2519. An experience of a lifetime

Some cynical readers will no doubt question the veracity of this story. To each their own – such people are entitled to believe what they like, but I know this story to be true.

Grayson was out in his substantial backyard planting seed potatoes in his garden when an alien space craft landed on the lawn. It was slightly larger than a city bus and shaped like one of those elongated medicine pills except it was a thousand times bigger! There were no doors or windows. The texture of the thing looked a bit like asbestos except it was faint blue.

An opening appeared in the side and two men ventured out. They looked remarkably the same as humans. They approached Grayson.

“Excuse us,” said one, “we’re sorry to have perhaps given you a fright. What you see is not our normal bodily form but we didn’t want to scare you. We wondered if you could help us. The skin of our space craft is pale blue. That means it is extremely low on fuel. Could we – this sounds so silly to you perhaps – could we borrow a cup of sugar? That’s all we need.”

“Goodness!” said Grayson. “I’ve got a whole bag of sugar you can have so you’ll have a backup supply.”

Grayson went in his house and returned with the sugar. The two men were extremely grateful.

“We’re not meant to associate with humans,” said one, “but desperate times call for desperate measures. We would like to thank you by giving you a special gift. You’re 68 and live alone. We investigated you before we landed. You have no living relatives. If you wish we could place you in our machine – the process takes about an hour – and it scans your body and corrects every imperfection. When done you’ll look about 30 and your body will never age.”

How exciting! Grayson leapt at the offer. And it did! The process took a whole Earth hour. When he looked in the mirror he couldn’t believe his reformed youthfulness. He’d forgotten he used to have auburn hair!

The bus-sized medicine-looking pill went whish and disappeared into the sky. Its skin had a healthy glow of pale pink.

What an experience! It took several years but Grayson gradually realized there was some extra-terrestrial being living in his body.

2379. Sandy landing

It could be regarded as the discovery of the century. Nay! The discovery of the ages! The lunar craft had landed on the moon simply to collect a few rocks, take a sand sample or two, and then toddle off home back to Earth. It wasn’t to be.

The landing site had been chosen not exactly at random, but nonetheless in a place relatively flat and unrocky – more sandy – in case the craft missed its landing mark by a fair stretch and it could still settle comfortably on a flat surface. But WOW! Within several hundred yards of where they landed were footprints. Had humans been there before? No! And besides, they were not human footprints. There were dozens of prints going in all directions. Aliens! There could be no doubt.

With the lack of wind and the slow cosmic change wrought by the elements (or lack of them) the footprints could be recent or old. There was no telling. The astronauts searched around for other telling signs. There was nothing to be found, not even a flattening where a space craft may have landed.

The mystery of the footprints remained a mystery, that is, until Professor Urs Hândénblött cottoned onto a scientific explanation. The footprints were from an early attempt of the cow to jump over the moon. The cow had stumbled at its first attempt. There should be some bones about.

A further landing yielded no skeleton, although they did find an ancient dish and an old spoon.

1964. Technological wizardry

(This is the third of seven days of Science Faction).

Alton and Warren were friends. They were also note-worthy scientists who worked at the famous Aeronautical Research Centre. Both men held strong views about UFOs and aliens. They advertised an evening to be held in the local school hall and titled “The truth about space aliens”. Had intergalactic craft been photographed and espied? Had people seen cosmic aliens?

The school hall was packed. At last the truth would be out. Alton began.

“UFOs are a hoax and I’ll tell you why. Here you have unidentified space craft that would have had to have travelled hundreds, possibly thousands, of light years through space to arrive here. I don’t doubt the possibility of such space travel being one day possible, so I am not ruling out that alien beings can’t do this.”

“Secondly, these space craft have been seen and in some cases videoed. The craft can dart almost instantaneously from one part of the sky to another. Again, I have no doubt that such technology could one day be available to us poor Earthlings,”

“But what gets me is this.” Warren continued the narrative. “And I’ll put it up here on the audio-visual screen. Don’t tell me that an alien civilization with the technology to travel hundreds of light years through space and to dart instantaneously through our sky upon arrival can be videoed because they haven’t yet developed our stealth technology! It’s a nonsense! The whole alien-UFO thing is a hoax. It’s baloney!”

Suddenly two strange men appeared on stage from nowhere. They each were carrying what appeared to be a Christmas candy cane. They zapped Alton and Warren into little piles of what looked like fluff under the bed (which had this happened in America the little piles would have been called Dust Bunnies). The two strange men then disappeared. Into nowhere. Into absolute nowhere.

A message appeared on the audio-visual screen: NO STEALTH TECHNOLOGY? YEAH RIGHT!

1854. Lone tree

I was walking through the fields quite casually, just looking. I had my digital camera with me. The local Photography Society was holding a competition. The prize was a super-duper digital camera. The subject was “Trees”.

There were a number of categories, all to do with trees. There was a category for forests, one for lone trees, one for native trees, one for introduced species of tree, one for dead trees. There was also a category for a video of a tree, which I wasn’t going to enter because although I’d had my camera for quite a while, and the camera had the facility to take videos, I’d never got around to learning what buttons to press. The capturing of a video was beyond my technical ability!

