Cindy's Close Encounter

It was without doubt the strangest creature I had ever seen, like a combination of different types of animals from Earth. The shape of the alien's body with the tentacles was somewhat like an octopus, squid or jellyfish, and the tentacles had suckers on the underside like one would find on a starfish.

The aliens also had retractable claw-like arms, similar to scorpions, crabs and lobsters, which they used to perform manipulative tasks, before these arms retracted. The upper part of their bodies with the small heads definitely resembling of an arthropod, the similarity to insects or spiders was noticeable. The antennae with eyes at the end were similar to those seen on a snail. Although I could barely move my head I was able to move my eyes around, and look at our extraterrestrial captors even more.

While all the aliens were identical in shape and size, it was only the red aliens of which there were multiples. There were no other yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, orange, purple, white, or black aliens, at least not visible in the UFO. Perhaps the colored aliens were some sort of leadership group, while the red aliens more numerous in color were the drones or workers, similar to insect colonies like bees, wasps or ants?

One thing the aliens regardless of color had in common was the eyes on the ends of their antennae, which were black, with the exception of the white alien, which had pink eyes on its antennae. Was it an albino? Were there even albino aliens? Why was I even worrying about this when I had just been kidnapped by aliens and held as a captive in their flying saucer?

Their antennae twitching, the aliens watched us in silence until we were all fully lucid. Then the black alien addressed us. "Homo sapiens, you will in turn tell us your human names." It pointed one of its black tentacles at Wendy. "The female Homo Sapien with brown hair, you will tell us your name first."

Ever since childhood, Wendy had always had that stubborn streak, and could be very defiant, often in trouble at school for answering back. Now, despite being held captive on a flying saucer with menacing and unfriendly aliens all around, she was remarkably just the same.

"Wendy if you must know, and who or what are you?" she spat back at the black alien.

The other aliens became agitated at this, wriggling their tentacles and making hissing noises. The white alien, to the right of the black alien, became most irritated. "How dare you speak to our Supreme Leader in that tone!" it growled, confirming my thought that the black alien was the alien in charge.

"Insolence is a weakness of the inferior homo sapiens, but not of our superior race," declared the black alien. "Now state your human names."

Each of us in turn gave our names to the black alien and its cohorts, more politely than Wendy had, the red alien that seemed to be some sort of scribe entering this into a machine, the screen recording this data, characters that looked like Egyptian hieroglyphics appearing on the screen.

"Excellent," said the black alien. "Now, I imagine you all have many questions that you might wish to ask us?"

Beside me, Steve blurted out, "Who are you? Where are you from? Why have you abducted us? What are you planning to do with us? Please let the girls go at least."

"All in good time, Steven," said the black alien. "You Homo sapiens have been granted a rare privilege, a chance to interact with a race not from your world, a race with abilities and intelligence vastly superior to your own. We ask you questions, and you answer them. You ask questions, we answer them."

These aliens certainly seemed to have problems with vastly inflated egos, I thought to myself, although I was too afraid to say it aloud, of course. I also hoped that the aliens didn't have the ability to read our minds.

"So you travelled vast distances through space and abducted us to play a game of twenty questions?" Wendy asked.

"The female Homo Sapien Wendy had a different voice quality in her reply, use the analysis to find out what it was," said the black alien to the red alien operating the machine in which the strange symbols were appearing.

"Analysis shows that it is sarcasm, Supreme Leader," the red alien responded.

"Sarcasm, another weakness of the inferior Homo Sapien race," observed the black alien.

"I thought you wanted to ask us questions and you to ask questions, not just insult us," said Johnny.

"Well, Johnny, how about you ask us your first question?" the black alien prompted.

"Easy, where do you come from?" Johnny asked.

"We are from the planetary system your human race have named Jupiter, and the moon you call Europa," said the black alien.

"So you're not Martians or Venusians then?" Phil asked.

The green alien was the one to reply this time. "It is understandable that Homo Sapiens would like to believe that terrestrial planets like their own would be the only ones capable of sustaining life, but Mercury, Venus and Mars are lifeless, as is your own moon."

