When Kevin "Wired" Kelly worked with the Whole Earth Catalog, he happened to receive a piece of mail from renowned scifi author Robert Heinlein. Apparently Kelly had mailed Heinlein, and in response he got this bizarre form letter that Heinlein sent to all his correspondents. The author would simply check the appropriate box in answer and mail it off. What's great about the letter is that some of the boxes refer to extremely granular things, like references to obscure articles about science in long-gone publications. No clue as to which answer Kelly was supposed to get: None of the boxes on his letter were checked. Later, apparently, the Heinlein family switched over to email. Click to see the letter in its full weirdness. [via Conceptual Trends]

Send an email to Annalee Newitz, the author of this post, at annalee@io9.com.