On the highway, the car went dead. The driver pulled over and looked up to see the strange lights. He checked on his wife and three children, they were all still with their eyes closed. His heart racing, he checked his wife's pulse of his wife. She was alive, just fast asleep. The vehicle shuddered as the light's outside grew more intense. Next thing, the lights changed and now his vehicle was in a chamber. He sat blinking, confused and then a figure appeared. Tall, distorted, not a man, a monster. Choking back his fear, the driver wound down the window of the car.

The monster's face had four eyes that examined him studiously. Where should have been a mouth was a leathery hole. The driver was mortified.

Then the monster spoke with a voice that seemed generated from a mechanical device: "Doctor Albert Hemmerich, Chief Executive Officer of Reliant Petroleum?”

“Yes. What do you want?” said the Dr. Albert.

“We want to help the human race solve a major problem.”

“Great. So what?”

“We want to buy your petroleum oil and we will pay 1,000 United States dollar per barrel.”

“A thousand dollars a barrel? How much do you want?”

“All of it.”

“Deal,” said Doctor Hemmerich “Can I go now?”

“You will be returned to where we found you. We will be in touch soon.”

The next thing that Dr. Hemmerich knew, his son was tapping him on the shoulder.

“Daddy, why have we stopped?”

“Is everything okay?” his wife asked, “do you want me to drive?”

Three weeks later Dr. Hemmerich was with a therapist. The therapist listened to what Dr. Hemmrich had to say and asked a question.

“Dr. Herrmerich, if I was to tell you that I have heard an identical story, would you be interested to discuss this with the other person?”

A week later, Dr. Hemmerich met Brad Moore, CEO from Peking Petroleum, in the offices of the therapist. The Doctor left with a wave of relief that he was able to corroborate in detail the events. He met with Brad Moore later in the week and they decided to canvas other oil executives to see whether they too had been offered the same deal.

Hemmerich and Moore travelled to Europe and the Middle East and China and found that indeed, many of the major oil executives had had the same experience.

The challenge was to understand the connection between those that had been approached and those who had not. Moore joined the dots: those who had been approached controlled the world supply of heavy sour crude.

These CEOs were all scheduled to meet at the Davos Forum in Switzerland. Moore and Hemmerich fixed to bring them together for a private discussion.

This took place at 30,000 feet in a Gulf Stream jet. It was the first time that all of the CEOs had been together and the discussion was heated with more questions than answers.

The questions were answered when the lights went off inside the jet. Minutes later, the executives peered out of the windows and realized that the jet had been hijacked, and now lay on the floor of the chamber that they recognised from their first encounter.

Shortly, they were all in a group and the monster returned. Moore took the lead and asked the aliens their story.

The aliens had travelled a vast distance to find a planet where there were abundant supplies of heavy sour crude. This was their food, and their planet had run out. On their planet was abundant supplies of helium-3 and they would provide the details of nuclear fusion machines that would provide as much energy as the planet needed. This would help planet earth transition to no-carbon producing energy sources to stabilise their climate. The aliens had negotiated the sale of this rare product and were prepared to pay US$1,000 per barrel for permanent access to the oil they needed. The aliens were not interested in being involved in extraction activities, they just wanted to get their oil, put it in one of their ships and take it back to their planet.

With oil trading at around $50 per barrel and having never been worth more than $150, the proposition made excellent business sense. The executives jointly agreed to work on the proposal and to meet with the aliens again with in the month.

The executives commissioned computer models to verify the financial rewards of the deal and the implications that would need to be managed. The modelling indicated that instantly removing billions of barrels of oil from global supply and shipping it out of the solar system would radically alter the global economy, throw billions of people out of work, cause mass famines due to the removal of a vital fuel for agriculture, spark wars across the planet and lead to a shift to authoritarian governments who would have total control over global energy supplies.

After much discussion, the oil executives agreed that the downside was worth it. They were, after all, responsible to the interests of their shareholders, not to the wellbeing of the world it was their shareholders who would reap the benefits, and others would suffer the consequences.

After a month, Brad Moore was contacted by the aliens in a similar manner as before. He was instructed to bring together the oil executives and those who would be managing the helium-3 transactions and the construction of the fusion reactors. This entourage filled an Airbus A380, loaned from a Saudi businessman. At the allocated time, the jet was captured by the aliens and three hundred of the most powerful business leaders stepped out of the plane in-front of dozens of the aliens.

The executives lawyers laid out rows of documents to be signed to mark the commencement of the deal.

However, the aliens would not sign.

After furious discussion, the aliens explained their reasons.

The aliens wanted to find a race of people who were ethical with a view to doing trade over a long term. However, having observed the manner in which the leaders of earth were prepared to inflict untold suffering on people of their race, they were unwilling to trust the humans to respect their race.

“You should return now to your plane. And we will not trouble you again.”

The executives returned to the Airbus A380. Shortly the plane was released from the alien craft. However, this time the pilots did not wake up.

The newspapers reported the crash of the Airbus A-380 in the French countryside.

As the aliens raced across the cosmos back to their own planet, the leader was asked why he had instructed the pilots not to wake.

“It was a small act of charity for the human race,” the monster replied.