Recap

Talk to an Alien

The Alien Hotline was open on Friday night. "You can call me Bill," said the first self-proclaimed ET of the evening. Saying he was here to study our planet, the caller was not by himself. His cohort? A yapping dog in the background. "Joseph" said that "in his natural form he looked very similar to humans," but that he was permanently altered before he came to Earth via a "time folding" process. On his home world, he claimed there were mountains that were 4 to 5 times taller than Mount Everest. Then there was "Zak" who said in his true state he was a "round ball of light." The being known as "Lowered Standard" declared himself to be part of the "Intergalactic Witness Protection Program." 'Nuff said.

View Denise Elles-Slocum's illustration of aliens titled "Friendly Visitors" by clicking here.

Elsewhere in Open Lines Land, Mark from Oklahoma told a tale of two F15 planes getting tangled up in a time warp via a black cloud. Shannon shared her account of ghostly mishaps since the birth of her son. And another caller told of frightful experiences she underwent after encountering something like an electrical current as she lay in bed. "I felt like I was turned outside in," she said.

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Friday Night Feature:
The Thing at the Window

Before moving to Arizona in 1959, I lived in the small town of Dowagiac Michigan. It must have been 1956 or 57, I was 6 or 7 years old. The boy that lived across the street was a spoiled little rich kid. This kid had a basement full of the latest and best toys you could buy. I was over to his house one night and we were playing the pinball machine he had in the basement. Over all the dings and bells of the machine we both heard some grunting and clawing.

We stopped playing and looked toward the noise. When we looked at the basement window there was this terrible face staring at us, and this thing was scratching at the window. The face was bright, almost shining red (in more contemporary terms, it was a raw skinned face like Freddie Krueger). Well, we both let out blood curdling screams. This thing bolted at the noise and we dashed up the stairs. We felt it was a race, for at the top of the stairs was the back door and we felt that this thing was going to the door.

But when we got to the top of the stairs and looked out the window we could see this black shadow going down the street. It seemed to be floating! When it passed under a light we could see that there were no legs or feet touching the ground and we screamed again. By the time Timmy's parents got to the back door the thing was gone but we told them what we saw and they had a good laugh.

Timmy and I looked at each other and insisted that we both saw the floating monster. We were just kids and not to be believed, as to what we saw. Timmy and I never spoke of it again. We didn't even share our story with the other kids in the neighborhood. I am now going on 53 years old and nothing in my life has ever frightened me more than what I saw that night. It still makes my hair stand on end just thinking about it.

--Steve W.
Scottsdale, Arizona
Labs@prodigy.net