On idiots and aliens

So, how many of you have ever been abducted by aliens? I first realised I might have been when I googled “aliens” after hearing that July 2 was World UFO Day. Up popped a story on Metro.co.uk headed “I was abducted by aliens — and they put a machine in my body” where a fellow called Steve Munday explained how, in 1974, while riding his bike to a friend’s home, he blacked out for two hours and came-to while hurtling steeply downhill in pitch dark with no memory of what had happened in between.

“A few days later I found a small object under my skin. There was no sign of a scar, just a red mark,” he told Metro. “It’s about one centimetre long by three or four millimetres wide and seems to be independent of my body,” he said, adding that when the device is “active” it affects supermarket scanners and other electronic gadgets. “I don’t know what the object does. If it is genuinely alien, then perhaps they have tagged me so that they can monitor where I am and where I’m going. It might even be used as a means of contacting me when they need to.” Munday says his brother offered to excise the device but he declined. “We all live rather boring lives so this object separates me from other people, and makes me feel special. My two brothers have also had UFO contacts and paranormal experiences throughout their lives. We all share a rare blood type, so I wonder if through our DNA and genetics we are specially chosen by these forces?”

I immediately stopped reading to examine every inch of my body, because 40 years ago I too had a couple of occasions when I rode my bike home and in the morning couldn’t remember the trip. AND to this day my cellphone sometimes loses signal for no reason at all! Have I too been selected as “special”? Disappointed at the dearth of any evidence of electronic implants, I carried on with my research, which took me to Fortean Times and a yarn about Mrs Cynthia Appleton (27) who, on November 19 1957, was going about her housekeeping duties when “there, just a few feet away, stood this slender white-skinned man. He had blond hair. He was the same as any human being, except that he wore a kind of dome over his head and a tight-fitting all-in-one suit of a grey metallic colour. I was rooted to the spot — and terrified — until he spoke. He said we were going about space flight the wrong way and that men of his world would come to Earth before we reached theirs.”

Her long, involved story makes for fascinating reading. Psychics, the church and psychologists all agreed that something may have happened, but nobody knew what. Mrs Appleton’s visitor from Venus reappeared to her half-a-dozen times and occasionally brought a friend who he called his “superior’. He showed her pictures of his spacecraft on a colour television set that materialised from thin air and urged that mankind stop waging war. Somewhere along the way the aliens dispensed with their space suits and started arriving in a car, clad in business suits and homburg hats, saying they’d left their spacecraft near Edinburgh.

After the initial fuss Mrs Appleton stayed out of the news until May 10 1959 when the Sunday People tabloid headline blared “I’m going to have a baby from Venus”. Mrs Appleton stood by her story, and her husband, Ron supported her. And so it came to pass that, on June 2 1959 a little boy was born, who she named Matthew as per the alien’s instructions.

The Venusian, perhaps wisely, had made himself scarce during the poor lady’s confinement. “He used to pop in quite regularly every seven or eight weeks,” said Mrs Appleton. “When he left, after forecasting Matthew’s birth, he said he would be looking in again soon. But he never returned. I just can’t make it out.” He did communicate with her telepathically just after the miracle birth, though, promising to call again soon, along with a friend from Uranus.

Sadly, they never appeared — perhaps they’d read Ron Appleton’s comment in a newspaper. “I believe everything Cynthia has told me, but I would love to have a yarn with him … If he shows up I’m going to tell him I’m Matthew’s father. If he doesn’t give me the right answers I’ll crack his ‘delicate features’ with a crowbar. His mate from Uranus will get the same.”