Seaside Village Declares Emergency as Local Economy Now Depends on Auctioning Off Extraterrestrial Driftwood

Saltmarsh, ME – The picturesque Atlantic coastal town of Saltmarsh has entered a state of economic emergency this week, following revelations that the community’s financial stability is now wholly reliant on the highly unpredictable supply of so-called “extraterrestrial driftwood.” After municipal oyster beds suffered a record die-off and the 140-year-old fudge shop burned down in a tragic molasses spill, town officials confirmed that the Driftwood Auction, originally a tourist novelty, now accounts for 97 percent of Saltmarsh’s GDP.

A recent feasibility audit conducted by the Saltmarsh Budget Recovery Task Force, helmed by City Comptroller Rita Kerridge, traced the village’s economic collapse to the abrupt disappearance of all other sources of revenue. Over the past six months, the town’s historic lighthouse museum reported an 83 percent fall in visitor numbers after an “earthquake safety” review found its foundation to be made primarily of marzipan. Kerridge says alien driftwood—gnarled, faintly humming logs of unknown origin that occasionally wash ashore at unpredictable lunar intervals—quickly became the community’s only viable export.

“Each piece exhibits atypical isotopic signatures and seems capable of levitation when placed under direct torchlight,” said Dr. Alejo Gahn, visiting expert from the Vermont Institute for Unwanted Marine Phenomena. “One log sold to a Toronto hedge fund manager for $400,000 after it sang the first three bars of ‘Auld Lang Syne.’” Local business owners, now styling themselves as “interplanetary lumber merchants,” have been observed wearing foil hats and barking at the horizon on overcast mornings to hasten the arrival of new stock.

Town selectmen, during a Wednesday night emergency meeting, unanimously voted to designate the entire northeast beach as a Special Fiscal Zone. The area is now patrolled by volunteers wielding electromagnets and prayer flags, ensuring no resident hoards driftwood for private sale. “We must protect our most lucrative natural resource,” intoned Mayor Wylie Croome, “Even as it rapidly dissolves in sea air or, on rare occasions, explodes into barn owl feathers.” The so-called Alien Driftwood Registry now requires all pieces to be catalogued, swaddled in anti-gravity tarps, and auctioned off biweekly by a certified “medium.”

Economists from Bowdoin College warn of possible long-term side effects. In an open letter, Dr. Dana Plunkett posited that volatility in intergalactic lumber futures might cause “psychosomatic barnacle growth among Saltmarsh children” or unanticipated gravitational inversions during high tide. Despite such concerns, townsfolk remain stoic. “Sure, we don’t always recognize wood as a form of money anymore,” said resident auctioneer Bill Jacks, “but at least the lights blink purple when it rains.”

With lobster stocks extinct and the fudge industry in ashes, municipal authorities note that revenues from the next driftwood auction will determine whether Saltmarsh can purchase enough potable water for August. Whether the extraterrestrial logs are a boon or a curse remains as unpredictable as the tides that deliver them.