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Best Of

Best of Santa Barbara® Readers' Poll 2017

Our annual celebration of the people and places that make Santa Barbara out of this world

Best of Santa Barbara® Readers' Poll 2017

Hello, Earthlings.

Our names are, well, unpronounceable in your language, so just call us “Fred” and “Ethel.” We come from a solar system that you’ve never heard of, in a galaxy far, far away.

A few days ago, we crashed our Hyperion 3000-JJ Transporter — what you single-planeters apparently call a flying saucer or, even more offensive, a UFO — into the shoreline of your town. Luckily, it was a soft, sandy landing, so we survived. But Santa Barbara wasn’t our intended destination.