Whoop
My memories of this episode are pretty patchy as I can’t have been more than four or five when it happened, but as a generous surprise to my parents, I contrived to catch whooping cough. This came with a free ticket for a several-day stay in hospital, the first twenty-four hours of which were spent in an oxygen tent (which I remember as being a sort of bendy plastic greenhouse). After my condition stabilised a bit, the tent was removed and I got to sleep in my standard hospital bed.

Hospitals at night are a strange place for a child. Whether the room itself was hot or whether I was just running a temperature – probably both, in retrospect -, I had difficulty sleeping and my parents seemed an ocean away. There was an endless hum of subdued chatter and footfalls in the corridor outside my room, and the diodes of assorted machines blinked at irregular intervals. Turning over on the preternaturally white hospital sheets, I stared into the darkness of the corner of the room and let my eyes drift out of focus.

After a moment I saw it: an orange light, dimmer than the lights of the machines but several times larger. For a couple of seconds it stayed still but then began a slow swooping arc upwards, glowed more brightly and seemed to set its eyes on me. I became suddenly aware that it was not growing larger; it was coming towards me. Gripping the bedsheets and unable to take my eyes off this glowing and terrifying insect, I could feel my throat go completely dry and felt another fit of coughing burning its way up my throat, helped by the strange scorched smell that accompanied the light.

As the light neared my bed I felt a much larger presence behind it, darker than the ambient darkness of the room and somehow a source of intense gravity. The light glowed brightly again and the smell of scorching was suffocating me. The dark shape looming next to me made a low sound. “Now then, now then”, it said. “Now then, now then.”
( .Yeti. El amor en los tiempos del cólera, Mon 5 May 2014, 15:12, 5 replies)

Leicester, circa 1997
I'd been out at a friend's house taking some massive drugs and I was wandering home about midnight, feeling altogether rather spacey. As I walked past Victoria Park I fancied that I could hear snatches of music on the wind from somewhere nearby. Assuming that there was probably a late gig at de Montfort hall, I didn't think much of it until I got a bit closer and saw through the trees a shining triangle of light pointing towards the sky. The music seemed to be coming from it.

"Fuck", I thought to myself. "I've finally done it. I've taken too many massive drugs and now I'm flashing back to Glastonbury or something."

Never one to miss out on a new experience I decided to investigate further and discovered that the glowing triangle was actually a free-standing, three-sided pyramid or tetrahedron made of some semi-translucent material and lit from within. Inside this structure, only faintly visible, was a band playing Stairway to Heaven. As my eyes (and mind) adjusted to this new situation, I began to notice that there were people sitting around on the grass drinking from paper cups and smoking. I must have looked a bit lost and confused, because a man approached me and asked if I'd like a cup of tea. I said that I would and he came back with a paper cup of tea so I sat down and drank it, listening to the music.

After a while I realised that while the tea was very welcome, he hadn't really explained what was going on, so I sought him out and asked: "What's going on?"

"Ah," he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I'm from a marketing company and to celebrate the launch of the PG Tips pyramid bag, we've got ten of these 55ft tall pyramids and we're using them to play a 24-hour gig in various cities around the UK."

"Oh," I said. I had another cup of tea, listened some more and then wandered home, still feeling altogether rather spacey.

The next morning I went into university as usual and bumped into a couple of friends who lived near Victoria Park. None of them had seen anything the night before, especially not a 55ft tall glowing musical pyramid tea bag. Worried that the whole event had been some kind of massive drugs-induced hallucination I went out to the park, but found nothing but a patch of flattened grass. It was only as I was walking home that night that I spotted a photograph of the giant glowing pyramid on the cover of the Leicester Mercury, beneath the headline "Have the aliens landed? No, it's just a tea bag".

I cut it out and kept it as a reminder that no matter how strange things seem there's usually a perfectly logical explanation - in this case, that there are obviously far too many drugs in marketing.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Thu 1 May 2014, 17:52, 25 replies)

horse is a alien!

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Thu 1 May 2014, 23:13, 9 replies)

Chinese Lanterns
5 or 6 years ago I went to a party in semi-rural Berkshire. In the late evening a partygoer produced 6 to 8 (I forget) chinese lanterns and a group of us carefully unpacked them, shielded them while the wicks were lit and patiently extended the paper balloons so they'd inflate and not inflame...

Away they went - climbed gently to a good height (several hundred feet perhaps) until they resembled a small flickering constellation, then a crosswind whipped them away sideways and they were lost from view in just a few minutes

The following week a local paper covering the Newbury area reported that a group of UFOs had been seen cruising over Greenham Common, silently and in perfect unity, before vanishing.

