Weekly Humor

[EndtheMadnessNow]

It's an all-too-familiar story: Some guy in Wyoming, cruising along in his pickup truck, pulls over to check out a bright light. It proves to be a UFO crawling with aliens. They whoosh him off to Arcturus for tests and return him a few weeks later without telling him the results. He's all shaken up, barely lucid enough to cut a decent deal with the tabloids.

But there are other kinds of abduction stories the public never hears. I'm talking about extraterrestrials kidnapped by Earthlings. It is a little-known fact that every year hundreds of little green men are grabbed by park rangers or picnickers, wrapped up in ponchos or beach blankets, and bundled off to remote government labs or poorly decorated rec rooms. Some of the aliens-the lucky ones are dumped back where they were found, unharmed (but never told the results of their tests, either). Others remain captives, surviving on corn chips and root beer under degrading conditions. And it's not just little green men who are the victims: it can be little green women or even little green children.

This sordid picture has been painstakingly pieced together by Dr. Perry Noya, parasociologist and author of Aliens in Our Attics. His book represents a massive research effort conducted in spite of some daunting obstacles: People who conceal aliens in their homes are reluctant to own up to it, either because they are worried about attracting the attention of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, or they are afraid their property values will plummet. Even so. Noya managed to interview hundreds of people who held extraterrestrials themselves, knew someone who had, or knew someone who knew someone.

What kinds of people would hold an innocent tourist from another solar system against his, her, or its will? "Lonely people," Noya said during a recent interview. "A few are kids, but most seem to be senior citizens.

"Most people aren't necessarily monsters, but some definitely exploit aliens. For example, my files document cases of Freon-exhaling visitors from Venus kept in commercial garages by heating contractors and forced to recharge old air-conditioning units."

It is a popular misconception that creatures who zoom around in UFOs are too sophisticated to be captured. Not so, says Noya. Aliens are a snap to spot and catch. They don't know the language, seldom carry Earth money, and are easily fooled into believing that a teenager's customized van with an ocean sunset silk-screened on the side is some sort of shuttle craft.

So far the US government has done nothing in response to Noya's demand that an independent, blue-ribbon commission be appointed to study his evidence. "People think," he says, "that the government pooh-poohs the whole UFO thing because it thinks it's silly. The real reason is that my independent investigations have uncovered what I call Saucergate. I have conclusive evidence that federal agencies are already using extraterrestrial illegals to perform key federal functions, like setting the prime rate and padding the Pentagon budget. It's a grave disservice to the taxpayer," he continues. "What does anyone—much less some nerd from another galaxy- know about the bond market? But just try to get rid of them. It's impossible to fire someone in a government job, even if he's from another planet."

Equally shocking was Noya's discovery that some aliens have, not surprisingly, died in captivity. Upon their demise the earth's gravitational field and atmosphere caused their bodies to shrink dramatically and harden into a rubbery substance. Frequently the corpses have been mistaken for the tiny figures sometimes given away in boxes of cereal. "You'd be surprised how many dead aliens I have found mixed in with a kid's Froot Frosties." Noya says, shaking his head sadly. (Inspired by this discovery, he has been taking a closer look at cereal giveaways. His discovery of a brontosaur and other prehistoric behemoths has inspired a second book, tentatively titled The Tyrannosaurus at Your Breakfast Table. It will offer his theory of what really happened to the dinosaurs.)

Noya is lobbying for legislation on kidnapping aliens, a kind of extraterrestrial version of the Lindbergh-baby laws; but he thinks the problem won't really go away until our visitors from outer space get more sophisticated.

Fortunately, he has grounds for cautious optimism. As evidence, he cites an interview with Srrgmishq (not his real name), a creature from Altair who managed to escape from a university research lab by posing as a member of a rock group. (The alien would not talk with Noya until the professor consented to blindfold himself, even though the interview was conducted over a telephone.)

According to Srrgmishq, aliens have at least learned to carry the American Express card, have picked up a few key phrases, and, most importantly, have stopped using the traditional greeting "Take me to your leader." "We're not that green anymore," Srrgmishq told the professor. "The word on where that kind of talk gets you is all over the galaxy."

Fred D. Baldwin is a freelance writer from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, whose methane-breathing houseguest, Xnrrgfbn, helps save on heating bills by keeping the furnace lit.

OMNI magazine (Feb 1988; last page)