Alien Abduction - Dave Lewis

There was a strange news story from a little Idaho town many years ago. A town not officially qualified to be called a town: no name, unincorporated and non-taxing, with no post office or 7/11s and having just one commercial building, a General Store/Bar & Grill/Gas Station.  Once the town had a name, back about 1800, but that name is forgotten. The indigenous people, a tribe of about one hundred in count, were wiped out by small pox, tuberculosis, and liquor. The diseases were brought in by a missionary priest and fur trappers brought in the liquor.   

Soon the tribe had no members except a bi-racial boy being raised by the priest-missionary.  The priest told the boy that his father had been a French Trapper but in fact the priest was the father. The boy’s mother had died not long after his birth, the victim of the priest’s gift of tuberculosis.  In his teens, the boy became the only resident of the town that now existed only in memory – this one boy’s memory. The boy lived to be 103 years of age. During his lifetime he had passed on countless stories to his male descendants. The current, and only surviving descendant, Joshua Tremble, passed on those stories during the town’s repopulation following WW II. The era now recalled as the fabulous fifties.

Joshua Tremble, popularly known as Josh, retold those inherited stories to the news-hungry, new citizens in the nameless town.  Like his ancestors, Josh was not above inaccurate elaborations of the stories. New-comers might believe it all but folks who had heard several conflicting versions  suspected falsehood. The idiom, “Are you Joshing me?” is thought to have originated in the American language right in this unnamed Idaho town.  Only greenhorns believed Josh with assurance but the residents with some seniority grew more critical. 

In the fabulous fifties,  UFO talk and alien pilots were a hot topic. Gossip established a fairly universal image of what those alien pilots should look like – as well as the UFO space craft with amazing claims of its speed and agility.  The black & white TVs of the time routinely carried sketches of claimed sightings and they looked eerily similar. So when Josh excitedly came into the General Store/Bar & Grill/Gas Station and proclaimed he had been kidnapped by aliens the previous night, the local folk didn’t know how to react.  They wanted to believe an exciting alien and UFO story but when it came from Josh it required a lot of throttling back in acceptance to avoid future disappointment.

Josh’s description of his alien kidnapping fit all of the many alien and UFO traits the residents had read about and seen on TV. Josh’s tale went like this:
– two silver clad creatures, bulkier than Josh, had captured him in the bunk of his cabin.
– the creatures had two arms, two legs, a big helmet over what must have been a big head.
– their two eyes, seen through their helmet window, were very dark and large and wrapped around.
– the aliens slipped Josh into a plastic sack with only his head free.
– they carried him out into the yard and placed him on a silver-colored pad inside an unusual vehicle. It was rectangular, shiny silver with a hump in the middle, tapered at the rim.
– one of the aliens pulled Josh’s right arm out of the sack and injected him with a syringe while the other alien held him down.
– the compartment with the pad was closed up and as he was falling into a deep sleep,he could feel the accelerations as the vehicle went in circles.
– when he woke up, he was back in his bunk, there was no one around, there were strange symbols drawn on his body in permanent black ink, his head was shaved and two areas on his scalp had burn marks (Josh suspected electrodes had been used). The strangest change was a metal tag that had been clipped through his ear lobe. The tag was green and marked with seven symbols, all a combination of straight lines.

The first residents to hear  of Josh’s alien kidnap were impressed and soon the verbal story was viral  nation-wide on the 6:00 o’clock news. Josh stripped down to his Speedos and had photographs taken which he trade-marked and sold to TV shows, tabloids and magazines for thousands of dollars.  Close-ups of the ear tag were $500 at first but the demand was so high Josh raised it to $5,000. Josh was flown to Boise, Los Angeles and New York for TV specials; each payed a premium price.

Some of the residents of the Idaho town, now named TREMBLE, were envious of Josh’s instant fame and his new fortune. They promised to visit him in Los Angeles in his newly acquired mansion where he was waiting for a film to be shot, to be called Alien Abduction but the neighbors never left Idaho.

The Hardy Brothers back in TREMBLE,  were not envious but they did quietly congratulate themselves for a well designed prank. They both worked for the Fish and Game Commission for which they had routinely moved grizzly bears, mountain lions, bisons, and bull elk to new locations.  Putting Josh under had been a lot easier and the results were much more fun. They laughed every time they looked at the big silver tarp they had stretched over their pick-up to create a UFO.  They celebrated how well Josh had provided the details of an alien abduction. They did wonder if he had been aware of the real facts. 

The Hardy Brothers’ made vacation plans to go down to Kansas and make some crop circles in the grain fields. They underestimated the life span of that prank.
                                       ***