"How could you come from a moon of Jupiter?" I asked, finding the courage to ask a question. "Isn't it too cold?"

"Life in the outer planets is very different from that on Earth," explained the orange alien. "Life on Earth lives on the surface. You are right Cindy, the surfaces of the Jupiter moons are far too cold to sustain life. But underneath the surface, there are vast oceans and teeming life. This is where we live."

"A number of satellites of Jupiter and Saturn have life of varying forms under their surfaces," said the purple alien.

"How about Uranus?" Johnny blurted out, laughing, me seeing Steve, Wendy and Phil smirking. I didn't laugh, and neither did Jo. Provoking these aliens who seemed rather unfriendly and aggressive in nature and who had us captive in their UFO didn't seem to be very wise.

The aliens however did not seem to pick up on this being a joke. They looked at each other seeming confused, their antennae twitching and their tentacles wriggling, but did not analyze this further, not even the red alien responsible for the transcripts on its machine. In the end they took it as a genuine question, and the white alien that had earlier reprimanded Wendy replied.

"No moons of the planet you call Uranus nor its neighboring planet Neptune have any life," declared the white alien.

"What about Pluto?" Wendy asked.

"Homo Sapiens incorrectly classify Pluto as a planet, it is not," said the yellow alien. "And it has no life either, insufficient temperatures outside or within."

"So do you all fly around the Solar System in flying saucers?" Jo asked.

"Only we have the intelligence and therefore the technology to undertake interplanetary flight," said the green alien.

The blue alien then spoke up. "Homo Sapiens may believe they have superior space exploration, but the space programs of both America and the country you now call the Soviet Union are highly primitive. To date, not a single human has been to space in one of your inferior craft, or even visited your own moon. Whereas this ship can travel from the Jupiter system through the asteroid belt, cross the orbit of Mars and be on Earth in six Earth hours. We make the journey several times in each of your Earth years."

"That does sound impressive," Steve admitted, watching as the red alien at the console continued to record the proceedings, strange symbols appearing on the screen. "So, how come you know how to speak English?"

"We do not speak English," said the black alien. "This is another example of our superior technology." It turned to another of the red aliens, one at the controls of another machine. "Explain this to the young Homo Sapiens."

"Yes, Supreme Leader," said this red alien. It indicated the machine it was operating. "This machine converts your speech into Latin, but you hear yourselves speaking in English while it also converts our speech to Latin so you also hear us talking in English. Conversely, the machine converts the Latin to our own language, so we hear you speaking in our language. If for example we went to France or Italy, it would convert the speech to and from French and Italian."

"Amazing," said Wendy. "So what else does this incredible flying saucer of yours do?"

"It has some capacity for time travel," said the brown alien.

"Time travel?" Wendy laughed. "I don't believe that one."

"We cannot take you back 40 years in the past to your year 1909," said the green alien. "Nor could we take you forward 40 years to your year 1999. In fact, we could not take you back in time to yesterday or forward in time to tomorrow. But we have developed technology to allow us to manipulate time within a span of several hours of Earth time."

Johnny looked disappointed. "Is that all?"

"As opposed to time travel developed by Homo Sapiens?" the blue alien asked. "By that comment, one would assume that humans have developed superior time travel to us. Is that correct, Johnny?"

"Um no," Johnny mumbled.

"Time travel was always one of our scientific studies," said the green alien. "But it became necessary to complete the project when in your Earth year of 1950 a farmer and his wife in your state of Oregon photographed this craft on one of our visits to this planet. Our ability to adjust small amounts of time will be able to assist us to avoid such mistakes if they occur on future missions."

"So why do you visit Earth so frequently?" I asked.

"For the gathering," said the pink alien.

I had no idea what it was talking about, then the white alien added ominously, "The gathering must take place for the feeding to occur."

"I don't like the sound of that," I said nervously.

"It is unimportant what you like the sound of, Cindy," said the brown alien. "The gathering and the feeding are essential parts of our life cycle."

"Your life cycle?" Steve asked.

The black alien commander explained. "We have a very different life cycle to Homo Sapiens, but one very similar to insects found on Earth. Insects such as flies, wasps, ants, bees and hornets." It turned to another red alien technician, which hovered in front of a screen that looked like a giant television set, only it was flat, like at a cinema. "Show the humans pictures of our life cycle."

