ANNAPOLIS, MD—The controversial former captain of the US Navy attack submarine Boston said today that a United States military presence on Mars is justified, not by the current Russian crisis, but because of the potential of ‘almost-certain extraterrestrial hostilities.’
Comm. Terrance C. L’Enfant made his remarks while speaking before cadets at the United States Naval Academy, from which L’Enfant graduated in 1998. It was the first time L’Enfant had lectured at Annapolis since his much publicized court-martial in 2019.
While speaking on the necessity of maintaining ‘eternal vigilance’ against ‘enemies whose nature may even yet be unknown,’ L’Enfant alluded to the recent showdown in the Cydonia region of Mars between Russian and American military space forces. Although he did not remark on whether Operation Steeple Chase was a justifiable response to the deployment on Mars of Soviet munitions by the CIS, L’Enfant told an audience of 600 cadets and officers that the US had an obligation to protect itself against ‘adversarial alien forces.’
‘Let’s face it,’ said L’Enfant. ‘What used to be sheer science-fiction is on the verge of becoming stark reality. We now know that there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, that they know where we are in the galaxy, and that they are capable of doing us grave harm. So the question is not so much what do we do about the Russians, it’s about what do we do to counter almost-certain extraterrestrial hostilities.’
Lt. Wyatt Shippey, a spokesman for the Naval Academy, denied that L’Enfant’s remarks reflected the philosophy of Annapolis or the US Navy. ‘Commander L’Enfant was invited to speak to the cadets on the subject of general preparedness,’ Lt. Shippey said in a press conference following the lecture. ‘Anything he had to say about the Mars crisis is his own opinion.’ L’Enfant was removed from active sea duty by the Secretary of the Navy following his court-martial acquittal on charges of disobedience and gross negligence, which resulted from the torpedoing of the Japanese freighter Takada Maru by the Boston in 2019. Although he retained his rank as a commissioned officer, L’Enfant became a member of the general staff at the US Naval Institute.