The Book of the Bizarre: Freaky Facts and Strange Stories (73 page)

“Gray” is the term used to describe over 75 percent of aliens sighted in the United States. Grays are typically
four to six feet tall and have light gray skin, amorphous bodies with short legs and elongated torsos, and lidless, bulbous eyes. Grays are sometimes known as Roswell aliens, Zetas, or Reticulians, and they are the protagonists in most modern-day UFO conspiracy theories and stories.

In 1948, military pilots and government officials in the New Mexico desert reported seeing strange green orbs floating in the sky. The orbs weren't the result of any secret military testing, officials confirmed, and they did not appear to be meteorites. Some people suggested that the green lights, which resembled pale green flares, were the result of extraterrestrial weaponry testing. A program called Project Twinkle was established to inspect the origins of the lights, but its results were not conclusive, and it was shut down in 1951.

THE ABDUCTION OF BETTY ANDREASSON

In 1967, Massachusetts housewife and mother of seven Betty Andreasson went public with her claims that she and members of her family were in regular contact
with extraterrestrials. Among her many detailed stories was an incredible account of boarding an alien spacecraft and undergoing medical experiments at the hands of the extraterrestrials. A devout Christian, Andreasson was taken seriously by many in the UFO community because it was thought that such a religious person would not spin tall tales, especially concerning aliens and strange medical procedures. But alas, in 2007 Andreasson's stepson alleged that his mother's stories were untrue and all part of an elaborate hoax to gain money and fame.

When questioned about the nature of the UFOs sighted in Texas in January 2008, a witness claimed the spacecraft was “bigger than a Wal-Mart.”

FOO FIGHTERS

During World War II, both Axis and Allied fighter pilots reported seeing globes of colored light streaking through in the night sky. Everyone had a name for them; Americans called them foo fighters, a nickname based on a saying from a comic strip character: “Where
there's foo, there's fire.” The mysterious foo fighters were said to fly in formation with great speed and precision.

THE MYSTERIOUS FACE OF MARS

In 1978, NASA's Viking 2 spacecraft was wandering around on Mars, taking pictures of the planet's craggy surface and transmitting them back to earth. Mission controllers watching the camera's movement spotted what resembled a huge, mile-long human face carved into the red rock. The image of the face, with shadows giving the illusion of a nose, mouth, and eyes, was released to the American public days later to great excitement and fanfare. Was there intelligent life on Mars? Was the face some sort of message to humans, left for us to find by crafty aliens?

A UFO AT O'HARE?

On November 7, 2006, employees at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago reported an “unidentified object” hovering over gate C17. Multiple witnesses described a small aircraft that whirred in place for a second and then quickly darted east and disappeared. According to reports, it resembled a small metallic
Frisbee and had no lights or identifying marks. The National UFO Reporting Center's report quoted another witness: “All employees are very familiar with aircraft around the world's busiest airport—this was nothing we are familiar with. As a side note as it is probably unrelated, the next aircraft into that gate was experiencing electrical problems.”

The U.K.'s first official study of UFOs, commissioned by the Ministry of Defence in 1950, was called the Flying Saucer Working Party, or FSWP. Writer Nick Pope deemed it “arguably the most marvellously named committee in the history of the civil service.”

Novelist Whitley Strieber, author of
Communion
and
Transformation
and self-proclaimed abduction survivor, believes that aliens exist to help humans grow spiritually.

DID YOU KNOW . . . ?