So we knew how far they'd gone before the wicks burned out. (About 6 miles, for the record and in case anyone was interested)
(Carpe Cyprinidae, Fri 2 May 2014, 19:53, Reply)

I live in the North East.
On Friday there was this big orangey-yellow glowy thing in the sky, then the next day it all went reassuringly grey again. Until this morning, when I met some family members in a cafe, and the mysterious globe of fire reappeared, causing an unfamiliar sensation of dampness under the armpits.

Fucked if I know what it was. Probably witchcraft. I'm reassured that it will be pissing it down again on Thursday.
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Tue 6 May 2014, 21:21, Reply)

There's this bloke on the internet right,
Who reckons he's an alien and posts really fucking tedious essays about it.
(Roger McGough-Pipe, Thu 1 May 2014, 15:33, 2 replies)

Ooh goody
They chose my question!

That makes my exile on this puny planet just that little smidge more bearable.

You may be disappointed, elated, or indifferent to hear that I will not be posting any stories this week. You see, there's no such thing as 'alien life' to one such as I. It's all just - life.

I will, however, enjoy reading all YOUR stories!

I may even be able to offer advice and guidance to those who need it, or who need not for it not.

*Grabs, as they say, POPCORN!*
(Dr Skagra glorious glargzhem, Thu 1 May 2014, 17:45, 8 replies)

One night, some years ago now, I was lying in a field in the middle of the countryside, stargazing.
To cut a long story short, I accidentally pissed in my own mouth.
( Muns, Wed 7 May 2014, 11:10, 1 reply)

Close encounter - of the VERY first (artistic) kind...
I met this alien in a car scarpyard in West London once. I was quite scared at first, but you could tell the alien was shocked too - you could see the surprise on his (dare I say) ALIEN features.
It said it came from a planet which loosely translated into English as "half rock half trees".
I said I come from a planet with means "Ground". We both chuckled at that one!
Turns out he was in the scrapyard looking for various metals - which surprisingly he could bend and mould using something akin to telekinesis. He didn't even have to touch anything - it literally bent to his will.
"Most impressive," I said - and he undulated his "arm tentacles" in appreciation.
"I'll tell you what", he told me (I still don't know how we could understood each others communication) "as you are the first human I have encountered - I will create a likeness of your features using these materials we have at our disposal here"
"What, like a statue of my head and features using scrap - a kind of bust of ME - made of metal?" I enquired.
"Yes" The alien said - thus he began…
Using an engine block from a Mercedes President - with an almost imperceptible humming noise he took the camshaft - and kind of flattened it and moulded it - and even as I stood watching I saw it became stretched and rounded, and started to take on a skull-like appearance.
The air filled with static - the feeling was unbelievable, and as the alien's neck-frills shuddered briefly, it took another park from the engine - the cylinders - and from them (using the power of it's mind again) moulded the metal into my eyes, nose, ears and hair.
The likeness to me was beginning to become well evident now, and for a final touch the alien used the metal compressors from inside the cylinders to make my lips, lower jaw and teeth.
Long story short - piston my own mouth.
(SigourneysBeaver took off and nuked the entire site from orbit on, Fri 2 May 2014, 21:24, 2 replies)

Christian robots
I used to be one of those annoying bible basher types that wanted to convert everyone (I actually joined b3ta a couple of years before I ran away screaming from the church about 8 years ago. If I tried to convert you, sorry about that!)

I'm fairly sure a few of the people I met in church over the years were actually androids. They seemed to be spectacularly clean cut and unaffected by, well, anything really. Apart from Jeebus, who gave them a rather scary gleam in their eyes.

One young couple in particular, who I still bump into from time to time, come to mind. I don't think I ever saw either of them express a single emotion, ever. They look entirely smooth and wear precice middle of the road clothing. Conversation with them consisted entirely of inanities, and boredom appears at light-speed as soon as you try to talk to them.

I like to think they're actually alien robots sent to case out Earth for an invasion. The alternative view that they are in fact human is more scary.
(teasus likes tea, Fri 2 May 2014, 21:06, 2 replies)

Truprint
Back in the olden days, when I was at school, Ivan Hutchinson was well known for his tall stories and blatant lies. However one morning he came rushing into class loudly proclaiming that he'd seen a UFO the night before: flashing lights, odd behaviour, impossible accelerations, etc. And this time he had the photographs to prove it!

Of course we all dismissed his story, but he was insistent that this time it was true: a bright light had followed the car he was in, then stopped, circled, stopped again, and then shot off suddently. And he'd had his camera with him, so he had pictures, real photographic proof.

But, this being the olden days, he had to wait until he'd finished the film, and then post the film off to Truprint, then wait a week to get it back. So it was only several weeks later that he came into class brandishing the green envelope with the pictures. Several black pictures, with tiny dots of light on them, and a big sticker over each saying 'Poor quality'. Thanks Truprint.
(Smale is stuffed, Fri 2 May 2014, 9:28, 1 reply)

A genuine mystery.
Not so long ago - last summer, in fact - I was staying with friends in a little village in France, miles away from any significant street lighting. One evening, wandering from the bar in the next village, I happened to look up at the sky and noticed something above me.