"We start as eggs," said the red alien technician, a picture of enormous eggs the size of those laid by an ostrich, only with the appearance of frog spawn. I certainly wouldn't want to meet a frog that size.

"The eggs hatch into larvae," the alien continued, screening a picture of enormous grubs wriggling around in a room, others hatching from their eggs. The larvae were like giant caterpillars or maggots, but like the adults had the antennae -- albeit much shorter -- with circular eyes on the tips. It was also noticeable that while the adult aliens were all bright in color, their larvae were a dull gray color.

The red alien changed the image on the screen. "After the feeding the larvae spin cocoons and pupate." It showed us the image of a number of large cocoons which looked like giant cigars. A red alien was nearly out of one cocoon, shedding the last remains of its pupal casing, while another red alien had just started to emerge from its pupal state, a pair of red antennae and black eyes poking out of a hole in its cocoon.

"And last of all, the adult stage," said the red alien, showing us an image of several red aliens along with the pink and the yellow alien, which was hardly necessary as we were surrounded by aliens of all colors.

"So you visit Earth to collect food for your larvae?" I asked.

'Yes, that is the purpose of our trips to Earth for the gathering," said the yellow alien.

"In our adult form we are unable to consume or digest solid food," said the purple alien. "We gain most of our nutrients from the juices of fruits and vegetables that grow in the underwater rivers of Europa, or nectar from flowers."

"In our larval stage however, we are entirely carnivorous," explained the orange alien. "The grubs require a constant supply of raw, living meat in order to grow and pupate. During the feeding process the larvae secrete a high energy liquid which we collect and drink, and which provides us a supplementary source of nutrition in our adult stage."

"What do you feed your larvae?" Jo asked nervously.

"Homo Sapiens," said the black alien matter-of-factly.

I could feel the fear rising in the pit of my stomach. I tried to move but could not, all of us were still pinned against the wall where the aliens had placed us while unconscious.

"You feed people to your larvae?" Steve asked. I could see the fear and concern etched on my boyfriend's handsome face.

"That's horrifying,' I said in a small voice.

"A Homo Sapien contains the optimum nutrients, proteins, vitamins, calcium and sugars for our young," said the white alien. "We capture them during the gathering, paralyze them with a sting so they remain alive, but unable to move. They are then taken aboard the ship, returned to Europa, and stored in a paralytic state, their flesh and organs still fresh until they become part of the feeding."

"It is no different than what you see on Earth, with wasps that capture and paralyze caterpillars to feed their larvae," declared the black alien.

"It's very different, they are insects, you're doing this with people!" the horrified Wendy declared. "Is this what you do every time you visit Earth?"

"All of our flights to Earth have the main purpose of the gathering, and to capture sufficient Homo Sapiens for the next feeding," said the green alien. "However, our trips to Earth frequently have a scientific purpose, which is our purpose for taking you aboard our spacecraft and to meet us."

"So, you're not going to take us back to Europa to feed us to your larvae?" Jo asked, fear clear in her pretty face.

"No," said the black alien. "You are here as part of our research program, and when you have cooperated and taken part in our experiments, you will released."

"And what makes you think that we will cooperate with you?" Wendy spat defiantly. "You're evil, you abduct people, take them away to the Jupiter moon where you live, and feed them to your larvae."

I prayed to myself that Wendy would shut up and not challenge these aliens any further, especially when their leader had just said they would release us, although I had my doubts they could be trusted to keep to their word. They had however already explained in detail why they abducted humans, and with us completely at their mercy, we could find ourselves on the way to Europa to be fed to ravenous alien larvae sooner rather than later

"Then you will be returning to the Jupiter system with us to be part of the feeding," said the black alien. It turned to face the red alien that had was operating the screen. "Demonstrate the feeding to the young Homo Sapiens."

"Yes Supreme Leader," said the red alien. It pressed a few buttons, and a new film appeared on the screen. An image of pure horror, the most terrifying thing I had ever seen.

