushrooms. Inevitably the articles would pose the question, "Were you anally probed?"  Everyone knows aliens not mushrooms do anal probing. This seemed like a deliberate attempt to discredit the interviewees. It was my first glimpse at the massive cover up surrounding the Nomadic Fungi pandemic.