You make an excellent point. Maybe Thomas Midgley, Jr. was actually an alien bent on the destruction of Earth’s galactic expansion potential. He was, after all, the person responsible for both leaded gas, and chlorofluorocarbons.

Now, I’m not the conspiracy-minded type. I’m not going to say that aliens from some other part of the galaxy detected us as an emerging threat, and so sent a probe to our planet to spray stupid juice into the atmosphere. But if aliens from some other part of the galaxy DID detect us as an emerging threat, and sent a probe to our planet to spray stupid juice into the atmosphere, wouldn’t that explain, like, pretty much everything?