Alien invasion

By Lee Ostaszewski/Local columnist
GateHouse News Service

In the past week there have been sightings reported of strange lights hovering in formation over Phoenix and also over parts of Florida. One obvious conclusion can be drawn from this: Extraterrestrial beings from a far away planet have journeyed to earth in the hope of ... retiring, playing a lot of golf, and going out to dinner at 4:30 in the afternoon.

Why else would space aliens be so interested in Arizona and Florida if not to enjoy the sunbelt retirement lifestyle? After traveling hundreds, perhaps thousands, of light years to get here wouldn't you, if you were a space alien determined on conquering this planet, instead go to the important centers of commerce and government, such as New York City or Washington, D.C., and create havoc? Going only to Arizona and Florida would be like trying to conquer France by visiting the Riviera.

Regardless of their motivation - conquest of earth or simply getting away from those long, two-year winters of frozen methane back home - last week's sightings got earthlings excited. Some residents in Phoenix even videotaped the event.

For those planning on videotaping something unusual that will later be shown on newscasts nationwide and posted on YouTube, one cautionary note: If family members or a buddy is standing alongside you, remember that the camcorder is also capturing your conversation. In almost every case, if you speak you'll end up sounding like a moron. I'm not saying these people are morons, although they might be, only that even Stephen Hawking would sound moronic commenting while taping what he thought was an extraterrestrial close encounter.

How moronic? For example, one family seemed to be having a group nervous breakdown screaming and yelling. I counted 10 million ``omigods'' in the first minute alone, except for the father who is heard offering normal, fatherly advice such as, ``Can you calm down for a second?'' and, ``You're going to have a heart attack, can you calm down?'' And when action needed to be taken, the father knew exactly where to turn for help. ``Get the phone, and call information,'' he suggested.

Another tape of the mysterious lights I saw posted on YouTube was made by two guys while they talked with another friend on a cell phone. When the four mysterious lights formed a diamond shape, one of the guys excitedly blurted, ``It's a complete box, look at that! It's a (bleeping) cube.'' Later they rationally deduced what they were witnessing, ``A UFO man, all the way, UFO baby. Definitely a UFO.'' Then, as the lights flickered off one by one, this insightful observation was made, ``When they shut down you can't see them, they're invisible.''

At one point they also lost contact with their friend on the cell phone and started joking and laughing about how their friend must have been abducted. Joking and laughing is a bad omen. In almost every horror movie there is a scene early on in which two or more buddies are the first to encounter the movie's creature, and they laugh it off and joke around right before one or all of them get eaten by the giant space lizard or werewolf.

As for an explanation as to what these lights were, they were a hoax. Someone admitted to tying road flares to helium balloons with fishing line, lighting the flares and letting them go. This confession should be enough to convince everyone that extraterrestrial space lizards are not attacking. Yet.

Except that this won't sway those who remain convinced that the government has been hiding evidence of space aliens from the general public for decades. This includes hiding what they know about the last time mysterious lights were seen over Phoenix, which caused a major stir back in March 1997. These eerie lights were eventually chalked up to, you guessed it, flares.

Of course if the government is hiding evidence of space aliens, the space aliens are helping out by doing their best imitation of a frightened little rabbit. If there are space aliens in our midst, one thing we know for sure is that they aren't the type-A, in your face, then eat your face, or melt your face with a ray gun sort of aliens portrayed by Hollywood.

If they exist, real extraterrestrials are timid and shy. Maybe they need some coaxing to come out. Or maybe they're not here to conquer us, but for another reason entirely: The early bird special at The Olive Garden. Same as any other retiree.