I wasn’t having much luck photographing trees because there really were no interesting trees about. Suddenly, just above the gnarled top of an old cedar, as I was focusing, a fleet of alien space craft appeared. They were in convoy. I suppose there were six of them. I took as many photographs as possible; after all, my digital camera can take hundreds of photographs without getting full. The experience was thrilling!

That is the last thing I remember of that incident.

I awoke in the same field, in the same place. When I got home I discovered that a whole two months had passed; I had missed two months. Clearly I had not been lying unconscious in the field the whole of that time. The experience was disorienting; kind of wonky. I really didn’t know what to do; who to tell. If I told anyone of the experience they would smile and say “Yeah right” meaning I was talking nonsense. So I kept quiet about it.

When a little later I downloaded the photographs on my camera onto my computer (it was now too late to enter the competition) there were the photographs of the alien convoy I had seen. They were blurry as photos of alien craft always are. But as well as that there were seventeen clear photographs and a video that I had not taken myself.

Oh my word! Oh goodness gracious! I have never seen scenes so breath-taking. It was sheer beauty. It was indescribable. Here was my chance to show other people, and then perhaps my strange experience would be believed.

The first time I went to show the photographs they were no longer there; they had disappeared, on both my camera and computer. I can still see the wonder of those photos in my mind’s eye. Extraordinary! There can be no doubt that I was abducted. The aliens had clearly fiddled with the camera in perhaps a futile attempt to understand what the contraption was for.

Yesterday I got a phone call from the Photography Society asking when was I going to pick up the digital camera I had won? I can tell you, as honestly as the day is long, I never entered that competition. Ever.

1677. Stopping to recharge

When a fleet of alien spacecraft appeared over a hill outside Marco’s window, he was lucky enough to have his camera handy. Strangely, his camera jammed after the first shot was taken. It had never jammed before. However, all who saw the photograph agreed; it was the clearest snapshot to date of alien space craft.

These craft were more like flying bubbles than flying saucers. Extraordinary! One by one, in turn, each space craft settled on the electricity cables that swept down from the hilltop. Each craft would nestle on the wires for no longer than ten to fifteen seconds, and then would move to the side to allow the next bubble to, presumably, recharge.

When all was done, the fleet of craft came closer to Marco’s window, and while each bubble seemed to spin on its axis, the whole bunch twirled around like planets encircling a sun, and then… disappeared. It was as if they were saying goodbye to Marco. He was both excited, and more than a little bit moved, to have been chosen to be the witness to such an event. And, he added, they made a gentle whooshing sound.

Marco showed the photograph to his local member of Parliament who assured Marco it would be passed on to the appropriate experts. In the meantime, the photo on social media had gone through the roof.

About a week later the experts made an announcement: the photograph was fake. It had been tampered with by some graphics program. The bubbles were the result of manipulation. It was not a photograph of alien craft at all, but a humdrum picture fiddled with by a mindless idiot. Case settled.

Such an outcome was exactly what the aliens had intended.

1387. At the ready

It was a silly thing, but Talia always kept her cell phone charging on the ledge above the kitchen sink. This was just in case (and of course it would never happen) an alien space craft suddenly appeared over the horizon.

AND IT DID! IT DID!

Talia grabbed her phone to take a photo and, with slippery hands from doing the dishes, dropped the phone into the boiling hot soapy sink water.

The next thing the space craft landed on her lawn just outside the kitchen window. An alien stepped out. He handed Talia a brand new phone.

“This is to replace the phone you just dropped into the sink,” he said.

As she stood on the steps to wave goodbye to the departing space craft, Talia though, “What a nice alien. I should’ve offered him a saucer of milk or something.”

1121. A piece of polythene pipe

(This is the third of the Science Fiction stories to commemorate Science Fiction Day. Science Fiction Day is celebrated each year on Isaac Asimov’s birthday: January 2nd. Ok ok – haven’t you heard of a Time Warp?)

It was late in the evening. Gregory watched the alien spacecraft land behind some trees at the back of his property. Seeing alien craft was almost commonplace, although no one had seen an alien itself. It was still exciting though, and mysterious.

There was a knock on Gregory’s door. An old man in a tie and jacket was standing there.

“Good evening,” said Gregory.

“Pipe,” said the old man.

“A pipe to smoke or polythene…” said Gregory.

“Pipe,” said the old man.

Gregory could see that the old man wasn’t what appeared. It was a fancy dress. Even his hands were artificial. There was an alien beneath. Gregory pretended not to notice.

“I think I have bits of polythene pipe in my shed,” said Gregory. “Follow me.”

The right piece of polythene of the right length was found. The old man tried to offer money.

“No charge,” said Gregory, “Look, I know you’re an alien so you don’t have to pretend. You probably need the pipe to fix your spacecraft. Just do one thing: remember me. Remember me.”

And indeed Gregory was remembered! When the aliens took over Earth, Gregory was the only human shot immediately. All others were subjected to a slow and excruciating torture before extermination.