The ailwiens are coming!

Do you believe in aliens?

I used to. I even once had a terrible fear of being abducted by aliens. (No, really!) I guess I was too caught up with all the frenzy over The X-Files, a show which I was a huge fan of. Or maybe I was having too many dreams of alien abductions.

Yup. You read THAT right. I used to have nightmares of being abducted by aliens. (I guess this makes me a candidate for being an abductee; that seems to be one of the symptoms experienced by people claiming they were abducted.) I even shared these fears with one of my sisters and she had a good laugh over it, assuring me I had NOTHING to worry about. Still, other goings-on in my life had me worried. They even had me thinking what if I have ALREADY been abducted? (Please try to bear with me. I came to my senses much later in life.)

One thing that happened a lot is that I’d see flashes of bright light whenever I closed my eyes to go to sleep. These flashes were so bright, I could see them right through my closed eyelids! I was terrified to go to sleep each time it happened (and it happened MANY times). These episodes had me thinking there was an alien intruder in my room! Eek! (Good thing I didn’t sleep in the nude!)

I also had many blackouts. They just happened unexpectedly, and for no apparent reason at all. There was usually someone around when they happened, and they often brought me right out of it. Sometimes, before the blackouts happened, I’d hear voices (even though I was deaf!).

Still another thing that happened was my one and only experience of “lost time.” I have no explanation for this event and still thinking about it sends a shiver down my spine.

This happened in Palm Springs, when I was staying the night at my sister’s house. I awoke early in the morning and, around 9:30ish, decided to watch Little House on the Prairie. At some point as I watched the show, there was a knock at my sister’s door. It was the UPS guy delivering a package. When he saw me standing there in my jammies, he pointed at me and laughed. I was confused over this reaction. I mean, it was still MORNING, for crying out loud! People were still in their jimmies at this hour!

Or so I thought. As I went into the kitchen still carrying the package, dubious over the whole thing, I looked up at the clock and gasped. It was almost 1:30!! Good grief!! (Good thing I put the package on the table first.) I couldn’t believe it. Where HAD the time gone?? I mean, the WHOLE TIME I had been sitting on the fold-out bed I’d slept on and watched TV. Just ONE show, Little House on the Prairie. And it was NOT that long! Almost 4 hours had transpired. And I hadn't been watching a Little House on the Prairie marathon, either.

Talk about bizarre.

One other final alien-related experience I had was a dream. In this dream, I went inside of this empty warehouse and, almost immediately, I was abducted by an overhead UFO. While aboard the ship, and strapped to a metal table, I saw the aliens using high tech equipment to examine my teeth. I even saw the screen, where they focused on 4 of my back teeth, using something to implant something in them with. Afterwards, I was back in the warehouse and saw myself walking out, completely oblivious to recent events. Oddly enough, two of those four teeth have since fallen out. (So I guess I can send them my dental bill!)

Still, despite all of this, I don’t believe there are aliens. And, if there are, I don’t think they’d be conducting experiments on humans. Or even implanting them with offspring.

When my daughter first saw the movie Signs, she became HOOKED. She LOVES that movie! She watched it so many times and even imitated Joaquin Phoenix swinging a bat and saying, “Swing away!” I thought it was cute, especially how she called the visitors from outer space “ailwiens.” She soon became fixated on aliens in general and, although she’s never seen an episode of The X-Files, she still has an interest in them. (My daughter, the future female counterpart of Fox Mulder.) I try to handle it delicately, leaving the possibility of alien existence open. When she asked me if aliens are real, I just shrugged my shoulders and said, “I don’t know. I’ve never seen them.”

And that is, I think, the best way of handling it. Just saying, “I don’t know.” There really isn’t scientific evidence that people are being abducted. There’s no evidence on the existence of an alien-human hybrid. We just don’t have the facts. All we have are the possibilities, the stories and the ideas. All we can do is just look to the stars and say...”Maybe.”