true stories

Beamed Up

I sat down with Sara recently to talk about my piece for Beamed Up, the newest Anthology from Amphibian Press. As some of you may know, I was planning on writing a serial killer thriller set in the future. However, that story ended up being too long and in order to make it short enough, I’d have to cut some scenes that I thought would be a real disservice to the story and the readers.

So, I needed a new piece. A few years ago, when I’d written How to Get Arrested and a couple of the other Starsboro Chronicles I decided to play around with all the big paranormal things in our world today. Big Foot, the Chupacabra, and of course UFOs. I wrote a “Halloween Special” that started with Zurik getting abducted by aliens. For Beamed Up, I’m going to revisit the idea of Zurik being abducted. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun.

Alien Abductions

So here are the most interesting cases I found while researching UFOs. I’m not saying I believe these stories. I’m generally skeptical but I do believe we aren’t alone in the universe and these stories were with frightening to me or just interesting.

1. Barney and Betty Hill 1961, New Hampshire: One of the first publicised reports of an alien abduction this one actually scared me because of the proximity to where I live. It also has all the trademarks of a classic UFO encounter. Missing time, hypnosis, and fiery roadside orbs. Barney and Betty Hill were driving home one night when they saw a strange light in the sky. They followed it aways before getting out of their car to look at it through binoculars. Barney claims to have seen figures inside the strange disk-shaped craft before getting back in the car. They work up a few hours later at home with scuffed shoes and broken watches. Years later they underwent hypnosis to recover the missing time. Hypnosis and recovered memories are a bit iffy in my book but this is still an amazing story and their hesitance to come forward gives it a little more weight in my book. If there’s one thing that scares the crap out of me it’s aliens. Why did I decide to do this again?
2. Travis Walton 1975, Arizona: I love paranormal stories so when SyFy came out with Paranormal Witness I was psyched. One of the early episodes was about Travis Walton. Travis was abducted in front of six of his coworkers in the woods outside Snowflake Arizona. He was missing for days. Unlike many other abduction stories, Travis remembers almost everything that happened inside the ship making this a truly terrifying story. I highly recommend it if you’re curious about UFOs or just likes to be frightened by stories.
3. Black Eyed-People: I first heard about this phenomenon on a site called YouTrueTales.com, which sadly doesn’t seem to be around anymore. There are tons and tons of these stories. Usually, the person who is recounting the tale feels suddenly afraid for seemingly no reason until they notice a black eyes person staring at them. One even recounted a tale of black-eyed children trying to get into their house. My sister used to print the stories out and send them to me with care packages when I live in NC and they’ve stayed with me over the years.

Do you have a favorite UFO or abduction story? Have you ever experienced anything yourself? Let me know in the comments!