Ninety percent of all sightings were proven to be misidentifications of airplanes or stars or other natural or artificial objects, but the other ten percent couldn't be rationally explained away.
Sightings had been reported as far back as 1896.
In 1975, a man inNew York claimed to have seen ten or eleven aliens emerge from a spaceship. He said they were only three-and-a-half to four feet tall and clad in identical hooded, one-piece, light-colored garments. He went on to say they had dug around in the ground, poured some earth in their bags, and returned to the spaceship.
Another man who claimed to have been abducted described the room he had been examined in as a big, circular, flattened-out oval. He said there was no sound in the room, and the table they examined him on seemed to grow out of the floor.
There were numerous descriptions of what aliens looked like; some people had described them as tall and skeleton-thin, with enormous heads and sunken eyes; others claimed the creatures were only three or four feet tall, shapeless, with no necks.
Another described the alien he had seen as being "kinda flat" with broad shoulders, a thin neck, and arms much longer than a human's, with long, bony fingers. Three fingers. And a large thumb. The head was described as egg-shaped, with sharp cheeks, a small mouth that didn't open, eyes like a cat's, very tiny ears, and no hair.
Still another description, perhaps the most frightening of all, characterized the alien as having leathery, amphibian-type skin that was greenish-yellow and wrinkly.
One of the books contained drawings depicting beings with thin bodies and large heads. The creatures had no hair, no visible ears, large, almond-shaped eyes, and thin lips.
Lainey stared at the drawings of the supposed space aliens. Was that how Micah really looked? Was he some nightmarish creature with a huge hairless head and a skeletal body? The thought made her shudder.
So many conflicting descriptions, Lainey mused. Maybe there were alien beings from dozens of planets zooming in and out of earth's atmosphere, doing their little tests, taking samples of dirt from the earth, blood from the people...
For a moment, she cradled her head in her hands and closed her eyes. It was too awful, too bizarre, to be true.
After a few moments' rest, Lainey turned to the back of the book. There were organizations you could call if you thought you'd seen a UFO - the Center for UFO Studies in Chicago, Illinois; the Mutual UFO Network in Seguin, Texas; and the National Investigations Committee on UFOs in California.
There were thousands of people who claimed to have been abducted by aliens and taken aboard flying saucers. Some said they had been examined, poked and prodded with needles; some said samples of their blood and skin had been taken. There were photos of scars supposedly left by these barbaric examinations.
The last book mentioned that there were four kinds of encounters with aliens. The first kind was the sighting of a saucer; the second kind involved visual evidence or impressions made by a spacecraft, like burned areas or irradiated soil, grass, or trees; the third kind, the kind Spielberg had made his movie about, were those in which the person involved actually observed or confronted an alien. The fourth kind were encounters where people claimed to have been abducted.
Lainey sat back in her chair.Well, what do you know , she thought, dazed,I've been having my very own close encounter of the third kind. Very close , she amended, remembering that they had made love only a few hours before.
From out of nowhere came the memory of the episode ofSoap where Burt's wife, Mary, gave birth to an alien baby. For the first time in her life, Lainey was glad she couldn't have children.
She stared, unseeing, at the books spread across the table. She would have dismissed it all as nonsense except for one thing: almost all those who had encountered aliens mentioned that the space creatures communicated telepathically, the way Micah had communicated with her.
Head spinning from all she'd read, Lainey returned the books to the shelves and left the library.
She was surprised to find that it was dark outside.
She stood on the steps for a moment, her fear of the dark suddenly making itself known as she gazed up and down the deserted street. She wished Micah was there beside her, and then laughed. A lot of help he'd be if a UFO decided to carry her away.