Within the aliens' Europa home, there was a large brood chamber teeming with their larvae. Red aliens supervised their younger versions, the pink alien seemingly supervising the operations. A group of larvae had consumed one body to the point it was a skeleton, grubs devouring remaining scraps of flesh, two red aliens breaking open the bones of the skeleton.

"Once the humans who have been part of the feeding have died, we break open the bones and the skull so that the larvae can eat the marrow and the brain," said the pink alien.

Some other grubs were eating another paralyzed man, taking large bites off the torso, arms and legs, exposing the flesh underneath, blood flowing from the open wounds which the larvae eagerly consumed. "That Homo Sapien is not dead, it is fully alive and aware of what is happening to it. Our larvae are programmed to avoid eating vital organs or severing veins or arteries until most of the flesh is eaten to keep their host alive as long as possible."

On the screen, a door opened and four more red aliens emerged, each using their retractable claws to carry in the naked bodies of a man and a woman. Larvae not eating the other bodies eagerly slithered over to the adults, anticipating fresh food. The red aliens did their floating thing while carrying their paralyzed prey, an impressive feat given the naked male was a morbidly obese middle-aged male white man.

The aliens dumped him on the floor, and larvae rushed at their new prey, fighting each other to get attached and begin consuming their meal, which they did with amazing ferocity. The pink and the red aliens had to move some of them away to the body of the woman, the aliens carrying her letting her paralyzed form fall to the floor whereupon eager larvae latched onto her, one making straight for her face and biting hard. Other larvae twisted off lumps of flesh from her body, like crocodiles or alligators performing a death roll with their victims.

The unfortunate woman the alien larvae were consuming in the film clip was Black, but she didn't look of African origin, nor from the Middle East, Pacific Islands or Asia. She was a race I couldn't immediately identify, her legs abnormally skinny.

I watched as the black alien indicated to the red alien to turn off the screen, which it did, then it turned back to us, with its fellow colored alien leaders regarding our horrified, terrified faces with the bulging, sinister black eyes.

"After seeing that, I doubt very much that you wish to be part of the feeding," said the black alien. "And we would not want you to be part of the feeding in any case." It turned to face the brown alien. "General, explain the reasons why to the Homo Sapiens."

"Yes, Supreme Leader," said the brown alien. It looked at us and began its explanation. "When collecting Homo Sapiens for the feeding, we have learned to target people least likely to attract attention or publicity on Earth. The obese man you saw was from Eastern Europe, which operates under a political system you call Communism, which is secretive in its reporting. His disappearance would not be reported in the media, and given his weight problems it might be assumed he died from related health problems. As for the woman, she is an Aboriginal, a native of the continent of Australia. Australian aboriginals are not counted on that county's census data, tend to live in rural rather than urban areas, are part of the lower socio-economic class of that country and have nomadic tendencies, all of which make them ideal prey for the gathering."

"But if you prefer to take humans from communist states in Europe or from Australia, what are you doing in America?" Steve asked the brown alien.

"We conduct successful gathering expeditions all over Earth, and that includes the Americas," said the brown alien. "Poverty and crime exist in many countries in Central and South America, and the vanishing of people from these countries can be more readily explained and are unlikely to attract attention. We also conduct gathering expeditions in poor countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Mostly we target places that are over-populated like China or India, or impoverished countries prone to natural disasters and tropical diseases like East Pakistan, where some people going missing would be missed less."

"There was much success in gatherings when your race was engaged in fighting during the First and Second World Wars, and in other smaller conflicts, like Korea or your Civil War nearly a century ago," said the orange alien. "People going missing could be taken to be killed in action. Or killed during air raids, where we had much success with gatherings in England and other countries throughout Europe during those years."

"There was also more opportunity for successful gathering in the years immediately after your First World War, or the years you refer to as the Great Depression," said the yellow alien. "In the post-war years, there was a major influenza pandemic which killed more people than the war, so many humans who were taken as part of the gathering were thought to have died of influenza. During your decade of the 1930s, the poor economic conditions and decline of your agricultural lands saw many men take to the road in search of work. Those who we gathered were thought to have simply vanished off into your big wide world."