Scared Myself Silly

I have an active imagination.  Most of the time it's good.  And sometimes ... less than ideal.

I watched an episode of Alien Mysteries on TV.  It's a show about encounters with aliens (the space kind not the immigrant kind).  Aliens have freaked me out ever since I saw E.T. yet the idea of exterrestrial contact and paranormal activity fascinate me, so I tuned in.

The story was scary, hitting most of my buttons.  The woman had been repeatedly abducted since she was a child.  And then she found out the aliens were coming into her home and taking her daughter as well.  There was a freaky recreation with the little bulbuous headed fellow flickering in and out down her hallway, heading into the daughter's room.  But the bit which really freaked me out  was a recreation of an encounter she had with a friend while stargazing.

The two women pull off into a little side dip in the road and are looking at the stars when they notice a trio of green stars that appear to be hovering nearby.  They then hear a noise in the bushes nearby.  Thinking of bears, they shine their flashlights only to see five or six little gray aliens, their almond eyes reflecting the light like animals.  The women run and the aliens come after them, one crawling onto the hood of the car before they manage to escape.

I'm shivering just remembering it.  (And I have to check the window ... that is the only one of my creep factor buttons they didn't hit ... having the alien staring into the house from the window.)

Being powerless.  Having your home invaded.  Having your children threatened and being unable to help them.  Being chased by something strange and powerful.  Put like that, it's not surprising.  Most of us are afraid of these things.

So why do aliens freak me out when werewolves and vampires don't?  Maybe it's the fact that I don't believe we're alone (although I doubt that they visit nearly as often as claimed).  Maybe it is Spielberg's fault for having frightened the beejeebies out of me with E.T., setting me up with a particular phobia.  Maybe it's because there are no sexy romance novels featuring the classic Greys and they are never played by Scotsmen on the screen. 

Whatever the reason, I woke up in the middle of the night out of a nightmare and could not get back to sleep.  It didn't help that it was snowing, making it lighter than it should have been in the middle of the night.  And just to make it more creeptacular, the house was humming in the wind (it's done it for years, something in the siding or roof which we haven't been able to figure out).  Bright light and a strange humming sound ... and I just watched a show on alien abduction with my overactive imagination.

Eventually I did get back to sleep.  And Alien Mysteries got deleted from the PVR.