What You Need to Do If Aliens Crash Land in Your Back yard in a Spaceship

You wake up one morning and the incredible has happened.

An alien spaceship has crash-landed in your backyard, crushing your wife's prized azaleas in the process.

The azaleas can be replaced but what about these little green men in their saucer?

What to do?

You may want to keep this discovery to yourself. The media shouldn't get word of this until you are ready for their massive attention.

If the crash happened at night you are in luck. There are likely no witnesses.

But if it happens in daylight hours you will have to think and act quickly. Run in the house and get as many blankets as you can, or better yet a large painter's plastic sheet and hide as much as you can.

Provided Mrs. Bling doesn't stick her head over your backyard fence and start asking snoopy questions, you should be in the clear. If necessary tell her something like you are building a golem and don't want to be bothered.

That should shut her up.

Simply walk around the site of the crash and take a tally of how many green bodies you find and if anything is on fire. If so get your garden hose and give everything a once over. In fact I'd recommend you do it whether there is fire or not because the water may revive some of the crew and then you will be better able to deal with them.

Are there survivors? Do they move about or are they saying anything? You can try checking pulses but they may not have standard hearts like we do. Better to give them a nudge and see if they react. But do it with a stick. You don't want any alien germs on you. Might prove nasty. Might just make you grow horns in places you would rather have ears or something.

Get a garbage bag, several in fact, and a large fishbowl. (The fishbowl is for your head.) Make yourself one of those outfits you see the coroner wear in those PBS Mysteries. Then you can safely proceed to move the bodies and ship down to your basement where you can examine at your leisure.

But wait! Before you touch anything, take photographs. Video is best and narrate as you film. It's for posterity after all and if Mulder and Sculley arrive you will want to give them the tape for their X-Files. Do a good job. If the tape goes to the White House you will want the President to be impressed by your skills. He just might be looking for a new press-secretary.

In the eventuality you have living, breathing, talking Aliens, you can just ask them (use universal sign language--everybody speaks that) to move their ship down stairs and themselves pronto!

Be authoritative. Don't waffle. If they sense weakness or lack of authority, they may not be so helpful. They may just get mean.

Once everything is in the basement, lock the door to prevent unauthorized persons from entering. Namely your wife, dog, cat and that nosy kid who lives next-door and keeps coming over and asking you embarrassing questions all day and spilling grape juice on the carpet. Especially HIM!

In addition you may want to consider contacting someone in Washington. Do not tell the local police about it if you can help it. The local sheriff usually has a grudge against Aliens who crash in his county spoiling his weekend plans. Better to let the FBI or CIA deal with them. And remember to get in touch with Art Bell. This might just bring him out of retirement!

If the Aliens are hungry it is best to start them on something simple like a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of water. Chances are they come from a civilization so advanced that they don't have things like Taco Bell and Minute Maid Frozen Orange Juice so it might be tricky knowing what they want. I suggest peanut butter because it will probably get stuck to the roof of their mouths and you will get a few laughs watching them try to eat it. I do it with my dog all the time, and believe me it's hilarious.

If the Aliens make any attempt at speaking English you are in luck, because, as a rule, they are a quick-study and will be gabbing non-stop in no time.

Some questions you might want to have handy to ask them:

A. Why did you crash? Was someone in your ship DWI?

B. Where are you from? If it was more than thirty-thousand light-years I will have to ask you to pay for all your own phone-calls to home.

C. Why are you green, (or grey or whatever shade of Alien they happen to be)? Why don't you wear clothes or all Aliens nudists?

D. If you have any extra energy after your crash, could you use it to help me rake those dam leaves my wife is going on about?

I think this covers the most important questions. You can improvise of course as the spirit takes you.

For example, if one of them looks like he is a trouble maker, you can ask him if he's ever spent the night in jail with a guy named 'Bubba' in the same cell? That should put him in his place.

Generally speaking, caring for Aliens is not that difficult once you realize that they are probably confused and scared and just want to go home. Unfortunately they are going to get alot more scared when they hear Stephen Hawking's voice-synthesizer as he questions them about celestial mechanics and multi-dimensional physics. That thing is darn creepy.

Not to speak of what the M.I.B. might do when they find out.

Just remember, when they say 'smile!'... close your eyes!