Three or four small lights, one of them flashing, were moving almost silently above me. Clearly, they were part of a vehicle of some sort. I could just make out the sound of the vehicle's propulsion unit.

To this day, I've no idea what the object was.

Well, I mean: it was obviously an aeroplane. But was it a Boeing, or an Airbus, or maybe something else? I don't think anyone can give me a satisfactorily conclusive answer to that. You have to admit: there are some things about this universe that we'll probably never know.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 2 May 2014, 8:53, 2 replies)

I was approaching a castle at night time, and the guard asked "Are you a friend?
... or are you a foe?"
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Thu 1 May 2014, 15:56, 1 reply)

Flying? Check. Object? Check. Close encounter? Properly check. Unidentified? unconfirmed…

I once went to a Mordred / Scat Opera gig in some shonky nightclub in Birmingham. Whilst standing just a few feet from the stage and attempting to enjoy the thrash / fusion stylings of said exponents, I casually looked up, and from the corner of my eye I noticed something odd, airborne, and bathed in a strange glow (which might have possibly been provided by one of the spotlights).

With my peepers blurry, and my head on the wrong side of wrecked, I could not instantly tell what it was, but it was spinning with an eerie intensity. Suddenly, I realised it was heading right for me! As panic set in, I tried to move but was unable to; pinned in as I was by the throngs of sweaty, long-haired tax dodging parasites around me.

I had no choice. I remained where I was and closed my eyes. The cunting thing connected and walloped my poor swede with the power of (what seemed like) a thousand supernovas. “FUCKING OW!” I muttered, but my sorrow was merely absorbed by the loudness of the sheer metal funkness that was thrusting out from the amps on-stage.

At that point, I still had no idea what it was that got me. It was only later when everyone was leaving that I saw...down by my feet was a lone Dr Martin boot.

Who the fuck takes a boot off and lobs it at a gig? Where’s the logic?

You people are weird.
(Mr Twisty Cheeky The worst kept secret in B3ta..., Thu 8 May 2014, 14:57, 4 replies)

(accidental) Urine Filled Orifice
(sittingduck Attention seeking, bullshitting fuck-knuckle, Thu 8 May 2014, 13:11, Reply)

Abduction
Walking home from the pub one night
Was pretty off my face!
I got abducted by a craft!
That came from outer space.

This ship shot down this beam of light
It made me calm and placid
It was so weird I thought my mate
Had spiked my pint with acid.

But, no, I had got beamed aboard
Some interstellar ship
It made me so damn nervous that
I almost did a shit.

The pilots of this craft came out
Was quite to my surprise!
Their head was large and round and bald
With creepy lifeless eyes.

Their skin was cold and dry and grey,
(My skin is somewhat pinker)
And so they got an anal probe
And stuffed it up my sphincter.

With telepathy, they did say
"Human, know what pain is!"
And so they got another probe
And rammed it up my anus.

They had another probe, I said,
"Hey lads, give it a miss!"
They laughed and thrust it deep into
My knackered orifice.

They passed around some whiskey
That I had a massive hit from
Because I had three anal probes
Lodged right where I shit from.

That whiskey served it job quite well
and dulled the pain as well
It got me nice and drowsy
And this place seemed less like hell.

I laughed a bit ‘cos I was drunk
And my arse was well loaded.
But then I went to have a sneeze
My fucking arse exploded.

No matter what I ever eat
I manage, like, to crap well
I maimed those Martian rapists
With my flying shitty shrapnel.

The ship was now quite damaged
And the warning lights were strobing
So whipping out my meaty cock
I started my own probing.

I went to the boss alien
said "Right now, mate, your DOOMED!"
Removed the butt-probe from his eye
And then I fucked the wound.

I shagged his ragged eyehole hard
I wasn’t really thinking
But looking back, was my first time
of extra-terrestrial squinking.

The second alien had a probe
Half sticking out its chest
I pulled it out with violent force
And, well, you guess the rest.

I looked at him right in the eye
And screamed in abject rage
With Martian blood as lubricant
Shoved cock in his ribcage.

The third alien was all dead
He was decapitated
From my arse-launched anal probe
So, neck stump I violated.

I was really cross by now
I was carrying a big gripe
Which seemed to wane as, screaming, I
Ejaculated in his windpipe.

So, aliens from outer space
Hear me, you're not deaf!
You try to probe my arse again
I'll fuck you all to death.
(SigourneysBeaver took off and nuked the entire site from orbit on, Thu 8 May 2014, 7:09, 12 replies)

I almost stood on a dog-egg this weekend.
Missed it thankfully, but it was a close encounter of the turd kind all the same.
( JeffTheDogFucker Can you dig it?, Mon 5 May 2014, 22:03, 1 reply)

Laying out in the garden one night watching the sky, one of those incredibly clear nights where it seems you can see every bit of the milky way.
Noticed what looked like a bright star travelling across the sky, oh maybe thats the ISS I thought.
But then it stopped, just hung there for a minute or so, then suddenly it zipped very fast to one side,stayed there for a minute then back again, it continued to zigzag and stop across the sky at high speed for a few more minutes, then it turned into 2 separate lights which sped off in opposite directions and vanished,
I dont believe in little green men, but im curious to know what that could have been.
(insomniac-surfer oh go on then, just this once, Mon 5 May 2014, 13:57, 1 reply)

I used to work with a bloke who played one of the pilots in star wars.
Apparently none of it was real and the x fighters were just plastic models.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Mon 5 May 2014, 11:39, 5 replies)

I've travelled this old world of ours from Barnsley to Peru
I've had sunshine in the arctic and a swim in Timbuktu
I've seen unicorns in Burma and a Yeti in Nepal
And I've danced with ten foot pygmies in a Montezuma hall
I've met the King of China and a working Yorkshire miner
( Peej, Sun 4 May 2014, 8:08, 18 replies)

I like breasts.

(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Sat 3 May 2014, 0:46, 13 replies)

They're not aliens, that's just ridiculous conspiracy theorist bollocks.
They're actually mass hallucinations brought about by flourinated water and chemtrails.
( Muns, Fri 2 May 2014, 15:32, 7 replies)

The bar of my local pub is a close inn counter.

( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Fri 2 May 2014, 12:28, 3 replies)

also

(yeswehavenopasties, Fri 2 May 2014, 4:20, 8 replies)

I once built a 'UFO' in the back garden as a surprise for my girlfriend.
I dressed up as an alien and everything, and even built a little ramp up to the door. She came outside and got the shock of her life, but I told her I'd be gentle if she let me take her up the gangplank.
( Ghoti Fingers, Thu 1 May 2014, 19:38, Reply)

I've had the willies up me a few times.

( GeordieJay Bummers are deaf, Thu 1 May 2014, 17:15, 5 replies)

I'll just repost this:
True story, but apologies in advance for length.
You remember the UFO flap a few years back, when we had Nick Pope "Britain's Own Fox Mulder^tm" telling us about major UFO incidents in the UK?
Well, there's one story that he kept trotting out about a UFO being spotted at a major UK airfield. This story he said, MUST have been a genuine UFO incident because it had been spotted by the base's guards and also, critically, by Air Traffic Controllers and a trained Meteorological Observer, who would therefore be ideally suited to gauge the height, size, and speed of the object in question (having been well experienced in gauging cloud heights and weather balloon heights and speeds).
Unfortunately however, this incident turned out to be more a case of how easy it is to fool even an experienced observer. Or, more accurately, how people tend to see what they've been set up to expect to see.
Over the previous couple of weeks there had been major airtime and press coverage of UFOs over England. When the first calls were made to the Met office on the night in question the observer shrugged them off. However after the gate guards also rung up to tell him they'd seen the UFO he went outside again and saw what he described as "Three lights at the angles of a very large triangular object, moving extremely quickly to the south of the airfield, after a few minutes a fourth beam of light appeared from the object directed to the ground."
The "Extremely large" object he'd actually seen was a Police Helicopter, as was later established from it's flight log. However, because he (and the guards for that matter) was subconciously expecting to see a UFO, that's what he reported. The airfield had been closed for the night as it was a bank holiday weekend with no night flying scheduled, so there weren't actually any Air Traffic Controllers on duty. Had there been they would undoubtedly have been able to contact the UFO, bursting the myth there and then.
( stuj (^(^;;^)^) GO TEAM SPIDERS!(^(^;;^)^), Thu 1 May 2014, 15:53, 1 reply)

I am a complete sceptic about anything like this, as well as psycics, alternative medicine and religion.
Give me irrefutable proof, or piss off is how I usually deal with it.

One day a few years ago though, I was driving home along an elevated section of road, which went between two tunnels, and was open on the side to the sea.

As I came out of the first tunnel, I saw in my peripheral vision something moving along beside me. It couldn't be on the road, I was next to a barrier, with a 150 drop the other side. This thing was, well, flying is the only description.

It had bright lights on it, some of them were blinking. It was keeping perfect pace with me, I was doing maybe 60 mph.

In the few seconds it took me to spin up my senses, I truly thought "Oh fuck me, this is IT. There really are aliens from other planets checking out earth".

Nope. Police helicopter.
(username failed moderation, Thu 1 May 2014, 15:45, 5 replies)